Every Day Sasha makes progress!!!

First - Thank you everyone!!! Knowing you all are there helps so much. I take your words, prayers and love and hold them close as I try and get through each day. Thank you. :) :) :)

On to Sasha stuff. Believe it or not I do try not to over share.

That being said, he had a good day yesterday. His day was so good that I brought home the game Operation in the guise of Sponge Bob which someone had given me at work. He loved it and it really helped cement what a good day looks like for him. Then, last night as I am tucking Sasha into bed,he is laying there snarling, grinding his teeth with his body rigid as a board. I asked him - what's up? It has been a good night and the music is playing. His dalmatian has just kissed him goodnight. And so he starts. He tells me about all the stuff his orphanage did not have and how mad he is about that. And then he talks about how bad the other kids were there and what he wants to do with them - like throw them away or shoot magic bolts at them to make them disappear. And he cries and he rants. I just soothe him and finally there is a break in the drama and I convince him to sleep. I think that most of his nightmares happen in the land just before sleep so I try to really watch that part of his night.

So anyway off he goes. Then this morning he is his usually happy (and very active) self. We go through the loop of what happens if he stays home and no school (no tv, not dvds, which means of course no Sponge Bob). He decides to go. Then during breakfast he sees one of our packages from Michael's on the table and asks to see what is in it. One of the objects was a cross-stitch project I bought after Christmas because he loved the cats in the picture. So we then negotiate that if he is good today in school, and maybe even tried sitting with the other children, I would start it at home tonight for him. And, as an added bonus, he could take the picture of the project in his backpack to school today so that when he was having a hard time he could pull it out and look at it and think about everything (that was quite a bit of discussion given my limited Russian let me tell you!!!).

AND it worked!!!!!

I went off to do that silly work thing so my Mom took him to class and then dithered. She is so protective of the little one it is hard for me to get her to let go. Anyway, she saw Sasha pull the picture out and look at it. And then he went back to the circle of children with the teacher. Of course I had to start that project as soon as I got home tonight but it was well worth it.

He is leaving his protective huddle and joining the other children. Those other children so want to be his friends. And he wants to be their friends too, he is just to scared to reach out which is a direct result of prior experience. So, me being Mom, found a safe place for him and then I do everything I can think of to get him to where he wants to be.

Of course we had some drama tonight but I expected that because I have found as we go forward in love, Sasha still needs to reach back in negativity to see if his new life is real or just another lie. Of course his life is real, it will just take time for him to know that it is real.

And so it goes. I want to thank everyone again for all the prayers and kind thoughts. I could not do this without you. And I keep you all close in my prayers too. We all have such wonderful children and our children all have such wonderful parents. Good night and God Bless, Sarah