Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Baby Steps or Leaps Fwd.

Today I watched my almost 18 yo work on supper.  She decided on Beef stroganoff when mom vetoed what she has done the last three times.   She didn't do it totally right but she did it.  She remembered she needed rice to go with it and ask how to do that.  I told her double water to rice, if she used one cup rice then two cups water, cook 40 minutes.   Simple steps to life, steps she couldn't even dream of a year ago.  She also popped pop corn today.  Not stick in the microwave but add oil and corn and pop.  I also hear her vocabulary growing.  Several times I have heard her use .25 words CORRECTLY instead of .05 words that may or may not be used correctly.  She is also reading more and more of the chapter books from the library.  They are about 5th grade level reading but that is huge to me in a year!

Bug boy is also doing baby steps. We still have long hard days of lots of battles.  He will battle for 4-5 hours over NOT doing school the way I ask.  "It's hard!"  "I will NEVER..."  Then after the long battle it is done MY way and wow he is SOOOOOOOOO proud of what HE did.  I have discovered that time out bottles really help him/me.  He has a habit of running his mouth when he is sitting on the stool.  "How long, why...!!!!" and the list goes on and on.   I have learned park him shake a time out bottle and tell him to sit quiet until it settles.  He argues I re-shake.  About the third shake he decides to hush.   It is a win win for both of us.  

One new thing he ask that none of the others have ask is if I would pray with him at night before bed.  I anoint his head with frankincense and we pray.  Last night he ask me to tap him as I prayed.  I found that interesting.  He has also been telling me when he feels sad sometimes and we use EMDR, (tapping) to help it go away.   I think he figured out that it helps and rolled it into prayer at night.  

We are getting close to adoption and having a lot of trying to push away, not attach, issues.  It is hard.  He is afraid.  He doesn't want to not be adopted, but he has TWO failed adoption attempts behind him.  I do think once the adoption is final he will be better behaved.  There will be less trying to not let himself love.  I hope less arguing about EVERY tiny thing.  Like dishes tonight.   Grrrr!   It gets VERY old.   He just got parked because he doesn't want to do dishes alone.  He missed the part about HELPING with supper or you get dishes alone.   He tried telling me he "helped".  Funny I missed that part of the evening.   So he got parked for slamming dishes.  He ask if he could do them later I said we would consider. Then he ask for a time out bottle.  We will see.   For him though he has had a good day.   School is FINALLY caught up, he fought it all weekend. 

Supper was very good.  Not anything like the way it usually taste but very good.   I am proud of her for doing it with no help.   She put food away and bug boy will do the dishes.  She didn't make a lot of extras even though he would like to believe she did.   SOOOO many dishes!!!
 

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