Today is Thursday of our overwhelmingly long "vacation." No, not vacation, mission. "Mission" is a much better word for this trip. It has been anything but a vacation. We fly to the States on Sunday, very early. Today is day 11 with the children. Justin likens the chaos to a mathematical formula with an exponential factor, 4 factorial. That is 1x2x3x4= 24. When you take one child out of the picture the emotional chaos = 6, only two children you have a hardship of 2 so on. In my mind, I can see placid calm at 2 months. "2 months Crystal, 2 months...." I can hang on through the initial blustery storms.
Saturday and Sunday we had a very good couple of days. Bonding was going well and there were many happy moments coupled with moments of sadness and grief, along with henpecks among the children. Things were on the upside though. Every day we were getting less fighting among the children. Monday morning we allowed the children to contact their foster families. Everything took a steep downhill from there for 24 hours. Monday night all the children had packed their bags and were ready to take the first bus back to their villages. In the morning things were still not good. The kids were acting out significantly and were out of control. Ivan ran across the busy street out of rebellion of the hold hands rules. The streets here are very busy and a little chaotic so that sort of rebellion is very scary. Justin's emotional stamina was tapped. But he reached out for help from the social workers. They came and spent the afternoon with us, talked through the grieving with the children and things settled back down.
Yesterday we had a good day, although Ivan was definitely calling for negative attention through being a very pesky little brother and not listening to us. He says, "No Engliske" when we try to talk to him. He knows more English than any of the children. Justin has a hard time with this and is in need of a break emotionally from the kids, but is trying hard for patience and to see long term. Ivan, with love and attention, will settle down. Currently, Justin took Ivan to the park to spend the morning with him alone with the hopes that Ivan's "love cup" will get filled a little and he will quit being so pesky and needy.
There seems to be a direct correlation with how Penka is feeling (missing her foster family) and how much she lashes out at the other children. Sometimes she is trying to help us keep the kids in line and sometimes she is actively lashing out towards them. Although even with Penka I see small improvements. Yesterday while I was sitting she came up and laid her head on my back to cuddle.
Petra is doing well and is coming to me for help most of the time and a refuge from the verbal and physical attacks from Penka and Ivan. Petra is becoming accustomed to being redirected and living with secure boundaries. She is settling well.
Donka is just cute and doing super. She has been riding on my back on walks and dozing off like a small child. This is a very good thing although exhausting. My arms are getting very strong!
We only have 3 more days in Bulgaria and we are so ready to go home. We are counting the days.
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