What a little boy Sasha can be!

First about the ear/school testing thing. None of the parents who do this kind of adoption are without resources. The schools totally fail at helping children if they are in need. The public school test done on Sasha's hearing (without my approval) simply failed him at hearing. No help there. Yet, he is seeing specialists already because cleft children have ear involvement and issues. I can tell you how much he may hear and how much he does not. More importantly, because I learned enough to Russian hear it correctly, I can now hear how his English pronunciations flatten or "miss" the same tonal qualities we all complain about in his Russian speech. It is not that one cannot understand it, but it is just seriously garbled. Same with Sasha's English. If I had not been able to hear it in both languages, I would not understand that to a large extent Sasha simply cannot hear a lot of sounds. He garbles what he hears - garble. No wonder he thinks we are all such idiots that cannot understand him!!!!

So get your children's' ears checked and do not listen to the people who hear.

On to the personal stuff. Last night, when Sasha was in bed the orphanage discussion happened (his idea not mine). I totally hate those talks. I know he needs them but don't like them. Such talks never go too well. Hence, he did not wake up in a good mood today. And it was a day I HAD to go work. So my Mom took over. I got the requisite messages with him screaming in the background for no apparent reason. My mom is so cool, she was absolutely insistent that I stay at work, despite the screams, so as to deal with all that happens in the work day.

I think for Sasha, the happier he is and the better it gets, the more he kind of goes out along the edges of appropriate social interaction. He does not do it to be mean or bad but I think he goes out there to find out if life now is what it seems to be. And life is good. He may spend a lot of time with his hand in my jacket pocket (a recommended time-in approach) but he does okay.

And maybe I am just his Mom and love him. I so want him to be okay. And I want him to have a good weekend because next week will a bit of an uphill for him. We go see some of the cranio-facial people on Monday to help speed along the close order drill to surgery. So that day and the next, Tuesday will totally suck. I now schedule the day following medical visits as "freak out" days for Sasha because that seems to be the pattern. And who can blame him - not me.

Of course Thursday will not be great either. That will be an all day evaluation to assess Sasha psychiatric health, from a multi-specialist view. That means Friday will be a bonus day. Maybe Sasha will finally be given something to help him not live in "flashback" mode.

However it goes, this family will be okay. Even tonight my little Sasha sleeps, safe at home. May god bless you all, Sarah