Physical progress

Look how I caught Krassi not just once, but a few times today!

His legs are SO relaxed! Although we still see plenty of scissoring, it's pretty neat to also periodically see him in a position like this all on his own. It's obvious that regular physical therapy, and the attempts at stretching that I do with him throughout the day are making a difference, but as I look at this picture, I can tell it's more than physical - he keeps showing signs of being increasingly comfortable in his environment, as though little by little he's learning what it means to have a home.

A few nights ago in the late evening I heard him grinding his teeth. This was a very regular occurrence when he first came home, and has gradually lessened. It's been a while since I've heard it from him. I tried something that night inspired by something my mom shared with me back when Leah was potty training about verbal suggestion while sleeping (in particular, talking "dry thoughts" out loud to your sleeping child has the potential to help them stay dry through the night.) Who knows if it made a difference in potty training, but I've held onto the idea that even while sleeping our brains can be aware of our surroundings, and often when I'm in looking at my sleeping children before turning in myself, I will speak my thoughts out loud to them. "I love you so much. I hope you sleep well. I look forward to spending the day with you tomorrow." I decided to try this with Krassi, so, without waking him, I gently touched his jaw where the grinding focuses, and softly told him, "You're okay, Krassi. You're home with Mommy and Daddy and we love you so much. You don't have to be afraid. We're going to take care of you. You are so loved. Mommy is so glad that you are finally home with us, with your family, where you belong..."

And...the grinding...stopped.

