Update on Krassimir

I realize that it's been a while since I've taken the time to share about how our oldest is doing. I figure this is an appropriate time since 1) I haven't had the baby yet so I still have the luxury of some spare time after the kids are all in bed and 2) he's been home for nearly six months (10 days from now will be exactly six months since we picked him up from his orphanage).

In many ways, there are no major milestones to report, but gradual changes are still changes, so I will try to pull some of those thoughts together.

Eating - eating has long been a challenge for Krassi. For starters, he's not very good at it (everything still has to be pureed, and since we found out he has silent aspiration, we have backed off on the drinking from a cup, and are giving him his liquids thickened from a spoon, so everything he eats goes in off a spoon held by mom). After his rocky first two weeks with bowel movements (too few or too many!) he has settled into a pretty good rhythm. At the beginning we were using Miralax to keep him regular, but now three stewed prunes a day (mixed in with his oatmeal and "power milk" in the morning) and plenty of juice keeps him moving well. It's nice to be able to do this with diet, and only use the Miralax occasionally as needed. We have not gotten an updated weight on him in nearly a month, but part of our strategy for meal times has been backing way off on the pressure, which meant that for a little over a week he was eating hardly anything because we were letting him decide (by pushing food away with his hand) when he was done instead of trying to push a few more bites in past the hand. This seemed to help him substantially with his comfort level at mealtime, and now he will eat to the point that we almost run out of ideas to feed him at some meals! And sometimes he'll eat hardly anything, but then will make it up at the next meal. I had been very concerned about his weight loss (gradual though it was), but decided to take a bigger view of the whole matter - he is very tiny, but is still significantly bigger than he was two years ago (at age 8 he weighed 22 pounds, and now weighs just over 32 - nearly a 50% increase in weight!), and, more importantly, seems to have plenty of physical energy to do the things he wants to do. He doesn't appear weak or lethargic, so I let that be my guide more than the scale for a while, and it seems to be paying off.

He rarely cries about eating itself anymore, which is a wonderful thing, but he will cry about having to put down his toys to go eat. Supper tonight was a great example. He had found an empty egg carton late this afternoon while I was cleaning out the cardboard recycling, and was having a great time banging it on the floor, the cabinets, and the oven. The curiosity in that boy never ceases to delight me - he loves exploring new things! But then it was time to eat. I had just changed him, and he had willingly without prompting put the carton down so I could put a new sweatshirt on him (he helps push his arms through the holes), and then I picked him up telling him it was time to eat, and he broke into heartbreaking sobs. With tears streaming down his face as I was buckling him into his chair, I had to stop at just the lap buckle, and try to snuggle him close, stroking his hair, and telling him it was okay - we were going to eat - his toy will wait for him - we put our toys down when we eat - it will still be there when we're all done eating. And something twisted inside of me as I realized that the environment he grew up in has created a nine year old boy who is devastated when he has to leave an egg carton (in sight!) on the floor so he can sit at the table to eat. It took him quite a while to calm down...but he did! And I was able to hand him the plastic spoon he often holds at meal time (not to eat with because that's still way beyond his skill level, but just to bang with!) and he ate a fantastic supper.

And when we were done, I got to clean him off, take off the buckles, put him on the floor, and with my own hands and a smile, give him back his egg carton. "See, Krassi? Your toys are still here! We're all done eating and you can keep playing with your toy!" I wonder how long it will take before he begins to understand the permanency that is part of this new life.

After supper, curled up in a happy ball on the kitchen floor with his egg carton within arms' reach.

Hey, smiley!

I've gone back and collected a sampling of photos of what Krassi's been up to over the last month, just to share a range of what he's interested in and how he's occupying his time. We've had a few spots of warmer weather, and it's been SO nice to get outside. We have even taken a few short walks. Krassi very much enjoys being outside - something that we owe to the new director at his orphanage and his baba. When we met Krassi for the first time just over a year ago, his baba told us (through our translator), that the summer he was eight years old was the first time in his life that he'd ever been outside, because the new director both allowed and encouraged the babas to go out with their children. She proudly shared how he had at first been terrified, but that over the course of the summer had become accustomed to it and grown to like the sounds of the outdoors. She had one more summer with him before last fall when we brought him home, so he's an old pro at this outdoor stuff now. ;)

Krassi's orthotics are still an on-and-off all day long routine, as they put quite a bit of stretch on his little legs and feet. He can tolerate them for a few hours at a time now, but still needs periods of relief throughout the day. Here, during one of the times when they were off, he grabbed one, and was in fits of laughter as the velcro on the braces was sticking to the roads-rug that Reu and Rin had been playing with earlier in the afternoon.

We took a morning to go to the zoo as a whole family (since we still all fit in the mini-van!) Matt in particular was excited to see what Krassi's reactions to the animals would be. Although much of his morning was spent fairly uninterested in what was around him, he did seem to enjoy the newer penguin exhibit. Here he is with his hand pressed up against the glass following a penguin just rising from a dive. It's still somewhat surprising to me how little interest he shows even in the three cats that live with us. He is aware that they're around, and will sometimes touch them if they are nearby, but I guess I am always puzzled by his apparent lack of engagement with them.

I didn't notice until after I'd taken this picture that Baby was in the lower corner! ;)

Krassi still spends most of his time pulling himself around on the floor, and I love this shot of Reuben laying down beside him. I've mentioned in an earlier post how proud I am of the increasing gentleness and restraint that Reuben is learning to show toward Krassi (and all of us!) so I'm not nervous about having him this close to Krassi as I was a few months ago. It's pretty sweet seeing the two of them laying around near each other!

