Photo Perspective

Isn't he handsome? We've been having a really good day with V today. He's been so sweet - not at all self-centered like you'd imagine a kid to be on his birthday. He was thrilled with his technical drawing tools (compass, protractor, triangles), portable desk (basically a clipboard with a compartment to hold all his drawing stuff), and a book on how to draw race cars. Due to busy schedules, we'll be having the birthday supper tomorrow. His request was steak, salad with croutons, red beet eggs, and ice cream sandwiches for dessert. We'll be having the grandparents over for cake and ice cream on Sunday, so we kinda spread the birthday celebrations out over several days.

It came today. I was sooooo excited! Over a month with no camera was driving me insane. I ended up earning the majority of the money by offering portrait prints of students in our homeschooling co-op. So Sunday evening I ordered my lens of choice - a Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 XR Di II. The advantage to this lens is that it is extremely fast - allowing a lot of light in quickly so I do not have to use the flash as often.

Today was an extemely cloudy day. There was a bit of light coming in the window, but with my old lens it would not have been sufficient to capture a fidgety puppy without serious motion blur.

Then with the window to my back, I got this shot of V sitting at the dining room table. The picture actually looked like there was more light than was actually there - and all without a flash. I think I'll be keeping the lens. :-)

I caught up on a few birthday layouts over the weekend.

While V is off at Junior Camp this week, I've been repainting his room. He is a self-proclaimed cowboy, so I went with a western theme. I still have more painting and a lot of decorating (curtains, shelves, ect.) but the messiest of the job is done.
The faux wood plank wall took the longest, but wasn't nearly as hard as it looks like it could be. Using a wood graining tool dragged through brushed-on brown glaze gave the grain texture.

I'm hoping to place a video camera in his room when he walks in to see this surprise. Funny thing is that he was already hoarse from yelling and singing at camp as of yesterday (Tues. afternoon), so he probably won't be able to talk by the time he gets home.

God recently gave me a friendship at our homeschool co-op that He has used to force me to be honest about my parenting of V. She encouraged me to seek help because V shows symptoms of Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD). I have felt for years that I have been a failure as a mom to V (V has been home for almost 6 years now). We feel like we are getting nowhere in reaching his heart motivations for his behavior. V can be very obedient and sweet when his dad or I are paying attention to him, but as soon as we are not looking or out of earshot, he often resorts to bad behavior.

I just finished reading Adopting the Hurt Child by Gregory C. Keck & Regina Kupecky, where the author describes the dramatic effects that not being able to bond with a primary caregiver during the first 3 years of life has on a person's ability to relate to everyone in their world in their future. V spent his first 21 months in a Ukrainian hospital, then the next 16 months in an orphanage, so he experienced multiple changes of shifts in who was responsible for caring for him. Since we all learn to relate to people based on our first attachment to our primary caregivers, V did not develop an ability to totally trust us as his adoptive parents. This inability to trust leads to an inability to attach and can be exhibited in various ways for different kids such as:

Superficially engaging & charming
Lack of eye contact on parents terms
Indiscriminately affectionate with strangers
Not affectionate on Parents’ terms
Destructive to self, others and material things (accident prone)
Cruelty to animals
Lying about the obvious (crazy lying)
Stealing
No impulse controls (frequently acts hyperactive)
Learning Lags
Lack of cause-and-effect thinking
Lack of conscience
Abnormal eating patterns
Poor peer relationships
Preoccupation with fire
Preoccupation with blood & gore
Persistent nonsense questions & chatter
Inappropriately demanding & clingy
Abnormal speech patterns
Triangulation of adults
False allegations of abuse
Presumptive entitlement issues
- List is from www.attachment.org

Because of V's ability to be superficially engaging and charming, many of you who know V will find it difficult to believe that we struggle with his behavior. How many times have I heard, "Oh, I just LOVE that V! He is SO sweet, adorable, cute, ect."? So please trust us on this issue, and pray for healing for V as we start learning how we can help him overcome his hurts. We will be starting therapy with a therapist who specializes in attachment disorder in August (there's a LONG wait to get an evaluation done). In the meantime, we will be learning all we can about RAD and try some different parenting techniques that have worked for other kids with RAD.

Focus on the Family has an article about RAD if you would like to learn more.

V wanted to share his creative writing for the day. His assignment was to describe someone he knows well using his senses. He chose to concentrate on sight, sound, and smell.

I have a friend named Jim. He has gray hair. He has a cowboy shirt and pants. He wears cowboy boots because he has tons of cowboy boots. He is carrying a saddle with both hands. He has a mustache. You know how you have like a beard, but he has that all shaved off. He has a white, black, or brown cowboy hat. He has a band around the hat, like a cowboy band. He wears vests.

He has a tough voice which sounds like a grown-up. That’s just how he is. When he’s carrying a saddle, he’s grunting. Once he gets the saddle on the horse’s back, he takes a big breath. When he is mucking out the stalls, the pitchfork he has makes a scraping sound on the bottom of the stall. Once he flies the poop into the wheel barrel, it makes a big quiet bang.

He smells like he is always out in the barn. He doesn’t smell like that on Sundays. He takes a shower. On Monday he still smells like he took a shower, but after a while he smells like he is always working in the barn. YEEHAW!

Here is a picture of V with his friend Jim taken at a rodeo in January.

This weekend we had the privilege to gather for a potluck with other families who had adopted children from Ukraine. V had looked forward to it all week, and was able to interact with 20+ other Ukrainian kiddos. We enjoyed swapping travel stories with others who had been there, and even met up with a family that we first met in Poland while we were both on our journeys home from Ukraine.


