Now, an update from Chuck's POV

It was three weeks ago when G wrote that last post-- a period of time that seems like an eternity at times. The overall flow and sense of time seems to have changed here, as we slowly adapt to our entirely different life. At one level, all the days blend into one another - the alarm clock (for us) at 6:50 am, the shades up in the kids room in anticipation of the alarm clock, the kids alarm at 7, the (often, but not always) fight to get the kids out of bed and to the bus stop, work (for me), return home a bit before six, dinner at 6:15, homework (or something else), the negotiation of bathtime at 8-or-so, bedtime (fight, meltdown), then book, then Goodnight Moon, then lights out.... and finally, two precious hours to myself before sleep and a repeat tomorrow. (On most nights G spends an hour or so holding kids while they babble and then fall asleep.)

At another level, I don't think I have every had three months feel that it is passing so slowly - or rather that the elapsed time seems much longer than the calender indicates has passed -- it really DOES feel more like 6 months. The main question I have is - at what rate are we aging??? :-)

This week has been (finally!!!!) back to "normal", following two weeks of absolute fight, real tests for us. During those two weeks, I traveled first to San Diego for 3 1/2 days, and then on the second week traveled to Washington DC for 1 1/2 days. For us, totally normal, uneventful trips. The effect on the kids and their behavior could not have been more extreme, especially in Vika's case. Absolute, positive refusal to go to school. Running away into the woods, throwing things, melting down, lots of anger. It took us a while to figure out what was going on, but I think G solved the puzzle, based on a short comment by Vika: at some unconscious level Vika was worried that I was not coming back, and that G was going to join me as soon as we had Vika and Diana packed away to school. Crazy... yes. But, fear is fear, and the results were telling.

Hopefully this period is behind us now - it was probably the hardest period we have had since adopting the kids. So far this week (knock wood) things have been going much better.

We continue to learn from experience all of the things we had known, been told, or read about in books on parenting adopted children. It is not that we even doubted any of them from the start, but truth be told, it is hard to totally restructure and reinvent one's life from scratch. Some things just have to be learned. G is doing an absolutely wonderful, even heroic, job of being the all-important [mostly calm] Mama, and I am trying to act as mortar to keep the pile of bricks standing as a structure. We observe, learn, discuss, and (try to) change.

At times it seems that we can't keep up, as the kids are changing faster then we can, while at other times I really feel like we are making progress. Either way, as a family, we are all "learning" each other.

At one level, we are having the same experience as millions and millions of other families - watching our children grow. But at another level, while analogous, our experience is rather different when compared with other "normal, bio" families.

Present in me is the continuous watch and anxiety on how my kids are progressing and "fitting in." Yet, at the same time, I have to keep reminding myself that while my older daughter is 11 years old, no amount of wishing will make her 11 for me at this instant. She was deprived of her childhood starting at age 4 or so (she cared for her younger sibling mostly by herself), and she has a full right, and a full need, to those missing years. So, we have thrown out most "normal" expectations for the moment, and instead are doing the best we can to "just" be loving, supporting, educating, guiding parents. From all this will come a rare present few will ever get to see - a complete 6 years lived in fast forward "real time" of only a few years.

And soon, just like the hundreds of millions of other families, there will come a time when we all wished it had happened much slower. We'll wonder how they grew up so quickly when we weren't watching.