And, at least for as long as I was still up and about that night, it didn't start again.

~~~

The photo above brought my mind back to a photo we were given of Krassi the day we first arrived in Sofia on our trip to meet him in March 2013. We were given the original, but later in the week after paperwork got sorted around to the appropriate offices, we were left with only a copy.

I wish I had photographed the original, but did not know at the time it would be something we didn't get to keep until it was too late.

As far as I can tell, this photograph is from 2009, so when Krassimir was 5 years old.

My stomach turns every time I see this picture of my son. He looks so tiny, so helpless, so terrified as he's held there like a specimen to be documented instead of a little boy to be loved and cared for. It reminds me of how little I know about him, and about his past, about his memories. What was his life like before we knew him? It makes a simply photo of him laying on the floor now mean so much more.

A list

I like lists. Even more than lists in general, I like crossing things off lists.

An email I sent to my parents earlier this week in anticipation of their visit next week included a list. It's an exciting list to me, as it's an attempt at a comprehensive list of what needs to be completed before Matt's mom can move in. To be at a point where it's possible to make a detailed list is really exciting, because it must mean we're getting closer!

To make it even better, I saw an email in our inbox today where Matt responded to a question about location for something happening on August 25th by saying he expected his mom would be living here by then. Which, of course, means that we're both thinking we're getting really close!

For any of you reading this who also appreciate lists, here is my list which I'm hoping to post periodically as we progressively get things crossed off so you can all enjoy the satisfaction that comes from getting things crossed off lists! If you aren't a list sort of person, just scroll down to the photos. ;) (Mom, if you compare you'll notice that this list is just a very bit edited from the one I sent you - this one has been proofed by Matt, so is slightly more accurate than the one I made up on my own. He is, after all, the general contractor on this job!)

- final coat of sealer on concrete (happening at the end of this week)
                YAY!! I can already cross this one off!
- varnish trim (will be delivered, mostly already cut into the right width strips, next Tuesday)
- install one more door and hardware upstairs (Matt and I should get that done this week)
- install wood floors on upper level and...
-  ...down stairs to main level
- install trim on windows, doors, base and down the stairs
- install trim in laundry room
- hang laundry room pocket door (maybe not necessary before move-in)
- install bathroom sink
- install sink hardware
- install toilet
- install bathtub hardware
- caulk the bathtub
- build bathroom shelves
- install bathroom mirror (which, as Matt's pointing out, is more like design/buy/build/install bathroom mirror)
- install closet rod
- build doors for the low closet (Maybe. We may just hang fabric on a tension rod.)
- remove window and...
- ...finish opening between old and new
- install laundry sink
- install washer and dryer

And here are a few photos from today...

Half-way through the second coat of sealer.

Moment of truth - how well did the masking over the tree slice work? This has been covered up for quite a few weeks now.

And the answer is - good! Quite good. The slice is nearly perfect (will need just a bit of touch-up) and the whole room looks so much more like a real room! In Matt's words, "Fireplace and trim and we're done!" That may be a slight oversimplification, but is definitely indicative of the optimism that's floating around here tonight.

Still no sink...

...but that's because Matt decided to shift gears slightly, figuring that the sink and toilet are fairly self-contained projects and that he was going to tackle things that are pre-cursors to other parts of the process.

So, that means that over the last week he and I have been slipping out there to hang a door or two here and there, and then later to install the latch hardware. These doors (and their five siblings) have been living in our existing basement for the last year since we purchased and finished them last summer. What a nuisance that was, trying to find room to keep seven doors in an already small-and-packed-with-other-building-supplies basement, but how lovely to be able to just hang them up now that we're ready for them!!

There's one more to install upstairs, and then two in the basement that won't be going in for a while yet, but that's okay, because Grandma doesn't need the basement finished before she can move in! That level is completely our space.

Tonight Matt got the subfloors swept and then wiped down to prepare for any last leveling compound, because the next step upstairs is putting in the cherry floors!

And lastly, despite the "only work on tasks necessary for Grandma to move in" goal, having rosin paper down on the floors of the entry/office landing was too much for Matt, and he's over the course of a few smaller chunks of time gotten that primed, first coat on, and tonight is finishing the last color's second coat. Now when we take up that rosin paper, it will be for the last time! It also means that Matt was able to get another light fixture put in, getting one more thing out of the existing basement and where it belongs.

Pictures are always more interesting with people in them, so Owen obliged me by standing up on the stool so I could get him in the photo of the office light fixture. ;)

Coming up is one last whole-scale cleaning as the concrete finisher will be back on Thursday or Friday to do the last coat of [very stinky] sealer, while the addition is still olfactorally (is that a word?) separate from the part of the house that we're currently living in. After that final coat is on and dry (and not stinky) we can remove the window and wall that separate the two halves of the house. We'll also be ready to install trim, which has been ordered and is ready to be delivered as soon as we say so.

