Simple Culture

Tiger is doing so well for a little boy who just met us 3 weeks ago, got sick, traveled across 12 time zones and doesn’t speak the same language as his new parents.  I sometimes forget its only been 2 weeks since we got home.  The first week was filled with sickness and jet lag and the second week we have spent trying to get our routine solidified, and give Tiger some structure so he feels secure.  I need to throw away most of my expectations about my own schedule.  Although I will be returning to work in a week and there are some things a working girl just has to get done.  Bribery with food may be my only option.

He is quite the little ham and will ‘perform’ for visitors, with funny faces, running around and engaging with them.  We have limited the number of people we’ve introduced him to.  Only 2-3 new people.  At the park, he is cautious and won’t approach kids.  When he wants something he will grab one of our hands and lead us to the object of his heart’s desire.  As far as I can tell, he knows that we are his caregivers and is shy of strangers.  Which is a step in the right direction.  He is much more affectionate with daddy and doesn’t really like to be cuddled by me.  Its a hard pill for an adoptive mom to swallow, but I have to repeat the mantra, ‘It’s only week two, it’s only week two.’  I need to let him make up his mind and heart.  I can’t really force my agenda on him.  But I also have to be careful not to stand in the sidelines and watch… I need to be proactive but not pushy.  Its a fine line to walk, and its hard when he pushes me away when I try to hug him.

He has started learning what our expectations are, like  don’t  ‘pull the cat’s tail,’  ‘put magnets in your mouth’ or ‘stand up in the bathtub.’   We watched a comic kung fu movie where the protagonist sticks out his tongue and a mini-tongue pops out.  Then the character tongue fights with another character.  Tiger now will stick out his tongue and want to ‘tongue fight’ with daddy.  I didn’t think kids were THAT impressionable.  It was seriously a 5 second movie clip… and now we must pay the dirty, germy price. I tried to nip it in the bud but there are some battles you just can’t win.

Tiger still prefers to be outside, although about 2 days ago he stopped being quite so agitated inside.  He is also focusing on certain toys longer and will play more by himself with us in the room, not demanding undivided attention all the time.  I feel bad that he doesn’t have kids and adults around to entertain him, as he had many playmates at his foster home.  I am trying to slowly introduce him to some companions so the change isn’t so harsh and he can have some fun.  He may actually prefer daycare to staying at home with me.  Initially, I had thought that staying home would be so important and beneficial but now I’m not quite as sure of myself.  So we will see how my transition to part time works and reassess in a few months.

Tiger has started imitating English and now can say, ‘yummy’ or (nummy) and ‘tummy’.  He can say our cat’s name but still hasn’t really said Daddy or Mommy.  We still say a limited number of Thai nouns and verbs to help him feel comfortable in communicating his basic needs.  He is doing so good and we are so happy he’s home.  He’s a cute little tyrant.  I know its been hard on him.. all these changes, but what I didn’t anticipate was how different I would feel with a new member in our house.  It has rocked my schedule and although I knew I would have limited personal time, it shocked me a bit when it takes 1 hour 10 minutes to get him to sleep at naptime and 30 minutes to get his clothes on.  I fear my personal appearance will suffer, and I will be forced to wear sweats and a ponytail for a few years.  I guess that’s the price you pay, my friends.  I’ve seen it happen to the best of ‘em.

Mr. T likes to push things around. (We are no exception)

Now that I have told you how difficult the trip home was, I just want to say adjusting to home life has been even more difficult.  Tiger’s sleep patterns have been totally thrown off by 12 hours and its difficult to communicate with him.  We can’t explain any of this… what we are doing.  Why we keep shoving medicine down his throat, or why we won’t let him take a nap and try and force him to sleep at what should be 8 in the morning.  He is also not feeling well, with a cough and runny nose.  We are all severely sick, jet lagged and exhausted.

