My Symphony

This year. Wow. What an amazing year!

A year that redefined our family and priorities. A year that brought so much joy that sometimes my breath was taken away. A year that brought so much unknown that sometimes I could barely draw my next breath. Thank God that He gives me breath and peace. And His promise.

A year of paperwork, travel, new perspectives, delicious hours spent blobbing on the couch as a family.

I wouldn't do even one thing differently.

And now for my favorite poem / resolution for the New Year:

To live content with small means;

To seek elegance rather than luxury,

and refinement rather than fashion;

To be worthy, not respectable;

and wealthy, not rich;

To study hard,

think quietly, 

talk gently, 

act frankly;

To listen to stars and birds,

To babes and sages, with open heart,

to bear all cheerfully,

do all bravely,

await occasions, 

hurry never.

...To let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious,

grow up through the common.

This is to be my symphony.

-Wm. Henry Channing

Cheers, my friends! May 2014 bring even more adventure and love. 

Of IEP's, Christmas Crazies and Giving Hearts (a two-fer the price of one blog post)

We had our case conference meeting for Daniel yesterday and it was very interesting. I am very happy that we made the decision to have him tested, because we knew that he needed help catching up. And it wasn't scary. It was encouraging. Honestly. Because now we have a picture of how he best learns at this point. And we have a piece of paper that says he will have access to the things that will help him.

Bah for labels. In my opinion I would rather have my kid being pulled out part of the day for special education by professionals than have him stumble along because I don't want him "labeled." I have utmost peace with our decision.

One interesting highlight of the meeting was when the question was posed to me, "So, what kind of medication are you giving Daniel for his behavior?" "Nothing." "Nothing?!" Later I spoke with the teacher and she said that everyone was sure that Daniel must "be on" something because his behavior has improved so much. I am certainly not against medications, but the best thing we have done, medication-wise, was taking him off of everything. We have him on tons of nutritional supplements and don't add sugar to anything that he eats, but that is all. 

And I get uncomfortable when people say, "You have done such a great job with him." I have two replies to that. Number one: Daniel is good. He has always had goodness in him, he just needed room to be good. Number two: We are not doing anything that anyone couldn't do. We take care of our kids. We give them help on their homework. We enforce rules and allow consequences. We encourage free thought and want to raise children who can work out solutions. This is parenting. 

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People often ask me if Daniel knows what Christmas is. Yes. Yes he does. And he is totally geeked about it. Thanks for asking. Haha.

Today was magical for Daniel at school. And I was really happy that he was as "calm" as he was by the end of the day. He has been talking non-stop about the fun things that he got to do. 

Daniel left his school around 12:15, after making sure that he had handed out all his little gifts to his teachers and aids. Then we headed to Claire's class. I tell you what, I love, love, LOVE that Daniel gets the opportunity to spend his time this way. The first grade classes at Claire's school did a little room trading for some fun stations and while I was helping Claire's teacher, Daniel was going around with the other kids doing the activities. It was so fun to hang back and watch how he just fit right in and participated. Again, school has been such a blessing to our family. I have often beaten myself up that I am not a homeschool mama. I mean, what kind of hippie am I if I allow my children to take standardized tests? Be that as it may, there is something to be said for school. There are things I don't like (politics, tests, pressures, conformity) but those are all easily outweighed by the wonderful educators that love my children and are passionate about them and compassionate to them. We are very, very blessed.

As a mama my favorite part of today, regarding Daniel, was when we got home and he went through his bag of goodies that got sent home with him. He gave his siblings first choice of candy, offered them coloring pages out of his new coloring books and on and on. Always followed by his little Ukie voice saying, "Merry Christmas!"

Life These Days... (Nineteen Weeks Home)

I realized I really haven't done a stat update for a long time.

I guess that is because things have become so normal.

Daniel has been going a modified day at school. That has been really great because it has given Daniel and I an opportunity to really spend a lot of one on one time together. It is my anticipation that his days will begin increasing very soon. We requested testing be done in order to have Daniel receive more one on one help. He had zero school experience before this year, so obviously he is behind all the other children. We received the preliminary report yesterday and it was very encouraging. Again, delayed in everything, but taking into account his situation with English and background, he is not considered to be mentally delayed, more so environmental.

My gut tells me academically we are going to have a stinky couple of years and then he is going to come around and do well. And when he graduates I am going to get kicked out of the auditorium for whooping and hollering. Yes. I will be "one of those people." 

I love the English acquisition. It has given me such insight into what goes on in his head. A few nights ago we were at the dinner table and he was lolly gagging (no surprise there) and he said, 

"When I was a baby in the tummy Jesus is talking to me. When I am in detskiy dom and I am wondering what to do, Jesus is talking to me. All the time, all the time." 

