Doing fine

We are doing fine. Violet is growing and growing. She is smiling and laughing and is no longer a newborn blob. She is definitely a baby. She sleeps well and she just loves her big brother. She stares and stares at him.

Her big brother also loves his little sister. He is more of a helper than I ever imagined. He continues to have his own issues and we have been working on them vigorously. We have a special school he will start in the summer and continue in the fall for Kindergarten. We are going to start him on some medication to help him be a little more under control.

So, things are going. They are a bit crazy, but they are going. Finalization is scheduled for mid June.

Thanks

Thank you for your reassuring comments. I gave notice to PN and Henry seems excited about it. I made a calendar to show him how many more days he has there and when I pointed to his last day he said, "Yeah! Because I don't like PN!" So I guess he will not suffer any trauma over this.

Meanwhile, we have one month to go until the baby is born.


Edited to add:

Also, I'm scared!

I forget what it's like to have a baby. Diaper blowouts and feeding every couple of hours. Not being able to sit in traffic because it's feeding time.

Henry was an incredibly easy baby. He never cried, he slept all the time. He only woke up once per night after about 8 weeks and by 14 weeks he was sleeping through the night.

I'm 41 years old.

How are we going to do this?!?!

I'm excited too. But this waiting is hard. I just want to be figuring this out already. The anticipation is killing me!

Henry and school

Henry goes to two different schools. He goes to a private nursery (PN) in the morning, twice a week. Then he goes to a public Pre-K program in the afternoons, four times a week. I pick him up at PN and he eats lunch in the car and then I drop him off at Pre-K. It's pretty chaotic.

So, next month there is a week of vacation starting Feb 17. We will probably go to FL for the baby at the end of that week and stay for most of the following week.

He has been having lots of discipline and behavior problems at PN. He started out going four times a week, but he was too much for them to handle and we switched down to the two days where they have the smallest enrollment because he needs so much one on one attention.

So, with him missing half of February and me not know how I can deal with a newborn who will need to feed when I have to drop him off and pick him up and eat in the car, I am thinking about pulling him out of the morning school.

Henry tells me he doesn't really like PN. He seems to like it well enough to me, but when I ask him why he has so much trouble making good choices there, he says it's because he doesn't like it. He likes Pre-K.

When I mentioned to Henry what he thought about not going back to PK, he was all for it.

I told the director of PK that we were thinking of pulling him. She seemed pretty ambivalent about it. I feel pretty ambivalent about it too. I'm not sure if it's a bad idea or not. I do think it will make my life easier. The baby will be home in March. The weather will be getting better. We will be able to play outside in the mornings and we can even walk to Pre-K with the baby in the stroller.

Is it bad to pull Henry out of PK in the middle of the school year? I want somebody to tell me that it's ok to do.

Blah.

School Troubles

Henry has been having real trouble in school. He was asked to reduce the number of days he attends because other parents are complaining about his behavior and he is disrupting the entire class.

This morning when I dropped him off, we talked about making good choices. He should do 2 things.

1) Listen to the teachers
2) Keep his hands to himself

As he talked about making good choices at school while we were still in the car, his eyes started to well up with tears.

This is the first time I've seen signs from him that he wants to make good choices but is having a difficult time doing so. I asked him if it was difficult and he said no. I was hoping he might say yes, but he could just be afraid to say that.

I ask him all the time how we can help him make good choices, but he always says he doesn't know.

My poor boy is really struggling and I don't know how to help him. I don't want him to feel bad about himself. He is truly a wonderful kid. He is doing great in the integrated special ed school. This school where he is having trouble is just not set up for a kid like him.

I am at a crossroads and I don't know what to do.

Still waiting for the glasses to come in.

We haven't filled out the paperwork for the new adoption attorney. I just don't have time with all that is going on with Henry.

I am exhausted.

Behavior Issues

Henry is having some behavior issues. I know this is pretty normal for an active three-year-old boy, but he is having problems in school. Today was a particularly bad day. He had to go sit in the director's office for a bit. One of the teachers told me that they felt like one of them had to stay with H and be one-on-one with him and that left the other teacher to deal with all of the other kids. He is openly defiant and doesn't respond to consequences.

They know I know this. He is like this at home. I am pretty consistent and do the time out thing and I can, with time and effort and endless patience (sometimes), get him to do what I need him to do.

He is also really fine sometimes. If we go to a playground, he is usually pretty good. He is very active and loves to climb.  He is a little handsy at times, but if I put him in time out at the playground he will stay in time out and usually be a bit better afterward.

The thing is, he has biological relatives who have some serious behavioral issues. Some of this stuff must be genetic. I am a little afraid.

I don't want him to get kicked out of school. I don't want him to have no friends.

Today I am worried. I left a voice mail to my old therapist to get some advice. I really, sincerely hope he grows out of this, but I am concerned.

He can be so wonderful sometimes. And he's adorable. Why can't he just listen a little bit?

Family Tree already?

So, it's H's third full day of preschool and I'm handed a paper by the teacher that says "H's family tree." Oy. The teacher says to "put pictures of your family on it. It's like an 'all about you' activity." So I'm going to ignore this and just put pics of me, H, T, Bdog and R cat on there.

That's ok, right? H is totally not able to talk about adoption on his own right now and I think it's pretty safe to do just our family at home because, really, that's what this thing is for. It's about who you live with. Right?

I didn't expect to have to deal with this already!

They should just label the paper "H's Family" and I'd feel a lot better about it.

Oy.