One way in which Krassimir differs significantly from his age-peers is his desire to mouth on things. He does the obvious toys in the mouth thing (though usually banging them against his teeth more than mouthing and chewing the way a typical infant plays with toys) but also seeks out unusual things like this to put his mouth on: the underside of a chair. (What???) As I took this photograph he was alternately pulling himself under the chair to mouth and pushing back out to grin at me and laugh. He was having a good time. Daddy, on the other hand, thought this was pretty disgusting!

He still very much enjoys licking the floor - any floor! - as evidenced by this example from earlier this evening. This is not just a casual lick, but a very deliberate, tongue full on the floor over and over kind of licking. I don't know what he's finding down there, but whatever it is, it must be good! [I must add, too, that this really grosses me out, which is why in his first weeks here, we tried to discourage him from licking floors. I've since realized that it's probably grosser for me than it is for him, and likely is not terribly damaging to him (I still don't allow it at other places - like the library, for example!) so decided it was not an area worth making a big deal over. Finding the right balance of indulging his curiosity and keeping him (and things around him!) safe is something we are constantly working on.]

Something else we're noticing is an increase in Krassi's motivation to pursue things that he's interested in. This is the same green chair as in the photo above, but you'll notice that there is a balloon and a ball behind the chair. Krassi managed to get himself all the way under this chair to get back to the two toys he was eyeing up - and that even with his orthotics on! He's getting quite adept at getting around with those on.

Somewhat related to that, we've noticed a lot more griping from Krassi over the last week or two. He appears to be experimenting with exerting his will (something new!) and then complaining when he can't have his way. For example, he and Rinnah and I were playing at the library earlier this week while Owen and Leah were participating in a library program, and Rin and I tried to interest him in a simple wooden toy with spinning parts. No such luck. He wanted to go after the magnetic numbers and letters and pull them off the board. Until someone else's one year old started playing with the wooden toy. He suddenly dropped the magnets and took off at top speed (for him) for the toy, got near to it, and started crying. I don't know that I can fully explain the mental process or the emotions that are going on inside of him at times like this, but it seems as though he's experimenting with ideas of mine/yours and similar boundaries.

Or take tonight - Matt's doing his first sap boiling, so during supper I was in and out of the house, bringing him food and one time came back into the house to find Krassi holding onto the lid of the peanut butter jar. Hmm. Now this is something we do not let him do while he's eating. If he's given something to hold, that's one thing, but just grabbing stuff off the table is a no-no. When I came in, he was laughing, then saw me, and put it down and got kind of a sad face. I, of course, praised him up and down for putting it down of his own accord. So many levels to that action! First, he knew it was something that we did not want him doing! And secondly, without needing to be told he did what he knew I would ask him to do, even though he didn't really want to do it!! The cognitive damage to this boy's brain is profoundly deep, and yet there are little glimmers like this that show us that he is capable of learning and growing, and that is so exciting to see! Even better, losing the peanut butter jar lid did not result in the same devastating breakdown that the egg carton left on the floor had caused less than half an hour earlier.

Krassi isn't just spending time under the furniture, but he's also enjoying spending time up on the furniture.

When he first came home, I would frequently prop him up on the couch to give him a change of position and a chance to look around. This was also a convenient way to feed him. He was so immobile back then that I could leave him on the couch and even felt comfortable leaving the room for a moment here and there because he just didn't move.

October, 2013, on his second day at home

October, 2013, on his 5th day home

What we're still uncertain about, and not ready to trust, is his comprehension of the danger of falling. Here's another shot from last week when he was up on the couch for a while. I am very nearby, and carefully monitoring his every move as he pushes the boundaries of what is safe and what is not. We do this at least once a day, and he has never needed a rescue yet, but I know I am not comfortable with how far he pushes himself! Besides, there's not enough weight in that little bottom to ballast the leg and the head! ;)

I'm slowing making progress on his quilt. I've made one for each of the kids, and had the advantage of a one-year head start with Krassi's, but it's still not done yet. His is the same pattern as Owen's, but a slightly different set of colors.

Although this post from earlier this week is more typical of routine school work, there are also days when I'll bring Krassi to the table while we're working on a project there. He doesn't ever appear to be very engaged, but at the same time, I figure regular exposure is the best tool I've got to get him more interested in things happening around him! (We are trying this same strategy with reading books - something he has no interest in whatsoever, but whenever Reu or Rin wants to read, we try to sit by Krassimir to do it, and every once in a while he will take a look at what we're doing. Still a ways to go on that one!)

Owen and Leah are learning about surface tension, immiscibility, and movement on the molecular scale in science right now. This demonstration was way neater than I'd been expecting. You cover a plate with a thin layer of milk (a homogenized mixture of fat and water), drip a few drops of food coloring onto it (essentially water), and then touch a dish-soap-dipped tip of a toothpick into the food coloring - ta-da!! the color spots explode outwards! You'll notice Krassi's hand reaching in the bottom of the picture. I have to point out that Krassi did not appear to have any interest in the demonstration itself beyond just wanting to slap his hand in the milk and bang the plate on the table.

Milk splashing and plate banging were not options, but he was equally delighted with hand holding. ;) Here's my hand...

...and here he is with Leah. The picture's fuzzy, but I love the way he's looking so deliberately at her. His ability to make eye contact is so dramatically improved from when he first came home!

So there you go - a little glimpse into what life is like for Krassi these days!