Four Feet More

8:30 am - Wake up two very groggy kids and attempt to get them to do their "morning chores" (fix bed, get dressed, brush their teeth, bring down dirty clothes). Eamon does fine, once he wakes up, but Vika fights about the work clothes we have laid out for her.

9:00 am - Vika put into a time out for refusing to do her morning chores. (She has to do these every day, regardless of whether she's in Listening Camp or not).

9:30 am - Breakfast. Jeff and I have Mexican poached eggs on toast with hot tea. The kids eat cold cereal with milk and look wistfully at our poached eggs. (We felt a bit guilty about this, but tried to keep our "game faces" on)

9:10 am - Eamon put into a time out for not listening during our after-breakfast clean-up.

(2 time-outs before the chores have even begun!)

10:00 am - Kids begin major chore of the day - organizing their toy bins and cleaning their closets. Both Vika and Eamon put into time-outs right away. Several toys are confiscated.

11:00 am - Still organizing the toy bins in their rooms.
Time-out Tally: Eamon - 5, Vika - 4

12:00 pm - Still organizing the toy bins in their rooms.
Time-out Tally: Eamon - 6, Vika - 4

1:00 pm - I hate Listening Camp. Listening Camp sucks.
Time-out Tally: Eamon - 8, Vika - 6

1:15 pm - Lunch time. The kids eat dry cheese sandwiches and cast many hostile glares our way as they try to choke them down. (After all the time-outs, screaming, hitting, kicking and yelling, Jeff and I did not feel as bad about the kids' less-than-appetizing lunches)

1:30 pm - Back to work organizing their toy bins.

3:00 pm - Still organizing the toy bins and closets in their rooms.
Time-out Tally: Eamon - 10, Vika - pulls into the lead with 13

4:00 pm - I really hate Listening Camp.

5:00 pm - Eamon finishes with the toy bins in his room! Moves on to cleaning and repairing the cat water bowl that he kicked during a previous time-out. Vika is still organizing the toy bins in her room. The girl cannot seem to do anything without arguing. (I wonder where she gets that from?)
Time out Talley: Eamon - 12, Vika - 16

5:30 pm - Eamon is done with Listening Camp! He gets lots of hugs and kisses from Jeff and I, and sits down to a glass of water and a snack of goldfish crackers. Vika enters into yet another time-out for arguing about her chores.

6:30 pm - Vika is finally done with Listening Camp! She gets hugs and snugs from Jeff and I, and the whole family sits down to a nice dinner together.

Total Time-Out Tally for the day: Eamon - 12, Vika - 19

Now that Listening Camp is done, do I feel it is worth it? Maybe. Eamon certainly seems eager to listen and do his part in the family. In his words, "The next time I have bad manners, I will think about this when I'm in my time-out." Both kids are very happy to be able to talk and play with Mama and Papa again too. We did let them talk during Listening Camp, but mostly just to ask questions about what they should do next. There was none of the usual banter that fills our days, and the kids missed this much more than I thought they would.

Vika is certainly much more stubborn than Eamon. She has a strong will and knows what she wants, which is not a bad thing, but at times this comes across as her caring for her own needs more than what's best for the family. Of course, she was trained to be this way from a very young age, since both during her time with her Russian Mama and at the orphanage, pretty much the only person she could depend on was herself. Eamon suffered the same neglect, and also reacts by fighting, but in a different way. Instead of fighting with words, he displays strong physical aggression whenever he thinks we may be upset with him. I think he has such a fear of losing our love that he fights back with every tool in his arsenal (hitting, biting, kicking, screaming, and my favorite, spitting). Lately, he has also taken to yelling, "I don't love you!" After much training today, he finally came to the point where instead of fighting with his body, he expressed his displeasure with constructive words: "I don't like this Papa!" This is HUGE for Eamon. He knows he should use his words, but his knee-jerk reaction is to hit or scream when something happens that he does not like.

Hopefully the lessons learned today will stick for longer than just this evening. Time will tell, I guess. At the very least, I think they now finally realize how much we give to them each day, and understand that they are part of the family team. I don't expect that the coping mechanisms learned during 3 years of neglect will disappear after one day, but maybe our kids, who had been punished in violent ways before coming home with us, have now learned that Mama and Papa can be serious about their behavior without beating them with a shoe (as the mamachakas did).

We ended this long, trying day with a trip to Peet's for cakes, coffee drinks and steamed milk for the kids. At the table, Eamon raised his cup and said, "I have a toast! Thank you Mama and Papa for letting Listening Camp be done. I love you guys!"

Maybe the day was a success after all!