We celebrate smiling cleft faces in our ice cream

My Mom is out of ICU and no permanent organ damage.  Praise God.  And Alex finally calmed down.  I think going to the hospital has helped him because he can see how much better his grandmother (Babushka) is doing every day. 

And we are back to kind of a regular schedule complete with eating dinner at home together.  Apparently that is really important to the kids.  I never knew but I am glad I am doing it for them.  Tonight, after a pile of veggies and other good stuff, dessert was ice cream.  After dishing it up the bowl of ice cream looked like a smiling cleft face so I added crackers for eyes and Alex was charmed.  In our house being a cleft child is a good and happy thing.  Both of my kids were positive about being cleft - it is just normal life. 

On the home schooling front, things are going well.  I cannot understand how Alex was allowed to fall so far behind academically because he pushes every day to do more and more work.  And there are interesting gaps in his knowledge so I am just going to cover everything.  And Daria has settled down and I am seeing more work from her than she has done all year.  She really does know it.  The little stinker.  :)

Tonight at dinner Daria told me about this girl in her class that had been hitting her.  Apparently she and Alex have talked about it before.  As I sat and let them talk about it while I was quiet so as to learn more, and it appeared there was no reason for the hitting.  Alex was very through on questioning his sister on that point.  He literally left no stone unturned.  Daria said the teacher put the other child in time out but it is clear it had been a regular kid-to-kid interaction.

I was right to pull both children from public school.  Alex is our canary in the coal mine if you will.  One of his doctors likened him to litmus paper - a definite test of acidity in his environment.  Any problems and he immediately shows that there is a problem.  It is like someone laying on a loud car horn - you will notice there is a problem.  Alex simply will not tolerate abuse.  While I may not appreciate his new way of dealing with the fear, stress, anxiety, or whatever, I do understand he is simply making sure he is safe.  Alex is the example of zero tolerance for abuse.

Daria hides it more.   It is like her revelation of being hurt in the orphanage - on TV and not before.  Daria will only tell once it is done and over.  When she is safe again.  But it still hurt her heart.  I didn't know kids were hitting her too. 

This stuff is happening to my children who are eight and nine.  I remember being eight.  I loved wearing a particular pretty red dress and climbing trees.  My Mom made one of those "Barbies in a Cake Dress" that were so new at the time.  At nine, I loved reading and riding my bike.  I remember working hard on handwriting that year.  I do not remember being hit by other children.  If I had been hit, I would have remembered. 

I have been worrying about my kids having all the normal stuff and normal life and I didn't see that they were having issues.

Something is wrong.  My kids are not safe and that is not normal.  It is not okay.

So, for now, the kids will be home schooled.  I HATE this option but I need to keep them safe and get them up to grade level.  The final irony of the situation is that Alex is in outside classes to bolster the home schooling effort and he is perfectly fine in a normal classroom setting with normal kids.  I wonder, how long has he been perfectly fine?

If you had asked me and his long term treating doctors, we would all say a really, really long time.  If you asked adoption specialists they would have said probably close to three years.  Even the most out-of-control kids settle down after about a year if you can get the right supports in place fast enough.  Speed and sufficiency is essential.  I did that. 

I do not know how we go on from here.  I am having to rethink family life while in the middle of dealing with serious life issues.  I do know that time is short, my kids are growing a mile a minute. I also know that being a cleft child in my house is something to celebrate.  My children see it as normal life and no longer refuse to look into mirrors or at pictures of themselves.  Alex no longer tries to smile in such a way so as to hide it.  It has been hard work to turn that corner but it is totally worth it.  It is like I tell everyone, I am the lucky one, I have the most amazing and wonderful children.  I have been blessed with these children.  My miracles that were once in Russia.