Different

Well another week has gone by.  I guess it’s becoming that Sunday nights are my time to unwind and think about the week behind before I go barreling into the next one ahead.

Another week of school has come and gone and there seem to be no problems there that I know of.  Emma and Jackson even said that some of the big kids have been letting RJ have his try to four square (some ball game) out on the playground.  I seriously love our kid’s school and the fact that the kids were informed about RJ and his difficulties and they are just loving on him.  So refreshing.  I had my first taste of not so nice kids outside of school on Friday with him and it just about broke my heart.  I won’t go into details but there were noses turned up and looks of disgust when he tried to join in.  I don’t know if it is because he’s a different race, a boy or because of his eye but they acted like he had the plague and I seriously could’ve cried for him.  He didn’t seem to notice too much and I just called him back to me but my heart still hurts remembering the look on their faces.  Sometimes a language barrier is such a good thing for awhile.

The appointment at the ocularist was the highlight of my week.  I have been able to see so much of how RJ wants to be like everyone else with the strong desire to go to school and now hugely with being fitted for his prosthetic eye.  I had no idea he was going to be so excited.   My dad rode with to keep me company and we were both grinning from ear to ear watching RJ’s joy.  The lady brought in a few samples and as soon as she left he room to grab something RJ grabbed one, hopped up on the chair and held it up to himself.  He giggled and loved it!  Of course papa had to be silly and put one on too :)  The prosthetics were not what I imagined them to be.  It’s like a very thick hard contact lense and not like a round eye.  It truly is an art for them to make them.  She shaped and reshaped the prototype that she was using to make the real thing.  She even got out a little fire device and then continued to mold and shape wax until she had it just the way she wanted it.  His is going to be small at first and we will have to go back several times to get a new bigger one as his eye socket and lid get used to them and begin to stretch and become the size they should be.  They did send us home with a clear one they put in for him to get used to it.  The problem was that they never had me actually put it in.  She just said if it came out (and it probably would) I should just put it back in.  Easy for her to say!!   I was telling myself and my dad on the way home that I guess if I can change a g-tube, I can change a eye ball!  Oh wow I never, ever thought I would say that sentence.  Oh how God loves to throw new adventures at me!  Well we made it until yesterday morning before it fell out for the first time.  I think he must’ve rubbed his eyes in his sleep or when he was waking up.  And you know, it really was super simple to pop back in there.  Not sure I can convince anyone else to do it yet but seriously it was no big deal at all, but then again I think the g-tube is no big deal.  I guess when it’s your baby, you just see past any fear or disgust.

We have two big trips back to Indy this week.  Oh my poor gas tank!!  We go on Tuesday already to pick up the actual prosthetic that they made and then he’s supposed to have his MRI on Thursday.  Since we had to re-schedule the MRI I went ahead and had it scheduled with sedation.  I was really worried about him having to sit still for two hours and I really don’t want to have to make any more trips down there than I need to.  I am however nervous about how he’ll handle the sedation.  This momma bear will not be letting them take him away from me before he’s asleep nor let him wake up without me already in the room.

I’m just going to touch a bit on the whole “different mom” story that I told in the earlier blog.  He has told me the same story over and over and I still am not sure what it means and I’m hoping if I can continue to talk with him about it, when his English comes along better I can really find out what he is talking about.  I’ll decide at that time whether or not to share it.  It’s his story and sometimes I wonder if putting it all out there on here is really what he would want.  I believe he’ll be grateful to me to for recording the memories (because my memory is horrible) but as some of his hurts come out I just don’t know how he’ll feel about personal details so I’ll probably write those in a private post.  My feeling on this is that I hope beyond hope that these are true memories.  I know it may be hard to understand for non-adoptive families or maybe even some adoptive families but a memory, even if not so pleasant, is better than no memory at all.  I have cried over the fact that as he gets older and tries to figure out who he truly is, I will have no information to share with his about his beginning.  I’m hopeful these are memories of before the orphanage but I just won’t know for awhile.

He’s moved into a stage of telling me he doesn’t like India.  We went a long time of him saying he liked India better than America if we asked him but something changed.  We did Face Time with a friend he had from the orphanage who came home in the spring.  After we got off he was very quiet.  I could tell he needed some time so Jack took the others to play games and I sat with RJ.  I asked him if he’d like to cry and he said yes and he did.  Does it not just break your heart that I have to tell him to cry?  Now he will cry if he gets hurt or if he gets mad at me but he still doesn’t cry when he’s sad unless I ask him and give him permission.  At first I thought maybe I had made a mistake and that it was too soon for him to talk with an old friend but honestly I think it was good because it has opened many conversations for us.  He sat on my lap for a long time and finally asked me “you like America or India.”  I told him I love them both.  He said “me NO India.”  So we talked a long time about how this is his home and where he’ll stay.  We’ve since had several conversations like this and we’ve sat in front of the mirror together talking about feelings and what they look like and how every feeling is OK to have.  I think he’s understanding.  I think I also figured out that he thought our house was America.  Not sure where he thought we were when we leave the house but I had to straighten that one out too.  The things you don’t think of when they all come naturally to you!  I think he’s finally figured out that wherever we would go in the car would be part of America and we’d have to get on a plane to go to India.  I’m not sure daddy will ever get him to take a plane ride with him any time soon now that I’ve said that!

I love weekends.  Our weeks are so jam packed right now that I am just soaking in Saturdays and Sundays.   Having to go pick RJ up from kindergarten just always makes me feel like I’m on a ticking time clock.  I always am anyway with Laila’s half days but for some reason since I have to physically pick him up and Laila rides the bus it seems so much more hectic.  Rj’s figuring out the routine and tells me which day of the week we do what “Sunday Church!, Monday Therapy!, Tuesday Doctor! Wednesday Therapy!, Thursday Therapy!…..” It’s crazy busy over here.  If you haven’t heard from me don’t take it personal.  My kiddos are keeping me on a short leash these days :)

Oh, one more thing.  Friday we went to the social securtiy office.  On our DS-230 there was a section where we asked them to automatically assign the social securtiy number.  We’ll that didn’t happen.  So I gathered everything up and we went in.  Apparently immigration still isn’t happy with us (even though they issued the certificate of citizenship!!!!!) and wouldn’t approve it.  It’s under review for some reason and hopefully they’ll review it electronically but if not then they’ll have to mail everything in and the lady said it could take a very long time.  Guess we’re not filing taxes any time soon :(  If it takes too long we can ask the IRS to issue him a number for our tax purposes but I really don’t want to have to do that.  Ugh, the paperwork. never .ends.

Have a happy week!