day 11/12/13

I will not dwell too long on day 11, we went to the speech therapist in the morning. It wasn’t a great experience. I don’t know why they asked us to sit in during the session, I thought it was a recipe for disaster and it was. J was defiant, not listening and did everything he wasn’t supposed to do so it wasn’t that beneficial. It was interesting to meet the therapists and hear about the progress he has made and he is continuing to make. We spend a lot of time teaching him how to ask for things and how to pronounce things. We don’t like the; I want, and give me and basically one word orders. So we are very persistent and only give him things when he asks I would like to  or can I please have or Give me please... it takes a lot of patience but it’s working. The rest of the day we just relaxed at the hotel and packed for our trip to Kerala.

So on Friday we headed to the airport. I was stressed because we don’t have a passport yet for him. We did have a letter from the orphanage signed by a notary. He was very excited in the taxi and kept saying we are going with the plane to Kerala. First he said we are flying to Italy! Yes sometimes he thinks he’s moving to Italy. When we got to the airport there was police check before you got in. They kept looking at our passports and asked for his but we said we didn’t have one yet. I think he won them over cause he kept saying Mommy mommy we are going with the airplane to Kerala so they let us through and the same with the check in staff. On the airplane he was excited but after twenty minutes he had enough but he didn’t cry or anything, once we landed he of course wanted to go again on the airplane.

We then had a two hour ride to the resort. Kerala is beautiful, it’s lush and green and very tropical. The small villages we passed although poor, people were very kind and almost all children were on their way home from school in their uniform. Most men wear skirts. It is so nice to be away from Bangalore.  The resort is very luxurious, they have staff for everything including sweeping the lawn. The lawn gets cut by hand with garden shears! On Tuesday a friend is coming to visit and we will travel around the area a bit more.

I haven’t really talked a lot about how other people “react” to us as a family. Some people here give us really angry looks, as if we are stealing India’s children but other people have been very positive. Some even go as far as asking us why we adopted and saying how wonderful they think it is. If only more Indian people would adopt and give those kids a happy home.

So today we had a relaxing day with lots of swimming, he is making real progress with that. We are now able to let go of the water board or he will “swim” from mommy to daddy and back without having to hold him all the time. We still have a lot to do before he can swim but daddy loves teaching him how to swim. He did fall into the water today which gave him a bit of a fright but apart from some crying he was fine. In the evening we did a one hour boat trip which he was very excited about and after we watched the sunset together.

I think his anger tantrums are over. I do still discipline but he tends to cry now and when we give it another go it goes well. He needs a lot of reminding and often refuses to listen but I don’t think this is just typical for adopted children, I know a few other kids like that!

We are going to enjoy Kerala for a week, it is truly a small piece of paradise....