Prayers

I have been thinking long and hard about this post for the past several weeks. Please pray that my husband sees the wisdom in personal therapy for himself. It has been very difficult to live with him these past several months. Almost all of his old issues are resurfacing with a vengeance. He is very jealous and competitive of Y, Y is not competitive or jealous of him at all. I can see the harm my husband's attitudes and actions are having on my son. I have asked him repeatedly to get help, but he does not believe he needs any. It has come to the point that he will need to get help soon, or this family may not survive.

I shudder to think how all of this has affected Y, but it needs to stop asap.

Thank you,
Natalie
TX

View my two other blogs if you have the stomach!

I just wanted to let readers of my most popular blog know that I do have two other blogs that I post on occasionally.

I have a brand new one with a mile long first post at:

debtreductionact2.blogspot.com

It deals with our current financial situation and how we plan to get out of debt in the next four years or so.  If you just want to tell me what a horrible person I am for getting into so much debt, stay away.  You have that much hate - go see a therapist.

My third blog is not for those politically faint of heart.  I have to warn you up front that I lean politically left (hence the url of the blog), and if you can't handle that some people might have opinions diametrically opposed to yours, again - go see a therapist.  I welcome all comments on that blog, I will not claim to be perfect in my opinion each time I post.  And, as I've said before on this blog, "Opinions are like sphincters..."

lyevoiye.blogspot.com

(If you are politically right, please don't be put off by this blog.  I realize that many of the adoption blogs I read are written by families that are devout Christians.  Each and every one of them practice what they preach and I have an enormous amount of respect for them because of that, even if I don't believe everything they believe.  I also believe that the majority of those families are very confident in their faith and have few problems with others who disagree.  My biggest problem with people of any religion are those that profess publicly their faith and then do not practice what they so loudly preach.)

Off my soapbox for now.  (Putting it in the corner so I can use it again, later.)

Natalie

TX

Budding Pyromaniac

It seems we have a budding pyromaniac in our house.  He and Papa really bonded over 4th of July fireworks.  Hey, anything you can legally blow up, right?  Bill prefers the big splashy bursts of sound and color that were banned this year due to our drought.  Y likes these cheap little popper things that come 100 to a box.  He had about 1000 of them and blew most of them up in about three days or so.  I got tired of him asking for Bill's lighter, so I bought him one of those long handled lighters which lasted about a day and a half.  Then Y had the brilliant idea of getting a magnifying glass.  At first I could not figure out why he wanted one.  Then we got back home and he used the drought to his advantage.  It seems that huge yellow ball in the sky can be used with the magnifying glass to start little fires and blow up little fireworks.  Good thing it didn't blow up any fingers along with it!  He also used several boxes and plastic cups that are now in several pieces around the back yard.  Maybe blowing stuff up with your fireworks is more satisfying than just blowing up fireworks?

Natalie

TX

More Tidbits

Tidbit #1 -

Y told me he was a man yesterday.  His reasoning is that he has hair on his calves, therefore he is a man.  Does that make me a man, too, if I don't shave?  I told him to come back when he had wide shoulders and hair on his chest.  He told me he's Russian, and Russian's do not have hairy chests, Germans do.

Tidbit #2 -

Finally found out where all those bananas (and everything else Y eats) have been going.  The doctor measured him the first week he was home, and he was 5'3" and about 130lbs.  I have no idea what he weighs right now, but I measured Y again yesterday and he's almost 5'7"!!!  Over 3" in three and a half months!

Tidbit #3 - 

Y told me he had a bad dream the other night.  I asked him if he remembered what it was about.  He said he was back in Ukraine and he had to escape to America.  I told him I used to have a similar dream when I was a teenager; I called it the "Escape from Sharpsburg!" dream.

