I know I've talked about more about Therese than I have about John Francis. Part of that is because he was so blessed to live at Eagle's Wings foster home, and because of that he is so, well, normal. He wasn't starving or denied basic care like Therese. He came home basically on track and he seems like such a normal 4-year-old that it is almost surprising. That is the good part. The other side is that the little guy had a pretty tough time the first two months home. He really needs security and stability in his life and being adopted and taken away from everything he had ever known, his friends, and his country and language were just hard. He grieved so much, and although we knew that was because he had a rare and precious gift of a happy childhood, it was very hard to see a little boy go through that. In a more perfect world, a child shouldn't have to give up everything just in order to get a family, but we live in a far from perfect world and this was the best option available to him.
Once of John's reactions to the stress was to seek comfort in food. I suppose it is ironic that we had all these food issues with the child who wasn't malnourished, but personality makes every child react to stress differently. He acted desperate for food and constantly asked for snacks. He ate the food that other people left on the table and even off the floor. He ate cat food. You couldn't crack a cabinet in the kitchen without him materializing almost magically with a hopeful expression on his face, even if all I was doing was getting dish soap out of the cabinet under the sink. Imagine you were a child who detested vegetables, and you got adopted by a family who were following a plant-based diet, so the meals were basically cooked vegetables or raw vegetables. He was happy about the bread and the rice. While I cooked dinner, he would come and pet me. He was also showing a lot of oral fixation, constantly putting toys in his mouth and chewing on inedible things. He would eat helping after helping at dinner, more than either of his parents, and didn't seem to know when he was full. He was gaining a pound per week, even on our no junk food vegan diet, and the week he put on two pounds I had to put a stop to things.
I didn't want to limit his food too much in the transition period but that couldn't go on. So I radically limited snacks, limited him to two helpings of food at meals, and eliminated all nuts from his diet. I told him that he couldn't have seconds of anything at meals until he ate his raw veggies. We did find out that one reason his tummy looked so big was constipation, and getting things moving again helped. He has gradually moved back down to about where he was when we came home. Managing bowels for children with spina bifida can be a challenge, but our high-fiber diet is very good for him.
John Francis is such a tender-hearted boy, and he had a hard time adjusting to having rough-and-tumble big brothers. Jose and Fermin are very active boys and they roll and tumble like puppies, greet each other by punches in the shoulder and shoves, and just generally act like boys. John didn't know how to react to all of that, and because his balance isn't very good, a shove that was meant to be playful would often knock him over. He cried a lot, over every little thing the boys did, and of course the rude things they did. He was very frustrated for awhile because of the language barrier and got upset when the other kids tried to joke with him. Some days he would get overwhelmed with grief for his old life, always in the late afternoon, and he would cry for hours. For the first two months there was just a lot of crying.
Other than crying, John's stress reaction is to shut down. He can do that so effectively that when we were at the ER with him, the doctor who came in looked him over and said, "Is he able to speak at all?" That kind of shocked me but I guess the doctor came in and thought he was dealing with a severely disabled child, who was staring into space and refusing to make eye contact. I assured the doctor that he is quite a little chatterbox, but even then I thought he looked doubtful. Besides shutting down, he would sometimes go into an overdrive charm mode with people he had never met before. It was quite a surprise compared to how he was acting with us.
I don't want any of this to discourage anyone from adopting a child who is a little older, or even from adopting out of birth order. In John's case, the out of birth order placement required me to do a lot of buffering between the kids. I didn't get much done for weeks at a time and had to do housework late at night when they were asleep. Now the kids are starting to bond and it seems less like a playdate that never ends and more like a family again. The new kids are speaking English, and John Francis especially is getting more and more fluent. It was hard for such a verbal child to be unable to communicate. He is also very sensitive to other people's moods, and his new big sister is moody to an amazing degree. It really hurt John's feelings to have her invite him into her room to play, and then later rudely order him out when her mood changed. I would like to say her moods have changed, but that is the way she is. I've tried to explain to John that sometimes big sisters change their minds, but it is hard to help a 4-year-old understand he doesn't have to take things personally. Even I take her moods personally sometimes. Most of the time she is very sweet with him and they have lots of fun together.
In the last few weeks it has been like watching a flower open--John Francis is happy. There is a bounce in his step and his cute little voice is cheerful. He is a very empathetic boy and is always comforting anyone who gets hurt. He makes such a big deal over Mommy getting an owie that it is almost embarrassing. He is very polite and says please and thank you. He rarely causes fights between the kids, and I'm thinking that maybe the rumors I have heard are true, and there are some easier kids out there. Maybe I finally have one in my house! He is very, very snuggly, and he always notices if I make an effort to put on some jewelry or a scarf, saying, "so pretty, Mommy! I like it, this one!" He has also gotten more used to his new way of walking with AFOs and isn't falling down so often. It was a happy day when he kicked a soccer ball around at the park.
Now that John Francis is feeling comfortable in his new life, he is letting his silly side come out. He is so cute and funny when he makes up a silly dance, and he laughs heartily with everyone. He enjoys jokes and fun so much, and he is one of the few kids who doesn't like to laugh at someone else if they are not laughing too. He makes very silly faces. He makes us all laugh and the more he laughs the more I do, because his laugh is very cute and funny.
I'm so happy that he is happy and just enjoy my snuggle boy. He is definitely Mommy's boy right now and helps me out by folding washcloths and other jobs like that. We have his series of MRIs scheduled for January 2nd, so we hope to get answers soon about what the neurosurgeon thinks he needs. She hoped that he might have outgrown his need for a shunt, but as a Dr. Mom, I think it may need to be replaced. When he tries to use the potty the pressure in his head increases and he will cry with pain and tell me his head hurts. I have postponed further potty-training efforts until after we get that testing done. I am not saying this as a biased mom--this has to be one of the sweetest little boys I have ever met. He has a very tender and loving heart, and every family would be blessed to have a boy like this.