It is so encouraging. And thrilling. And sometimes heartbreaking.

Today he saw a picture on my Facebook page about the political situation in Ukraine. He looked so sad and said, "I have no home."

Such a ball of beautiful and hard and fun and laughter and yuck and different and blessed.

The children are getting along really well together. Playing and laughing. Wyatt talking to Daniel in his version of a Russian accent.

Last night Daniel finally spent the night in the room with the rest of the kids. It had been our intention to have all the children together from the get-go but while I was with Daniel in Ukraine I noticed several things that made me think he should have his own space for awhile; rocking, trouble falling asleep, snoring. The trouble falling to sleep quickly resolved once he was detoxed from all that garbage he was being dosed with at the orphanage. The rocking is hit or miss. I would say he maybe rocks for fifteen minutes every week and a half or so. Very rare. The snoring also seems to have resolved. I think it had something to do with all the fat he was carrying around from the aforementioned drugs.

Tonight he is back in his own room. Even though he did well last night I don't want to push things. If there is a transition to be made I would prefer to do it over Christmas break. We have church tomorrow, so if he doesn't sleep well, we are going to have a beast on our hands.

As far as hard goes...I think right now the struggle I am facing is having every single behavior reported to me. He threw a lego in class? Tell his mother. He laid down in the snow? Tell his mom.

Let me lay this out: Daniel has struggled with A LOT of things coming home. Language, new culture, being in a family, riding in cars, going to school, being around different people on an ongoing basis. He has been blasted with NEW. At first this looked like tantrums, aggression, fear, etc. We have POURED into him to help him regulate those behaviors. And it is working! So, hearing about a lego being thrown, or whatever other act of child-like behavior my CHILD has engaged in, is kind of overwhelming. Sometimes I just want to say "ENOUGH!"

I am just really so thankful that things have been going in a consistently positive direction. Sometimes it is two steps forward and one step back, but it is moving forward steadily. And I think when you begin having good days you realize that you will have more and more. And things get easier. And new hard things emerge, but the relationship is growing and you just keep swimming. And you don't deny the blech, but you don't embrace it either.

And life goes on.

And it is crazy beautiful.

Keepsakes: Updated

The holidays are rich with tradition. In the Sponseller house one of the big traditions is ornaments. The children each have special ornaments that tell their story.

The Charlie Brown ornament that Grace picked out that has Lucy being grossed out by Snoopy's kisses.

The Superman onesie that was Wyatt's first Christmas ornament.

The chorus of dogs barking Jingle Bells that Claire chose to celebrate her love of dogs.

Every year. 

Except for Daniel.

I had just assumed that it would not be a big deal, but last night while decorating Christmas tree, the first glimmer came of how starting-from-scratch Daniel is. And it made me sad. He would admire the other children's ornaments (or "toys") but desperately search the box for one of his own, which he doesn't have yet.

He has stories of Dedushka Moroz (Grandpa Frost/Santa Claus) and Christmas trees. And candy under his pillow if he was good enough. And none if he wasn't.

I think about how I cherish pouring over pictures of days gone by. Hundreds of them. Stacks of them. Boxes of them. Family who I have never met but who's eyes I have.

Belonging.

My sweet Daniel has a little Mickey Mouse photo album with around ten pictures of his life before. His "baby" photo which shows an adorable four year old. Several photos from the government registry. Photos of children who have passed through his life; some coming to America, some to the internat.

Oh my heart.

So, my goal is to either find or make an ornament. It will have to be special. A spiderman ornament with "Daniel Sponseller's first American Christmas." Because it is not his first Christmas. He speaks of Christmas at the detskiy dom with fondness. I can't not acknowledge that. He has a past.

He has a future.

Update: (Friday, December 6)

So, after stewing on this, I decided to do the following: I went out today and bought Daniel eight Christmas ornaments and told him a story for every one. I picked out a baby ornament for his first Christmas and told him that I am sad that he wasn't with me for his first Christmas but that I know he was a beautiful baby and I bet people just loved to kiss his cheeks. A snow man because I know how much he loves snow and I have seen pictures of him bundled up like a little snow man. A pickle because he loves pickles. I went through and told him a story for each and every ornament. He was so excited. He kept telling the other kids what a cute baby that he was and showing them his ornaments and retelling the stories that I told him. 

We also are blessed that one of the pictures that was in Daniel's little book was a Christmas photo of all the kids together with one of them dressed up as Santa, so I asked him if he could bring that picture to me and I framed it and stuck it with all the other Santa photos.

A big thanks to Marcie who mentioned the thought of "If I had been your Mommy." And a thanks to the clerk at the Hallmark store who took pity on me after hearing what I was trying to do and gave me a 40% off coupon.