7 months home

7 months home. I remembered last night that I hadn't blogged on our 7 month anniversary home (which was actually yesterday), and my first thought was how long will I be blogging anniversaries? I came to the conclusion that I will be blogging anniversaries as long as things are changing and progressing. Jameson learned to eat soup this month... except she calls it soap. It still catches me off guard everytime she asks if she can eat soap for dinner. So what has month 7 brought us?

• I am more comfortable in my role as their mother. You would think I would have had this down pat by now, but things were so shaky for so long and I was so afraid to rock the boat, I found myself swallowing back comments and discipline on minor issues because I wanted to have peace. I have learned HOW to mother them without making it a huge fight. This has helped in my "I'm not your waitress" campaign, as well as my "don't be lazy" campaign. This doesn't mean that Josh doesn't still expect to be waited on much of the time, or that he doesn't still suffer from lack of motivation related to school, but I am doing much better with how to deal with it in a healthy way.
• Communication. I think I personally am doing better with communicating with them. And I do not mean with their English skills, but communication in general. Positive feedback, criticism, how to improve things around here. We have had a lot of discussions about feelings and how to deal with these feelings. Conflict resolution in a healthy manner has been a huge thing. We have gone over rules again.
• I'm remembering why I wanted to do this. I have been remembering our waiting time, remembering my adoption angst, remembering how I would have done absolutely anything to get these kids here, remembering our time in Ethiopia. I have been working on a video of pics for National Gymnastics Day at my friends gym. All of the money is being donated to Hope. Working on putting these pictures in a video and reviewing the statistics of what would have been my kids future in Ethiopia makes it much easier to deal with the episodes of pouting or the times they wear me out.
• Reality. I'm facing the reality that there may never be an end to the anniversary blogging. There is not going to be a magical day where everything is perfect. And that is any family. We may face challenges, but they are just different challenges, but are not any less than any other family. I'm living in the reality that there are always going to be issues... adoption issues and other issues. And I can deal with that.
• I'm getting to know them and read them. I'm learning to love them for who they are. When Jameson is bouncing around and on me all the time... I'm learning to enjoy it. When Josh is quiet and ignores me... I'm learning to enjoy it... nah just kidding. I'm learning to deal with it. I'm learning to read their cues as to what they need at the time. When Jameson gets quiet... she has either fallen asleep (ha) or is upset about something. If she rubs her eye, she's going to cry. When Josh sits by himself away from everyone else, he's sad and needs to be left alone (just awhile) to muddle through his feelings. I am feeling more confident in my ability to care for them because they are becoming less and less of a mystery to me. When you have a bio kid, you have their infancy and toddlerhood to figure out what makes them tick. When you adopt a child, suddenly you feel you should know everything about their personality right off the bat. Mix that up with the fact that they aren't really who they really are for awhile, and you feel utterly lost.
• We are beginning to be able to look back. Josh and Jameson are beginning to look back and remember when they first got home. They are learning to share what they were thinking and feeling at the time. I hope this will help us to deal with future behavior. It's amazing the tiny details that they remember, versus the big things that are a complete blur to them.
• The kids have got it going on. The kids play together so well. Josh and Jack are always up to some sort of trouble. Their latest adventure is a trick bike riding club that has different tricks for different levels where they are teaching all the kids of the neighborhood to stand up on their bikes, ride with no hands or ride with their eyes closed. I bet my neighbors really love me now. The girls have always done well playing together. Josh and Jameson have found their imaginations and are really learning to play.
• I'm a dread queen. I re-locked Josh's dreads last night and I was really good at it. His hair is so curly, it's going to take some extra effort to get them good and locked. Jeff worked on one side and I worked on one side. Mine actually looked really good. I'm pretty sure Jeff did it on purpose. Josh thinks I can't really do anything as well as Jeff. But even if it was on purpose, I appreciated it. Jeff told him he'd have to let me do it because mine looked better. And Josh agreed. Wow.

And so we come to the end of another month. Month 6 seemed to be the hardest one of all. I think this may have been because there was a lot of activity and a lot of change in month 6. I was gone for a week. We were on vacation. The kids started school. I started working more. I can see now that month 6 was just a difficult month. I can see that the kids definitely need routine and schedule, and anything you do to throw that off... will in turn throw off the kids. I hope and pray month 6 was the final hurdle, but I'm not going to be naive enough to say it or write it. Oops. I just did.