Keeping it real.....

Now that Alex has been home over three years he's confessed to telling a few fibs and I blogged about them as gospel truth so in an effort to keep my blog accurate and truthful, let's clear up a few things.

Fib #1

July 11, 2009 Blog Entry:

Earlier this week I went to lunch with the other mom's who have or are adopting from Ukraine. (We always have such a good time catching up and talking!) Alex asked where I was going and I told him. Then he said "Me scary." I asked why he was scared and he told me "Grandma eaten Cafe no come home." What? Your grandma was eating at a cafe and never came home? She just disappeared? He nodded yes. He was truly frightened, this isn't the first time he's told me "Me scary" when it comes to me leaving. Hum...I wonder what really happened to this grandma. He said it was his Dad's mom. I wonder if Ivan knows more about this?

Yeah. 

That didn't happen. His grandma didn't disappear from a Cafe. 

Last night we were talking about things we were scared of and I reminded him that he use to be scared of me leaving because of his Grandma. "Oh. Yeah Mom? I made that up. It didn't happen."  I asked him why he would tell me such a thing? And he explained that he just wanted me to stay home. He was afraid every time I'd leave when he first got home and he thought making up this story would make me stay home. 

I remember how anxious he would get every time I left. The minute I'd arrive home and drive into the garage he'd be running out the door to find me. I couldn't even get the car door opened before he was there, checking on me, confirming I was home and safe. I think he was truly frightened that something would happen to me but I can't believe he made up that story about his grandma....and that I believed it for so long. 

(Besides, it didn't change me running errands, working or meeting my friends for lunch. At this point he was suffocating me and I had to leave for sanity sake!)

Fib #2

(I have tried to find this but it's buried in my blog somewhere. I can't find it and don't have time to read three year's worth of posts.)

The story of the police coming to take him from his mother. In the original version his mother broke a beer bottle and threatened the police and told them they could not take her son. Then the police asked if he wanted to go with them and he had to make a choice, go with the police or stay with his mother?  He chose to leave.
Nope.

That didn't happen either.

The police did come. His mom was drunk. He was sitting in a corner. The policeman told her they were taking Alex and she did nothing, shrugged and said goodbye. He had no choice and she didn't make any heroic jesters. That was the last time he saw her. (Or at least that's what he said last night. I clearly remember him telling me she visited him once in the baby orphanage. Not sure if that's true or if last nights version is true. I'm not sure Alex even knows whats truth and fiction at this point.)

I can't help but feel for him over this lie. I believe the original version is what he would like to believe, that his birth mother cared enough to threaten the police. The true version is a lot more painful. She did nothing. She was drunk and she said "bye-bye" as he left. 

I asked if he was sad? "No" he shrugged. But I know he had to have been. Granted his living conditions were horrid and she was a drunk and abusive but it's the only life he knew. Leaving at age six had to be scary. He blogged a little about it last month:

When I turned six police men came into our house and took me and I had no idea where I was going. I arrived at this place and they told me that you are in a orphanage. I didn't know what orphanage meant. They said, "That I was going to a different orphanage when I turned 7.
We talked a little bit more about his birth Dad -that his mom never married - and found out she had a boyfriend after his dad died. I asked if he was nice? He again gave me a shrug and a "Yes." and then he told me his mom just
"Spread her eggs all over the place." 

Which I interpret to mean she slept around?

(And which made me almost laugh out loud when he said it!)

Clarification:
While carousing the contents of my blog, I wrote that Alex told us his birth father hurt him. Woke him up in the night and did something to his finger. No. That was just bad charades. He did get hurt with a power tool while working with his Dad but it was an accident. Nothing intentional. Alex never has anything to say but good things about his birth Father.