Day 19

Whooee. What a ride!

I'll post more often so the posts aren't so long.

The boring stuff.

Doctor's appointment was uneventful. Doctor Caune is very experienced and competent from what I can tell. When she talked to the children and asked them what language they wanted to talk to her in, Latvian, Russian, English, French or German, umm yeah. I would bet she knew what she was doing.

Slight delay, the ministry hadn't sent one paper to her, but they emailed it to her.

Spoke with her at length. She is unconcerned about their health. Posture problems are due to self-esteem (frankly we haven't seen it but a bit in Dite) because of their environment. Aleks, might have a bit of Asthma. We do notice a bit of a cough without other symptoms. Nothing to worry about, just watch.

They are behind on some vaccinations. Not enough to prevent issuing visas, but too much to prevent immigration to the USA. They will get some shot when we get to the US. MMR boosters for Dite and Aleks. Menengitis for Nauris. Chicken Pox for all. TB tests for all. (TB tests show negative, but they aren't recent enough to satisfy the US gov't)

We spoke at length on their real challenges. These are going to be behavioral and mental. (more on that later) The doctor was very concerned that some of the abuse of Dite was more serious. She warned us to be vigilant. She was too young, even now to talk about it with her directly.  Best to be watchful and be aware. She did note that all the children are very artistic. Dite and Nauris with drawing and painting. Aleks in music. She theorized that their biological mother may have been rather artistic as well. The children all have this trait and she gave them unusual names (well two of them) additionally, middle names are uncommon in Latvia and all the children have them Dite's name, doesn't exist on Latvian registries. It's effectivelty made up unless their mother stole it from Sweedish (no way know this without contacting her and I am not about to)

Overall, the children are bright, happy and still want to go with us to the US. (She asked them this privately) Mission accomplished (I really should get a banner and an aircraft carrier when I say that, it worked for W. right?)

That leads to some of the more interesting stuff. Here is a bombshell.

Naruis is a year older than we previously thought. We believed him six months younger than Jaenelle. Birth certificate says otherwise. Our attorney pointed out it must be an error by the ministry. The birth certificate is certainly correct.
So he could potentially be in the same grade as Jaenelle. Realistically, because their mother kept him out of school to start, he's only in the fourth grade. So he might be a year older but a year behind in school. He's bright enough though, Des Moines schools might place him in the correct grade and just get him to catch up. (Which I have no doubt in his abillity to do)

Jaenelle didn't take it too well. She had hung her hat on still being the eldest, now she is not. After a talk we got her to accept she didn't so much lose that positon but gained a twin. (well sort of) What's more, she is MUCH more advanced academically than he is currently and knows the culture and language. Nauris being six months older means bupkus. It explains better why he is bigger than she is.

We went to McDonald's. The Latvian trio had never been and I made a promise in high school that if I went to a foreign country, I would try to visit McDonald's just to say I did. It is no better really. A bit cheaper. A Big Mac is a Big Mac. Kids liked it well enough. Great, now we can um, never go again until we visit another country.

We saw Kung Fu Panda 3, in Latvian. Interesting. I didn't understand the language but I got the gist of the story. Kids had a good time. They needed some distraction. They are a bit bored. They burn through activities often and since they aren't attending school all day, it can be tough to occupy their time. We refuse to use the TV or electronics to babysit frequentSaturday morning, yes we streamed some Looney toons cartoons for an hour or so. That is a LONG time in our household. They didn't get other screentime today. Call us old school. We expect our kids to do stuff. Read, play outside, read, color, read, write, read, play with toys. Did we mention read?

Rather cold the last two days. Even the Latvians thought it was cold. So no playing outside. It snowed a bit today. Kids are a bit stir crazy. They are going outside tomorrow come hell or high water.

Aleks has been a real handful. Tough to get to mind sometimes. Climb and jumps of the furniture, smacks his siblings and me occasionally, stands at dinner, refused to eat tonight, is obsessed with the Ipad and can't always stand it  he has to wait. A host of other small things. Most frustrating is sometimes he simply tells us to get bent, more or less. He either ignores us or laughs at us and continues to do whatever he isn't supposed to do. Before you all give us advice, we have seen this a bit with our two first children (though never to this extent) the main problem is language. We can't always correct him on what he is doing. Stop, No and sit down don't work for everything (that's what we know in Latvian) Sure we know a bit more but it's tough to explain disobedience to a five year old, impossible to do it when you have to rely upon a translation app. The idea is just too complex. We try but it doesn't work well. It's just something we have to gut through and keep working on. We have made some headway. He wipes his own butt now and doesn't ask for help. He usually remembers to wash his hands and flush after going to the bathroom. He was just particularly tought today.

