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March 2010
Andre has mellowed over the past few months. While he frequently talks about wanting to visit his first adoptive family, he is less depressed about his transition to our family. Andre still struggles with behaviors that challenge us but his tantrums have markedly decreased in frequency and intensity. Andre has been easier to redirect out of his outbursts lately.
School is still a challenge especially since the instructional staff don't have a clear idea how the combination of Andre's diagnoses' effect his school behaviors and academic performance. Despite having a behavior support plan in place Andre continues to get in to power struggles with his teacher. She doesn't understand Tourette Syndrome and the compulsive behaviors that come with the package. My greatest hope is that Andre will find more success in middle school. The good news is, however, that Andre is developing a small circle of friends at school and is beginning to have play dates with them outside of school hours.
Although change is painfully slow at times, I am very proud of Andre for increasing his appropriate behaviors and
developing some nice age=appropriate social skills.
November 2009
Andre continues to struggle with his separation from his first adoptive family. Its hard to explain to any child why he "didn't make it" with a previous family. Of all of the boys I have adopted through disruption, Andre by far has taken this situation the hardest. While he is loving and helpful with me and playful and engaging with his brothers it seems at every corner there is something that reminds Andre of his "old family." At times Andre will state that I "have ruined his life" by "taking him away from his first family." At other times he can be fairly logical in explaining why his personality and challenges weren't a match for his first family. I think this period of time will be even more difficult as we begin the holiday season and the one year anniversary of his placement with our family. I am spending a lot of one-to-one time with Andre in hopes that we can work through his grief together.
July 2009
Andre is very happy summer school is over. He had many meltdowns over the fact that he had to attend summer school. He did get to miss a week of summer school while he went to Camp Paivika. While he didn't want to go to sleep-over camp either, once he returned home all he could talk about was how much the camp counselors "loved him!" I did get some nice reports from camp about Andre's behavior which is always a wonderful surprise! During the August Andre will be going to two more weeks of summer camp, the first and the third week of the month. Already Andre is stating that he doesn't want to go! I am definitely starting to see Andre's pattern of getting anxious before some new activity. He resists everything unfamiliar and I must push him to try every time. Hopefully by next summer Andre will be looking forward to summer camp, I don't think I can expect him to ever look forward to summer school! Follow Andre's daily antics on Twitter.com: AndreTheHelper. Be sure to let us know you are following Andre on Twitteras we block all of the junk and random followers.
March 2009
Andre has been a wonderful addition to our family. He is a fun-loving boys who is full of energy. This month Andre received his Yellow Belt in Tae Kwon Do! He also performed twice with his children's choir. Once at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills! He was quite a hit in his dress shirt and tie. Andre is a good singer and is always willing to try hard during choir practice. Andre is also performing with MYART Children's Theater group.
 Next month Andre and the rest of the actors will perform the play "The Wizard of Oz." Andre is excited going to rehearsals now that he gets wear his costumes! Andre loves to dress-up and is almost always quite dramatic.
December 2008
Andre finally joined our family shortly after Christmas. He was definitely sad to leave Michigan and his original adoptive family. I hope that Andre will settle in quickly. Andre is a great kid. Despite his developmental disabilities and behavior challenges, Andre is loving and caring. Andre is a very sensitive which is making this transition rather difficult. It is clear that Andre doesn't have the significant attachment issues that some of my other kids exhibit. Andre also enjoys being active and I am exploring Tae Kwon Do classes and Special Olympics which we should be able to start after the New Year. I look forward to parenting Andre and supporting him to meet his potential.
November 2008
We are looking forward to Andre (10) joining our
family in early December 2008. Andre was
originally adopted from Romania as a very young
child. He has lived with his first adoptive
family in Michigan for the past seven years.
Unfortunately, due to Andre's multiple
developmental, behavioral and medical issues, he
was no longer able to live with his first
adoptive family any more. Because we have lots
of household help and the ability to provide
eyes-on supervision at home and in the community
it was felt that Andre would be a good match for
our family. We look forward to having Andre join
us just in time for Christmas, Both Alin and
George are also excited about having another
Romanian brother.
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