Success, in many areas!!!

We have had our first successful post adoption visit, sadly our SW was without a car, so we conducted an interview over the phone, she will come by in the next week or two to observe the kids and us, but she was really impressed!!! We talked for about 45 minutes on the phone, discussing the kids personalities, where they struggle, the eating and sleeping habits, everything about them and their transisiton into the family. We also discussed how Julianna is doing and how we are adjusting to the whole family being larger and more personalities to contend with. It was great ot hear that the things we are doing are good things, and that our trying new methods of parenting with each of the kids is good. Over all she was really pleased about how well we seem to be adjusting, and cannot wait to come over and see the kiddos in all their glory and silliness.
One(of the many) thing that I do worry about with the kids is our philosophy on behavior and reprimands. In the adoption community it is common for parents to avoid "no" in favor of redirecting, or just unspoken "yes", we do not follow this principle at all! I understand the idea and how it applies, basically it states that a child cannot attach to you if you are constantly telling them "no", this I agree with. But the concept of constant redirection, or unspoken "yes's " to me does not work, especially since Julianna would have a totally different set of rules, she knows the rules, and the behaviors that are not acceptable, and to have different rules for the littler 2 makes no sense, and might have caused an uprising. We have very firm rules, and rules that flex slightly depending on the kid, and how they react to certain things, not fair or equal, but right for each kid, and since is not fair or equal I see no need to create a false atmosphere in our house that the world totally negates. My job is to prepare my kids for the best possible survival, and to thrive once they leave home to make their own way, coddling them will not accomplish this goal. We have learned to modify our approach to certain things, and now have 3 very firm rules, that we may have to write down and post, even though Jon and I will be the only ones to be able to read them for a long time!!
We have had success on the Gabriel front too, we have finally reached a method of communication with him, and a method of dealing with his overly sensitive need to be a drama king!! We have a new bed time routine, that incorporates how we deal with his tantrums, and he hates how we deal with those now, so it seems to be working. Gabe just needs to be asked now if he needs a break, and often he calms down from the coming tantrum, and he since he wants us close when falling asleep, we have conceded a bit. When he is good and quiet and lying down we will sit and jiggle his bum(silly sounding but he loves it!!), and then quietly leave, if he fusses and tantrums then he gets a break, not to his liking, so he is pretty good now about it. Yesterday he did not nap at all, but quietly laid in bed talking to himself, all by himself, for over an hour, then fell asleep without any fuss at bed time, so a huge deal for us, it could take upwards of 1 1/2 hours to get him to sleep at night. I have also been able to leave him in his room, with the agate closed, and let the dogs out, or get some coffee(since he is up at the first crack of dawn!), and he can play quietly in his room all by himself, YEAH!!!!! Of course I set him up for success, I put out cheerios, and a juice cup too, and put his fave toys out to find easily to entertain him, and so far so good!!
My only concern is with Amelia, she and I are so much alike that I get annoyed with things she does because they are things about my own personality I am bothered by. I need to work on this, I find that I think about my relationship with her more than the others, worrying over if I show her enough affection, whether I am too hard on her, everything. I just think about our relationship more and it seems to require more care from me, I do not want to try to correct myself in her or being unfairly harsh, I think that I am going to try to set up more time for her and I to do something together, and set her up for success. Maybe we will try baking some cookies, or brownies, or go grocery shopping together, yesterday we did this, and she liked picking out fruit that was perfect for snacks. So I think I will set her up to succeed, swim class will help and so will gymnastics for her self esteem too, so I am hoping that she will do well, and grow. We have been working on her phonics, and she can now sing the alphabet phonetically, not an easy task!! We also worked on thank you cards for the kids dedication and Amelia colored a picture on each card and signed her name too, all by herself, a very good job!!!
So we have had many successes and are feeling like things are really leveling out, we feel a bit more secure, and in control of how things are going, and how the kids will react and whether they can handle different situations.
Well I have to go, it is time for cheerios for the hoard, seriously they could eat the things every day without complaining, so strange!!!
We will post some pics soon, the kids are growing so fast!!!!
love to all, Jamie