The Good, The Bad, What to Do, Where to Go

Here are the last 48 hours...

The Good

Sunny is having a smooth transition. He misses his foster family, of course. We had a webcam with them already and we'll have another one tomorrow. He seems at a loss for what to say, so I'll need to remember to encourage him somehow. We played a game once on the webcam called "Copycat", where you have to mimic the hand motions of the other person... silly little games like that. He also said, "I miss Mommy ___ (bio mom) but we're not allowed to have visits." I told him next week I'll help him write her a letter, and that made him happier.

Sunny stays very, very close to us, but he's confident enough to go off on his own for short periods. Today he splashed in the kiddie pool at a picnic with some other kids, and played soccer with them.

He's laughing and smiling like crazy. He has an infectious smile... when he smiles at random people, I see their faces light up in return.

He's enjoying meeting new people. "So-and-so is nice, I like them!" he'll say.

I helped work voter registration for a few hours while my husband took him on errands. After the errands, the pair stopped by to say hello. Sunny helped me register voters for about five minutes. There was another little girl there, almost as young as Sunny, and she gave him a quick pointer. "Hold up your sign like THIS and say sir-or-maam are-you-registered-to-vote thank-you!"

He's big enough where he likes to do a lot of things on his own, like pushing the shopping cart and putting away his dishes.

He's young enough to cuddle and hug all the time! Sometimes he wants a hug just because he wants a hug, and that's fine with me.

He's very mindful of his routine. At night he reminds me that he needs to have his pull-ups and jammies, he needs his medicine and vitamins, he needs to brush his teeth, and so on. Then he's up bright and early every morning. He asks me "when can I leave my room in the morning? In ____, my mommy says I have to stay in my room until everyone else gets up." I'm telling him 7:00 for now. This morning I woke up at 7am, cooked him breakfast and then did some work in the garden for two hours. I set him up to watch Sesame Street with headphones on so Dad could get some extra sleep.

He likes soy milk now! This is huge. I'm not a vegan or even a vegetarian but I cook with a lot of soy milk and meat substitutes.

He's really great with his new grandma.

He sings to himself in the bathroom. He makes up the songs himself, stuff like "putting on my underwear, putting on my underweeeeeaaaaaar".

The Bad

His regular attention span is about 2-6 minutes. If we stretch it with focus reminders, we can get it to about 12-15. It takes truly heroic measures to get to 25-30.

He simply cannot play by himself. He needs constant attention. It's as if whatever he's doing doesn't matter unless we see him doing it or unless we're doing it with him. The only things he can do by himself are playing on his Gameboy, but we're severely restricting that to 15-30 minutes a day on weekends only, because he gets way too emotional about it. Video games exert an evil fascination on him. The constant visual feedback is like a drug, but he gets more and more upset and starts beating up on himself verbally the longer he's allowed to play them. "I'm terrible at this! I'm terrible! I hate this!" "That's enough playing for now" "But mom, I really really really like this level" (starts pouting and fake-crying)...

That boundless physical energy. He was up at 4:30AM on Friday morning, since his social worker needed to pick him up then for his flight to Atlanta. After the placement ceremony we had a day full of activities including lots of running and jumping and wrestling. We told him his bedtime is 9pm at night on weekends, wondering if he would crash way before then, but he stayed strong the ENTIRE DAY. Our friend said at 7pm, wow he must be very excited today, and we said nope, he's actually like this all the time! We have to tire him out physically to extend his focus. He's more emotionally stable after physical exertion.

I'm already looking at other kids his age and thinking wistfully about the things that Sunny can't do. The little girl at voter registration was there for three hours helping her grandma. She helped register people, and when she got bored she went off in a corner and looked at the ground and daydreamed and did little dances. I was used to spending time by myself at that age as well. I could amuse myself with a piece of string and some rocks. Sunny needs people, shiny things and constant movement. It's always "I want this, I want that, I'm tired of that, I'm bored, let's do this, can I have that, no if I can't have that can I have that instead, let's go, I want that..."

He can't sit still, of course. He'll sit at the dinner table but he'll be constantly slipping on and off his seat. I'm not going to say anything, because I know he's doing very well just to be staying at the table, but I can tell it's disconcerting to other adults.

Eating vegetables and new food is still a bit of a struggle.

What to Do, Where to Go

My mother and husband and I have all read Brenda McCreight's adoption book, so we love using the phrase "but it's only ADHD"! That's some dark humor there, by the way. Seriously, we know about 90% of what we were in for with that. My stepfather probably has ADHD, my cousin certainly has it, my uncle does as well.

His focus is like a muscle... we just have to keep helping him stretch it.

Some things we just have to live with and work around. In the right setting they'll become strengths.

Keep him away from video games as much as possible.

We'll see if behavior charts can reduce the pouting and bargaining when we say "no". We're trying a method where every time he just says "OK" after hearing "No", and doesn't do the ten-second-pout-fake-cry routine, he gets a sticker.

Give him the attention he needs and don't worry about the inability to self-amuse for now. He's missing a lot of people in his life so he needs a lot of presence.

We're putting him in day camp and hoping it will be a right fit. I have second thoughts about the day camp I found now. The academic portion might be too difficult to maintain focus. We'll see. He absolutely needs strenuous physical activity, and if we're the only ones giving it to him, we'll be dead by the time he's a teenager. And we're a fairly young and energetic couple.

Keep realizing his strengths. He's such a great little kid. He trusts us, he trusts himself, he trusts other people. We're off on a fantastic voyage together! And I really feel like I'm not dragging him along, or stumbling behind... instead, we're walking right beside each other, hand in hand.