Tiger won’t be put to sleep.  He will only fall asleep on his own terms.  Instead of trying the cry-it-out method, we decided to cater to his wishes regarding sleep.  I wished that he wanted to sleep in his toddler bed, alone in his room.  But he does not.  In talking to another adoptive mom, she said this is what she would have changed about her first adoption.  It took her months before her son would fall asleep in his toddler bed without crying and stressing out.  The stress hormones released when a child is scared and crying can have an effect on their development.  Its just hard to know when you are truly stressing them out or when they are just being stubborn.  So we are having Tiger sleep on the floor near our bed.  There isn’t enough room in the bed since he thrashes around at night.  When he cries, Ack goes to the floor to cuddle with him and get him back to sleep.

Riding his new car that plays annoying repetitive music

In Thailand, We found that he likes to watch Thai TV an hour or two before bed, take a bottle of soy milk and a bottle of water and then drift off to sleep on the floor.  Well, when we tried this in BKK it worked and he would curl up next to Ack and sleep.  When we got home, however, it was harder.  He seemed to be fighting sleep.  Although he’s been pretty adaptable, not minding the new house or food, bedtime has presented a problem.  We bought 4 DVD’s in Thailand but didn’t realize one of them would save our lives.  A Thai comedy that I have now seen 52 times, which Tiger must watch before falling asleep on our living room floor.  We would then carry him to the bedroom.  If he wakes up, there’s no soothing.  He must start from the beginning, watching TV and taking a bottle.  So, on night 2 and 3 we only slept 3 hours.  I’m not sure if you have experienced this level of sleep deprivation.  It borders on torture.. your mind starts to play tricks on you and you think horrible things like, “where can I drop off this kid so I can sleep for 4 more hours.”  Of course I would never do that, but when I was standing in line at the grocery store at 4 a.m. with a can of Redbull and some children’s homeopathic cold medicine, my mind pondered this question.  Then I got to the parking lot and cried.  I had hoped that the car ride would put him to sleep and I couldn’t got home yet, since Ack was trying to catch up on sleep.  I felt hopeless, but I knew that everyone before me had done this and they had gotten through it.  Things would get better, and they did.  Tiger has been sick which has made all off this harder.  I know when I was young, when I was sick or tired I longed for familiarity so I know this must be very hard on him.  Sometimes he calls for his foster mom which breaks my heart.  I wish I could be the one to comfort him, but for now I can only do the best I can.

It’s now a few days later, and Tiger is sleeping 8 hours at night, although he tosses and turns and if no one is holding him he will wake up.  So Ack has to sleep on the floor with him part of the night.  Things are getting better.  And he’s pretty darn cute.  Now I will document all the adorable things he has done to help us see his true personality, not just the stressed out toddler who traveled across 12 time zones with us.

1.  When he wants something he says “Ni”, which means “This”.  He says Ni like a thousand times a day and it reminds me of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, ‘The Knights Who Say Ni’.  I laugh every time he says it.

2.  He loves to be thrown up in the air, flipped over and rough-housed.  Daddy is the prime target for  this fun and he will run up and asked to be tickled by saying, ‘Ni’ and pointing to his tummy.

3.  When he poops in his diaper he stands on his tiptoes.  The foster mom used to hold him over the toilet.  Pretty funny.

4.  He will grab Daddy around the neck and kiss him on the lips.  He has kissed Mommy on the arm, which is progress for sure.

Skyping with my sister.

5.  He loves to dip his food in a sauce, or juum.  So far he like to juum everything in ketchup, soy sauce or BBQ sauce.

6.  He’s had a runny nose and cough, so I took him to the pediatrician.  When I said thank you to her before leaving he put his hands up in a ‘wai’ and said bye-bye.  He was sick when we got custody of him and he finished a course of antibiotics.  Now after being home for 1 day he has a combination of allergies, and virus that is giving him a runny nose, a cough and keeping us all up into the wee hours of the morn.

7.  He’s got a sense of humor.  He will pretend to feed you something — one of his treats — and then at the last minute, yank it away.  Many times he will actually share, but occasionally he decides to fake you out.

8.  He says the same word for open and close, ‘bit.’  He likes to open and close everything like 3 times and then close the door on you.