Natalie

TX

A "Family" Room

Sunday night we finally got the rest of the flooring down in our newly expanded family room.  That evening we had a little family bonding time watching TV.  Y even came downstairs before his computer shut off for the evening!  Well, apparently he did not forget last week when I told him the "vampire" show comes on TV once a week.  He heard the first few notes of the opening song, and he flew downstairs.  We told him we had to wait until the show was completely recorded before we could watch it.  A little white lie, but at least we would be able to skip over any potentially unwanted scenes.  As it turns out, we only skipped about 30 seconds of the show.  

While we waited for it to record, we decided to watch a couple of "Gene Simmons Family Jewels" episodes.  Y stayed with us, and kept asking questions like, do we like his music?  YES!  Is that Mama, Papa, son and daughter?  Yes, etc.  The first episode was kind of boring, but the second episode was very good.  Gene's 16yr old daughter was having a sleep over with friends.  Mama was sick, so Gene was in charge of making sure the girls did not get out of the house, the boys did not get into the house, and nothing got broken.  Well nothing got broken.  Let's just say that Gene Simmons seems to be a pretty good dad, he knows when to let things slide and when to not let them slide.  At the end, Y said, "He is good papa."  When I said, "Yes, he is,"  Y turned to look at Bill and said, "You no good Papa."

Bill's response was, "What?"

Y - "Oh, I joke!  You little bit good Papa."

Then we watched 'True Blood,' and when it was over, Y said, "Goodnight, I sleep now," and went up to bed without being told.  I looked at Bill and his jaw was hanging closer to the floor than mine.  I can't remember the last time Y did not give us any grief over his bed time.  

Little victories, little victories.

Natalie

TX

Tidbits

Tidbit #1-

Yesterday Y showed me how he had changed his video game instructions to Russian.  He has been playing against others online and figured out how to get on a European server with Russian speaking kids.  So he asked, and was told how to do this by one of them.  They then asked Y where he was from.  His reply?

"Texas."

They did not believe him.  I wonder why?

Tidbit #2 -

Y has been going to reading class at the jr high several days a week for two hours a day.  They have been working on reading and writing English.  Apparently they talked about money the other day.  Y proudly informed his teacher that there was "money" in our last name.  Technically it's true, take out a few letters and there's 'm-o-n-e-y' in our name.  I've used this last name for 12 yrs, and I've never thought of it that way.  I want to know where all this 'money' is, and where it's been hiding.

Natalie

TX

Papa's Day

I have decided that maybe I just need to take a vacation from my two men whenever a family holiday comes up.  They really seem to get on each others' nerves then for some reason.  Y does/does not do something; Bill overreacts and it escalates from there.

Today we were going to try and finish the laminate floor in our newly expanded living room.  There was only a 10x15  area left to do (the rest has been done for two years!).  We all slept in, and started on the floor just after 11am.  Bill asked Y to sweep the floor, again.  Y did as he was asked, but Bill did not like the way he was doing it.  He was pulling with a push broom, and that was getting under Bill's skin.  He has very thin skin.  Then, he showed Y how to scrape stuff off the concrete with a long handled scraper.  Y did that, too.  After that, Y swept the floor again, but Bill wanted him to vacuum it up with the shop vac.  He kept telling Y to stop sweeping, and vacuum.  And, Y said the magic phrase, "I no understand."

Bill started yelling at him, threw the handle of the shop vac on the floor, and then told me he was leaving for a little bit.  Bill is of the impression that Y only says he doesn't understand whenever he doesn't want to do what he is asked to do.  In this case, Bill was wrong.  He's been wrong before, but you can't tell Bill that.  Y thought Bill wanted him to use the vacuum cleaner, and he couldn't understand that the shop vac was also a vacuum cleaner, of sorts.  I ended up showing Y what to do, and he finished the job without Bill here.

Today being Sunday, I asked Y if he wanted to go to ping pong today.  Initially he said no, but then he remembered that today was a "no computer" day, so he decided to go.  I told Y on the way down there that we had signed him up for soccer camp beginning this Tuesday evening.  He repeated that he did not like soccer.  I told him that if he attended all of the soccer camps, we would sign him up for computer camp next month at the local community college.  He thought about that for a few minutes, and then said, "Okay, maybe."  He did reiterate that he really wanted to stay home this summer.  I think he is ready for a little more normalcy, and not a trip every other month or so.  Poor thing, there is no such thing as normalcy in our family!