We adopted V from Ukraine through the Independent Ukrainian Adoption Family Network. The IUAFN naturally developed as one adoptive mom, Cathy Harris, turned around and helped others adopt from Ukraine. Many of those joined in the effort to help others, and now Cathy and the IUAFN has helped over 900 families adopt children from Ukraine without the extra costs of an adoption agency. We call our kids the Ukrainian Angels. Needless to say, I wanted a picture of V with Cathy for his scrapbook. V, though, didn't care much for getting his picture taken with a lady he had never met before and was not as cooperative as he normally is.


If you have time to get lost in a bunch of priceless pictures of children given a future with a family, check out Cathy's web site. We are family #275. Cathy's site is a bit out of date, but I suppose that is because she adopted 3 more children and now has a total of 10!

We were blessed with a sunny 70 degree day today, and the autumn sunshine is so nice for picture taking. V was overdue for a retake on our 2006 portraits, so we headed out for a photo shoot. Here is my favorite result. Isn't he so handsome? Today I've notice how grown up he is acting. He is definitely not the same little guy we brought home 5+ years ago. In fact, just for fun, I'll find a picture of V when we first came home and post it here for you to make your own comparisons!

I wish I could figure out how to get these pictures next to each other here like they will be in K & V's scrapbooks, but for now you'll have to use your imagination. The top will be on the left, the bottom one on the right.

The journaling is pretty much cut and pasted from my last post. I'm finding that to be an added benefit to blogging about my pictures. Then when I'm ready to put them in a layout, the journaling was already done when the event was fresh in my memory.

Ooops, just realized I forgot to put the date on these. I'll have to add it before I get them printed.

As a precursor to studying World History, we were learning about archeologists this week. We picked up a "I Dig Dinosaurs" kit at the local craft store to get a feel for the thrill of searching and finding something in the rock or dirt. K & V spent about an hour chipping away at a block of glacial rock to uncover several unassembled dinosaur bones.

Watching V dig was especially fun. He could barely stay still enough to hit the chisel with the hammer.

A funny story to share:

Last Saturday, I noticed that V had three safety pins neatly poked into the front shoulder of his t-shirt. When asked why, he replied, "Because that's how many years I've been a cowboy!" Then I questioned him on the source of the safety pins, since the only pile of safety pins that I was aware of was safely nestled in my "off-limits" drawer in the basement. But his answer surprised me, "from my bike."

"Your bike?!? Where do you have safety pins on your bike?"

"In the front tire," he responded confidently.

"You mean the tire that went flat a few days ago? WHY do you have safety pins in your bicycle tire?"

"Because Mr. G (a family friend from church) told me to put clothes pins on my bike and it would make a cool sound!"

Well, Mr. G made V's day a couple of nights ago by taking him to K-mart, buying him a new innertube and helping him to replacing it on his bike. Pete and I just shake our heads, shrug our shoulders and say, "Well, we never told him NOT to put safety pins in his tire!"

I dread suppertime. I dread the whole ordeal: figuring out what to make, clearing off enough counter space to work, putting it all together, setting the table, and serving it. Lately I've been trying to make it all ahead of time to avoid making supper while "Mom, I'm hungry!" and "When is it suppertime?" ring in the air.

Yesterday I made chili and put it in the crockpot long before lunch. Hubby was going to be working until after bedtime, so I prepared for handling supper solo. After a late afternoon doctor appointment, I returned with all five kids, and starting dishing chili into their bowls. I discovered via finger-lick test that the chili was much, much spicier than my kiddos would tolerate. Back-up plan? Can of soup and grilled cheese.

While I was toasting the sandwiches on the griddle, my ears were assaulted by many sounds. "Mom, I need help!" from J in the toy room. S was protesting sleep in her crib. K was pounding on the side door to tell me that V and C were pulling levers, pushing buttons and pretending to ride on dad's new riding lawn mower. Ignoring the first two, I walked outside to inform V and C that they were not allowed to "push buttons, pull levers, sit on the seat, lid, grass bags, mower deck, or otherwise touch in any way dad's riding mower." (gotta cover the all the possibilities)

As I attempted to return to the sandwiches on the griddle, I realized that the side door was still locked. Scooting around the house to the front door, I walked in and smelled the charring of the grilled cheese. I flipped them over to confirm that they really were as black as I suspected, and groaned as tears filled my eyes.

V and K had followed me into the house and witnessed my reaction. "Mom, it's OK. We can eat burnt sandwiches. If we dip them, we won't even be able to taste the burnt stuff." was V's reaction. K didn't like that idea very much being a pickier eater, so she offered to finish supper for me. "I can do it, Mom. You'll see that I'm pretty good at making supper."

I handed K the flipper, and walked away to tend to the crying baby. After settling her down, I found the fortitude to walk back into the kitchen where K was toasting the unburnt sides of the sandwiches and V was hovering nearby to help when he could. I helped K peel the burnt sides of the sandwiches off (dropping one on the floor in the process), and she replaced them with fresh pieces of bread. I placed the warmed soup on the table, found bowls, and walked out the door. I was done. finished.

K and V handled supper beautifully. They called the younger ones for supper, served the sandwiches and soup, and left me in solitude weeding the front flower garden. By the time everyone was finished, I had recuperated and was ready to take on being Mommy again. My crushed spirits had just been rescued by my sweet, sweet 7 and 8 year olds.