Those that know me well, know I can be to fearsome, frankly if she's mad, so is Wendy. I don't want to relate to my youngest son through anger and frustration constantly, but it's hard. I can make Jaenelle and Jack dance a jig with a sharp three words and glower and Nauris certainly understand our tone when it turns sharp. Aleks you about have to terrify or grab to get him to pay attention.  What's funny is, he's not always that way. So this is certaninly more of the attention starvation coming to the fore.

I had to pull him out of the street today. I took the youngest three home after lunch and Wendy took the two eldest to help her carry. It was a fairly broad sidewalk and Aleks doesn't typically stray near the street. He is independent enough he doesn't want to always hold somebody's hand. Usually, no issues. I looked at a sign in front of the Latvian Museum of Occupation (dedicated to their German and Soviet occupation from 1940 to 1991) Not ten seconds and he is 10 feet away  (when he had be two) on the curb and backing into the street with a car coming maybe a block and a half away. Needless to say, I had a hold of and the scruff of his neck (well his coat) the last block home.

The challenge at home is if we are too sharp with our tone, it scares the hell out of Dite. Too much like before. We asked Dite and Nauris if Aleks was like this in Bauska with their foster mother? Answer:Yes. We have our work cut out for us.

Been a bit of a struggle to get Dite to take our directions more seriously. Ok well mine. She obeys Wendy instantly almost all the time. Me? I'm a big joke. I play alot, and it's how I broke the ice, so I get it. It's hard having to tell a nine year old to go to bed five or six times. It's not that she doesn't get it, she literally just wants to hang out with me. About half the time when she is interacting with me she is poking, tickling or otherwise wrestling with me. Its fun for the first two hours. Today was almost all day. If Jaenelle wasn't playing with her or we weren't eating, Dite was in my face. All the way up through bedtime.

I love her to pieces. Really I do. Did drive me crazy today though. On the way back from the doctor's office, the discussion of her past and the potential problems we need to watch out for had me all protective again. Wendy asked later if it bothered me and made me protective.  "You bet your ass it did." I replied  "I wanted to bite anything that came within ten feet of her. Trees, cars, the wind." That earned a chuckle, she knew I was serious, though.

I get it. She is using play as a defense mechanism. My guess is, if her mother was happy, Dite was safe. If we are playing, I am happy, so she is safe. She pushes me to smile if I am not. I genuinely think she loves me now. I get a whole bevy of hugs and kisses, unsolicited. She is  occasionally content to just sit with me. She likes having this new playful father. I love having another goofy daughter. (Yes, Jaenelle is goofy, when she isn't taking her self to seriously) It's exhausting trying to get Aleks to behave and stay off the walls, furniture and out of things he can break or injure him, and fight off a nine year old girl smitten with her father. I think Nauris was jealous today of all the attention his siblings received.

Tonight at bed, Aleks was a pistol to settle down. After 30 minutes down, Jack came out of their room and complained Aleks was pushing him and taking up most of the double bed they share. We'd had this problem before. Jack is bigger than Aleks and if he were of the temperament to settle things physically, that would be the end of it. Jack is like my younger bother Nathan though. He won't do it. He's a pacifist by nature.

That was it, we made Nauris switch into the bed with Jack and Aleks the smaller single. I could tell immediately Nauris was upset, but as our dutiful now eldest, we complied. I immediately changed my mind. That wasn't fair, it was like punishing Nauris. He had done nothing wrong. I let Nauris return to his bed. I trotted Aleks out to the living room. We have an extra bed/cot (more than a cot, less than a full bed) we haven't been using since Jack and Aleks fit nicely on the double. We put Aleks down on the cot in the living room, bright lights and all. I told him in Latvian, if he can't behave, then he doesn't get to sleep in his own  room. He was very sullen. Wendy was as adamant as I. Wendy ran out to Narvessen (Think Quick Trip) for coffee, soda and beer. (not all for tonight) I  talked with him further. Made it clear he had to obey and listen to us.

He lay in his new bed and we ignored him. He fell asleep and after a bit i returned him to the bed in his room. We think that may be the solution.  Make Aleks start out with us, where he can't bother his brothers, then move him.
Adapt, adjust and persevere.

Sounds like it's all bad. Today was tough, but even most of today was pretty good. Wendy's French T toast went over well at breakfast. Lunch I wrote about. Dinner of "kitchen sink salads" (a little but of everything and big enough to make a meal) was acceptable. Jack and Aleks each ate so slowly they took an extra 15 minutes to finish. They each ate and responded to our prodding well enough. Lots of fun and play and such throughout the day. The challenges were just more frequent and a bit more challenging. It will be easier when we get home. More space so we aren't always on top of each other. More stuff to do. Other kids in the neighborhood, warmer weather.

I contacted the travel agent to come home on the 31st. Arrive back on the 1st of April, no fooling.  That's not the end of this. It's just the end of the beginning.

Until next time true believers. (name that allusion)