I believe I mentioned it before, but want to mention again how God was right to have us wait for some of these things. Over the last few weeks I am seeing more and more how his schedule is part of the way he is providing for the funds to make this project happen. We have not once had to put anything on hold because we lacked adequate cash flow. The work has been on hold, or super slow speed, at many times, but never, not even once because we did not have the money to pay for the next step. God has simply faithfully supplied what we needed when we needed it. I'm not trying to suggest that projects will never be on hold because of funding, but simply that this was specifically an area that God demonstrated was one of the ways he was expecting us to trust him a year and a half ago, and here we are, a year and a half later, with no debt after spending more than five times our normal yearly income on these two endeavors (the addition and the adoption). It's pretty exciting to be sitting here with just over $400 in our checking account tonight knowing that we're not going to be left hanging here at the end. Matt's abundance of work means he has less time to put in on the addition, and more money to do it with. Even the "terrible" news that the sump pump had been left unplugged and there was water in the basement stud cavities ended up being a piece of all this. The water turned out to be a very simple to resolve problem, but before we knew that, we already had an agreement to retain a portion of the invoice, so there's $1200 that ought to have been paid, but isn't, so we're not $800 short in our checking account today. ;) And by this time next week when that work is done, we'll have the money to pay for it.

Wow.

They who wait on the Lord will not be disappointed. It's only me who thinks things need to be done at a certain time.

ps. Matt just came in and says he learned what happens when you try to clean up hastily. You step back into a five-gallon bucket of ceiling paint, soaking your shoe, and resulting in your sock being thrown away. So there, now you know, and you don't have to try it yourself!

Communication

It's still my hope to do a big "sum it all up" post about how Krassi's doing since coming home, but apparently it's not going to happen as soon as I thought. ;)

So, in the meantime, here's a little glimpse into Krassimir's world:

Krassi is holding a little stuffed Texas A&M football given to him by a friend of his.

If you bang it, it sings. ;)

Usually I'm not so into the noisy kind of toys. Children make enough noise that they don't need toys to do it for them! But I LOVE this little toy for a number of reasons. First, it comes from a pretty neat person with a neat connection to Krassi, but I also like it because of what it represents to me about where Krassi's level of understanding is.

After years of living with an essentially non-verbal Reuben, who is slowly gaining some vocabulary, I now know what it's like to live with a completely non-verbal child in Krassi. With Reuben, we had, fairly early on, a few basic signs (things that mattered to him, like cat and airplane and water), and also remember how elated I was when Reu learned to nod his head yes and no. It is amazing how much you can learn when you can ask yes/no questions and get an answer!!!

Krassi does not have that skill yet. We have yet to get any meaningful attempts at sign language, and really nothing vocally besides a general happy/sad and some degree of how much happy or sad he is. (Not to mention the fact that Bulgaria is the only country where you shake your head up and down to mean no and side to side to mean yes! But he doesn't do either one of these, so there's no confusion there.)

But, like Reuben, what Krassimir is able to understand goes much farther than what he can express. For being a child with an IQ, supposedly, of "less than 40," he's sure done a good job of picking up a second language! We've noticed his ability to respond appropriately to our comments for months, demonstrating his knowledge of labels in English for many different things and actions. When our Texas friend was here, she was speaking to him in Bulgarian (her native language as well), and at first he looked surprised to be hearing the language again, after 8 months of not much beyond our feeble attempts at it when he first came home. Once he got over his surprise, he seemed to like hearing someone speaking to him in such a friendly way in his native language. When he was given the present of the ball, she explained it to him in Bulgarian, and he immediately started trying to bang it to get it to work. No luck. So she told him in Bulgarian to bang it harder, and he did! But still no luck.

So fast forward a week or two. He's seen the other kids playing with the ball and making noises with it on many occasions. He and I are sitting in the living room, and it's near him, so I ask him, "Why don't you try banging your ball again? See if you can get it to make noise?" And he did!!

That's my smart boy. ;) You may not say much (anything!) but you understand so much, and in two languages. That's more than I can say for myself!

Brother/sister

It's hard to tell what he's thinking when he does it, but if Evania is anywhere near Krassi, he always seeks her out. He doesn't really look at her, but always wants to touch her, and his intention seems gentle, though he needs some guidance in the execution of it.

I think it's neat that Evania will grow up never knowing a time in her life when her oldest brother was not part of her family. She, coming after him, in some way represents to me the finality of Krassimir becoming our son. His other brothers and sisters will all have (at least some) memories of before their oldest brother was part of our family, and memories of the process of adopting him, but to Evania, he will always be just her brother.

Reu update

Reuben and Matt got home in the early morning hours and we'll call his neurologist today.

Reuben, having spent the night sleeping in the ER, is all perky this morning. Matt, not so much. ;)

No sink

As a reminder that we're not the ones who make the plans, our plan for the night (after an afternoon when Matt had time to finish second coating the walls on the main level, meaning we can take up the rosin paper and get the next coat of sealer on the concrete floors as soon as their schedule allows) was to hang the sink, and maybe install the toilet, provided Evania slept well.

Instead, Matt and Reuben took a leisurely ride to the ER in an ambulance after an unusual run of seizures resulted in our using his emergency medication for the first time. It worked (which we were not sure of since a number of people with his syndrome do not respond to it), and he's doing fine, but standard protocol for the first time someone uses this medication is to call 911 as there's a possibility of respiratory distress requiring emergency assistance. The paramedics wanted to take him to the ER so they could continue to monitor his vital signs as he sleeps, and, eventually as he comes out of it.

Last I heard from Matt, Reuben is still sleeping (the medication knocks you out) and has not had any seizures, and we're still waiting to hear if they will send him home yet during the night or admit him for VEEG (video electro-encephalogram - electrodes all over his head) tomorrow.

Almost three years ago, when Reu was 16 months old, was his first VEEG. He was still such a little baby!

In the meantime, there is no sink, nor is there a toilet. God is good in so many ways that we can't figure out on our own!