1 month home with our angel

My web address has changed, as you can see. It is now http://www.ourlittleangel.org/ rather than ukraineangel.blogspot.com. If you want to do this, go to http://www.000domains.com, buy your own domain, then email me for assistance.


As I read blogs of families currently in Ukraine, it's hard to believe we've been home 1 month. Reading their adventures takes me back. Ukraine is such a beautiful country, with so much history. Perhaps someday we'll return with Yuliya and enjoy the things we missed, under different circumstances.

Yuliya continues to acclimate with our family and we are enjoying her so much. Eliza has been such a huge blessing in making Yuliya feel comfortable and at home. They are proof that opposites really do attract. Although Eliza is 8 and Yuliya is 12, and they are so different, these 2 sisters have developed an inseparable bond. Yuliya is such a shy, timid girl, while Eliza is uninhibited and extroverted. Before this adoption, we were worried that having a new 12-year old girl would be driven crazy by our 8-year old. Eliza tries so hard to be girl-like, but hasn't quite hit that age where she wants to act like one. Well, the combination has actually turned out to work in both girls' favor. For Yuliya, it is pulling her out of her shell and warming her up to neighbor friends. Yuliya trusts her and will not go anywhere without her. For now, Eliza is Yuliya's security blanket in this foreign land. Even if this dynamic changes as Yuliya learns english and meets new friends, this sweet sister friendship has been so sweet and will have lasting impact for both of them. Carrie and I often hear them talking late into the night, even thought there is a language barrier. These 2 somehow manage to talk and communicate for hours. I'm sure a lot of it is Eliza doing the talking, and Yuliya picking up every 10th word. :) There are times when each needs their own space, and each is learning to recognize and respect that.

The swimming pool -- our second home. :)

Yuliya is communicating more and more each day. She is putting words together and tries hard to put her words into English. Sometimes to have some fun, we'll point to an object, tell her what it is in English, then have her tell us what it is in Ukrainian. She laughs and laughs as we totally mispronounce the word. The other day, Carrie pointed to me and asked Yuliya what I was. She started laughing and blurted out 'he's crazy frog dad'. I looked at her and said 'Me crazy frog dad?' That just got her laughing more, then Carrie started laughing, and soon we were all 3 laughing. I'm hoping a crazy frog isn't something too wierd in Ukraine!

Yuliya use third person to describe herself. It's so cute and innocent. When she wants to go swimming (which is practically every day), she comes to one of us and says 'We go swimming?'. For fun, we ask her why, and her reply is 'she likes swimming'. We went to Target to pick out a bike. When she found the one she wanted, she said 'she likes violet bike', referring to the purple bike she wanted. If she likes or dislikes something, it is always 'she likes...' or 'she no likes...'. In the kitchen, we get a lot of 'she not likes...'. We hope this lasts for a little while.

When we had Sasha and Tolik in our home last fall, they ate anything we put in front of them: apples, hot dogs, ramen noodles, bologna, charcoal briquettes, etc. (ok, kidding about the charcoal). However, finding food Yuliya likes has been a real challenge. She is so picky. We took her to the store to pick out anything she wanted, and we ended up with a jar of Nutella, a bottle of baby dill pickels, a Snickers bar, and a 2-liter of Fanta Orange. That's good for my wallet, but not very good for her health. Last night, we had our friends from Ukraine (Lena and Lev) over for dinner and we had them ask Yuliya what she liked to eat. She replied that she does not like to eat. (I wish I had that problem!). I pulled her aside and asked her what she likes to eat. She shrugged her shoulders to say 'I don't know'. I asked her what she ate in the orphanage. She told me the only thing she liked was potatoes, chicken and a little borscht. She explained how they would not get very much to eat in the orphanage, then put her hands on her stomach and collapsed her fingers into a fist to make a shrinking motion. She said 'Me tummy very little. No hungry very much'. So, each day is a learning experience as to what she likes and dislikes, and we hope she isn't going to get rickets or something like that. Part of it is the shock of American food, the other part is that she is the world's pickiest eater, second only to my son Brandon.

One of the trickiest parts of this adoption as a parent has been trying to not live a totally obvious double-standard. Is that possible? To an extent, there has to be concessions made for Yuliya that we would not make for the other kids, and Eliza is quick to pick up on that. Explanations are often futile, and tears are sometimes shed. As time goes on, even after only 1 month, things are getting better and better in that department. Things Yuliya should be learning are often easier taught when we make an effort to correct one of the other kids while Yuliya is watching. For example, the other day we found a bowl of cherries in the family room from Yuliya and Eliza. Eliza knows that food in the family room is a huge no-no. So, rather than try to speak in tongues to Yuliya that we do not eat food downstairs, I pulled them both aside and calmly explained to Eliza that we do not eat food downstairs (especially cherries). I spoke as though it was my first time telling her that. I pantomimed so Yuliya understood. Eliza looked at me like she already knew what I was telling her, and also had a relieved smile on her face that she was not in trouble. This method is one way we are teaching Yuliya without putting Yuliya on the spot and making her feel bad. For me, this and everything else takes a lot of patience and understanding -- something that us men aren't always so good at. Along those lines, the everyday patience I use with Yuliya is a rude awakening for me when I realize how many times I should have solved family problems by exercising the same level of patience with everyone else. It really shouldn't take so much effort for me to a take a breath, count to 10, hold my tongue and control voice volume. In that regard, I am learning a lot about what kind of dad I am and where I need to shape up.

Two important things we've learned: Being an adoptive parent takes patience, understanding, long suffering and the ability to instantly put ourselves into Yuliya's shoes and look at her new world from her perspective. Second, if Yuliya ever seems obstinate or frustrated, it is almost inevitably because of the language barrier preventing her from understanding and/or communicating something. In previous posts, we often compared this adoption journey to a pregnancy, with the labor being when we went to Ukraine, and the delivery when we finally adopted our daughter. So to continue that parable, the first week home was having our brand-new child who was pretty much helpless. With a month under our belt, this time is now comparable to the toddler years where when Yuliya says NO, or ME NO WANT THAT, or ME NOT UNDERSTAND, we try to look at the context of the situation and try to understand rather why.

Pictures:

Yuliya and dad plant flowers for mom. While in Ukraine, the yard pretty much fell apart. After much work, and alot of flowers, it is now 'very pretty', as Yuliya says.

Eliza joining in the fun. We went a little crazy with the flower buying, and we have flowers all over the place. Although it looks nice, it took us all Saturday afternoon and into the night to plant them. My watch in the picture is at 10:30 PM! Even after a month, our sleep schedules are still not quite normal. :-)

Yuliya picked these from our yard and put them on the kitchen table. Later on, her and Eliza wanted to pick out some flowers to grown in their room. We went to Home Depot and they picked out teacup roses. They have really enjoyed taking care of them.

I forgot to post the picture of their finger nails in the last post.

Caleb and his friends at the swimming pool.