Tai roop

9.  He loves to push things around… a wheelchair at the Pantip Hotel, his own stroller, the shopping cart.  He will make you hold him up to the handle and push the cart.  It seems like we are doing all the work.  I need to find some activities that will tire him out instead of vice versa.

10.  He sleeps like a log.  Once he’s out.. he’s out like a light.  He does toss and turn but this kid won’t wake up for sirens, car alarms or bath organizers crashing down when their suction cups fail.

11.  He likes to clown around.  He will grin when you pull out the camera, and say ‘tai roop’, or take a picture.  He pretends to take our pictures too.  I will have to get him a kid’s camera and see if he’s a blossoming photog.

He loves the outdoors and would play outside for hours, if we let him.  We can tell he’s had multiple caregivers… 3 foster siblings and many people around him to entertain him.  He seems to have boundless energy, and wants to interact with people not things.  Toys aren’t any fun unless someone is playing with him.  This means that he needs us to play with him every waking second, he won’t watch TV.  It’s good he’s been so well-socialized, but we are old folks, and have a hard time entertaining him.  I think we need to get a puppy.  He’s been keeping us on our toes  — the little adventurer with a heart of redbull.  He’s a sweet little boy, and we love having him home after so long.

One single word of advice for you all.  Extra ticket.  Do not buy the lap fare even if you are dirt poor like us.  Actually, we lucked out, begged the counter agents for mercy and on both the BKK-NRT and NRT-ORD segments the gate agent moved other people around so we could have 3 seats together.  Even though we had 3 seats, the flight was sheer, unadulterated hell.  This guys is a squirmy child, and that’s putting it mildly.  A toy entertains him for about 15 seconds and he jumps up to find another toy.  I had a huge dread of boarding that first plane.  Plus we woke up at 2:30 am, caught a cab and arrived at the airport at 4 a.m. for our 6 a.m. flight.

All in all Tiger did well but the flight is exhausting even when you have a bastion of toys and new fancy mechanical cars.  We used most of the toys on the first 5 hour flight to Tokyo and toward the end, Tiger was so done.  He wanted off this flying prison.  We were exhausted, and hadn’t slept much.  The layover in Tokyo had to be my low point.  Ack slept and I took Tiger on the moving sidewalk for what seemed like 3 hours.  He didn’t want to sit still.  It was hard knowing we were in for a 10 hour flight up next.  At the beginning of the flight to Chicago, we gave him some Children’s Benadryl.  There was no way we could keep him still and we knew it was close to his bedtime after skipping two naps.  I must tell you this is the only thing that kept me sane.  This kid even squirms in his sleep and he kept moving around… we were worried that he would wake up.  But he slept for 8 hours. This in itself is amazing since he doesn’t always sleep through the night.  There were minimal screaming tantrums and he only bugged two other passengers by looking through the crack in the seats and demanding food.  A nice older Thai guy gave him a banana, and a little 3 year old boy shared his kid’s meal.  (Now that’s a well behaved kid)

Neither of us got any sleep however.  So, when we reached Chicago I felt sick from exhaustion.  Have you ever felt that?  Literally, physically ill due to stress and lack of sleep.  Standing in the line for immigration, I had Tiger strapped to me in the Ergo and he had a toy car he kept throwing down.  He was done with waiting and we tried letting him down to walk but he kept running away.  We had 3 large suitcases, 3 carry-ons and a toddler in an Ergo.  Toward the end of the 30 min. wait in the immigration line, Tiger started scratching me and wailing.   As we walked up to the agent, I think he could sense our exhaustion and he was very nice and helpful.. said congratulations, that we were now officially back in the States.

It was hard work navigating the airports, multiple security checkpoints and customs/immigration.  I can’t tell you what the final flight was like… a turbo prop filled with businessmen and 1 agitated toddler.  Ack fell asleep on the final leg and I was left to fend for myself.  My head occasionally drooped and I fought to stay awake and not let the little guy loose on the straight-laced passengers.

We got home and my mom had bought us some groceries, decorated the house and made us cheese enchiladas.  No enchilada has ever tasted better.  We slept for 18 hours.  But now the adventure really begins.  Trying to get over jet lag, illness and learn how this new family is actually gonna function.