Good thing I decided to take a new approach

Sasha was seriously difficult today. Wow. I did not go to work in the morning because he woke up and immediately started looking for trouble to get into in the house. The kind of trouble that can cause serious damage. Finally, I had to go and he seemed better. So Mom goes to the store and he breaks away in the parking lot. He runs into traffic and several people at the store try to help. Finally one of the young men who work there caught Sasha. Then Sasha turned and started biting and spitting at the one who caught him. Oh my god.

She finally gets him home and the screaming starts. And it goes on and on. He hasn't screamed like that since shortly after we got home from Russia. I really do need to be at work so I just kept calling her to check on how she was holding up. She is such a trooper. Finally I get home and he is in full fight mode. He has several scratches on his neck where people tried to grab him as he ran today. It reminds me of the trip home when he got loose in Heathrow and ran amok. I chased him for over forty minutes and hit the marble floor twice - HARD. During that time he ran in and out of stores - taking things as he went. And then there was the security line in O'hare where we had to go back through outside security because we had gone through customs. There he broke free and I literally ripped through the line markers during that little dash. It is clear to me that he did everything he could think of today to get himself sent out of the home.

And then the light bulb goes off - we were at the Cranio-facial clinic yesterday where the doctor examined his mouth and showed me what the first operation would probably address. We will probably give him a little more nose and "flatten" the area below. And there were other cleft children in and around so he KNEW. I think he decided to get himself sent back to the orphanage. No matter what. I think he put an insane amount of pressure on my Mom so I would have to come home and then he would work on me. Good thing I decided to take a new approach.

And it worked. He was hitting, spitting, kicking and swearing at me. He was threatening to run out of the house and maybe hurt a cat or dog. I just ignored everything. He had to sit next to me and at one point I had to hold him in a safe restraining hold because he started trying to hurt himself. He had to go into the kitchen with me while I cooked dinner and I think that is what weakened him. As he has told me in the past there was never any food or milk or juice at the orphanage so the fact that there is always food here for him to eat is a very alluring prospect. The first night we were home I established that he had his own food shelf in the kitchen where he could go and get whatever he wanted when he needed to eat. He controls that shelf and it is always stocked. (Ironically, he rarely gets anything from that shelf - even the goldfish crackers!) That stopped any hoarding issues (I only found an apricot under his pillow one night)in the house.

Too, I have not forced him to a set time for meals, rather he is always given food when he asks for it. I never refuse him food for any reason. I may ask that he have a sandwich before he eats the cookie but he is never not given food. If he is really insistent about only eating a cookie then he gets the cookie. I just tell him I would prefer that he eat other food too so that he can grow big and strong. I do ask him at the various mealtimes like lunch and dinner if he is hungry because sometimes I hear his stomach growl and he still says he is not hungry. I suspect he would have to go a lot longer without food before he would consider himself hungry.

Anyway, food is his weakness. After awhile he quiets and I am done preparing the meal so I ask if he would like to eat. He says yes. And he does - quietly with those large bruised-looking eyes. As much hell as everyone went through today (and my heart goes out the the people that helped chase him down as he ran into traffic) Sasha is probably going through more.

And then the monster that woke up this morning and has lived in the house today is gone. It is like that child was never here. He is struggling to sleep tonight but that is normal. He usually does not have nightmares rather he has them awake, at night when it is time for bed. So the house is quiet and I look at the stack of stuff I need to read for my class. And I pray for Sasha to have a better day tomorrow.

Because the reality is that the doctors want to start as soon as possible given a variety of factors that I do not need to go into here. Frankly, even though they are not saying so, I suspect we will need to "undo" before we "redo." And that kind of sucks. We will have many people to help us through it all but it still sucks.

At the same time, I can maybe plan that the "doctor days" will be followed by the extreme days and plan accordingly. I hope it is something as simple as that. I can deal with planning for insanity.

And so it goes. I actually feel rather upbeat tonight because for now, the monster is gone. In his place is a little boy who seems so scared to me. If I had to face some of what he has to face, I suspect I would be a little insane too. I have met few people in my life that are as strong as this little one. So I love and I wait.

God made a miracle in our lives and I think it just isn't done yet. Like I always say, everything he blesses is not what I planned. :)