As we left ping pong three hours later, he asked if we could go to the sport store so that he could buy a new, better racket for ping pong.  He wanted to use the $20 he had left from his demolition payment.  So, off to Academy we went.  While we were there, I told him he needed shin guards and socks for soccer camp.  He kept telling me he did not need them to play soccer.  I told him, maybe you didn't need them in Ukraine, but in America you do need them.  He agreed to the shin guards and socks if I would buy him a pair of cleats and a simple sling thingy to practice kicking without chasing the ball every second.  Y was able to keep his $20 for a little longer, as the ping pong rackets there were not up to his discerning standards.  It seems they don't have enough padding on them.  I have been instructed to look for one online.  He's the baron, just ask him.  He did end up paying me $1 for a piece of candy, after we got home.  He really wanted it, so I told him he had to pay for it.  He did not have his money with him, so I told him to give it to me when we got home.  As soon as we returned, I asked for my dollar.  Y told me he was just joking.  I told him, I was not, and please give me my dollar.  He did.  Lesson learned, I hope.

Then, he asked to take Goofy swimming in the pond; and since it's so hot, Mama, can you drive us there, please?  Only on 100 degree days will I drive him the quarter mile to the pond.  I told him he had to walk back, though.  Y said if the water was too cold, they would not swim and would come straight home.  LOL!  Two solid weeks of 95+ degree weather with not a cloud in sight and he expects the water in the pond to be cold!  I bet it was over 80 degrees!  Forty minutes later, one slightly wet puppy and a very dry boy returned, exhausted and happy.  I even found a few minutes to walk the other two puppies while they were gone.  We returned as two dry puppies and one very sweaty Mama.

I guess the few hours apart did wonders for Bill and Y, because by the time Y got back from swimming, Bill had already begun to lay down the laminate floor again.  We had to put Goofy outside, because he kept trying to walk on the padding underneath.  I asked Bill if he wanted any help, and he said he could use someone to hand him the planks.  That would make things go faster.  After Y changed into dry clothes, he came down and began to watch us from the other side of the room.  When Bill went outside to cut a plank into smaller pieces, I asked Y if he wanted to help us.  God bless him, he really does want to please.  I showed him how to open the boxes up without scarring the flooring, and he proceeded to set the planks down on the floor for Bill to use.  Bill would've liked for him to go a little faster, but after a withering look from me, he quieted down.  We only got about another two feet of floor down because we had to wait for the glue to dry, to ensure that the floor would not bow up in the middle (yes, we used tightening screw thingys, too).  It's gonna look nice when it's all said and done.

Y was allowed to get on his computer later that evening, but only using his own log on name and password.  No more administrator rights for him.  His internet runs a little slower because it has to filter stuff, but he'll survive.  When his computer cut off at midnight, he came downstairs and asked us to use our account, but we told him, "No.  We're not doing that anymore."  He has been very good and not visited sites we don't want him on, but we do want to control the amount of time he spends on the computer.

Incidentally, we had just begun watching the season 2 premiere of "True Blood."  It's an awesome vampire show on HBO.  Some small portions of the show are above his age, but most of it is okay for a teenager.  Y asked what we were watching, probably because he did not recognize it.  I told him it was a vampire show.  "Vampir!!!  I like vampir!"  I already knew this, because we both share a love of gory Halloween stuff.  So, he cuddled up next to me to watch the last 25 minutes of the show.  Y kept asking who were the vampires, and were they good vampires or bad vampires?  I tried to answer all of his questions, but I finally had to say, "Be quiet!  I'm trying to watch this, too!"

It was nice to end the day with a family bonding moment.  Bill and I decided after he went to sleep, that one of us would preview the show each week and let the other know if it was appropriate for Y to watch that week.

Gotta go back to work right now.  I won't tell you what obscene amount of money they are paying me to work OT tonight.

Natalie

TX