Great time of the year

I like cold weather but I also love green.  In California it is green in the winter and dead in the summer.. in Virginia it is the opposite.  If I ever win the lottery I'm going to have to get a place to live on both coasts.  Things are warming up very quickly here and today we are supposed to get some huge thunderstorms... I love thunderstorms and it is really early.... 70degF.  Sorry to rub it in for those in Ukraine right now but what you are doing is WELL worth it!!

The bulbs are sprouting, the buds on the trees are just starting to open, the grass is looking a tad bit green, birds are coming back, and it is still generally in the 50s.  It is time to think about the garden, fertilizing, landscaping, and that chicken coop I've been wanting to build.  Of course figuring out the budget for it, hosting, and an adoption trip is another story.

Today is Melissa's first day at work for 3months.  I must say she's been living it up sleeping in, facebooking, etc... but no one is happier for her to be going back to work than she is.  I do have the house to myself again when I'm working which is nice too :)  Melissa's work was very generous in letting her be gone... they are a small company so they don't have to do FMLA but they have a policy they updated to include adoption for her which is close.  The one kicker is that she had to decide up front exactly how much to take so with all the uncertainties she had no choice to pick the full 12wks.  She would have preferred to have headed back 2-3wks ago... and of course since it was contiguous time there wasn't an option to come back for the wait and work a week.

So this is generally a blog about Dennis... this weekend Sam and Ashley had "assignments" that they were procrastinating on so they didn't get to do much outside church and a party we had at our house Saturday evening.  On Saturday we went to a car dealer to look at a van... which of course turned in a trip to McD's.  The dealer was lame, won't go there again, but Dennis and Amanda did great.

On Sunday we had church, tried to call Snezhana again (no go, phone off, though we did hear she was very friendly and happy with a friend of ours on Saturday), and then Dennis and Amanda headed with me to the other car dealer.  First was a great surprise that the vehicle actually did have cruise control which everyone said it did not and was my one negative about it.  The dealer didn't jerk me around, gave me a good deal, so a few hours later we had a new car.  Dennis did have a little I'm angry pout session.  I asked him if he wanted to bring his DSi into the dealership but he repeatedly said no so we left it.  After his balloon pop'd he wanted his DSi which of course we weren't going to do so at that point he pout'd until we left an hour or so later.  Meanwhile the loan officer has a 17mo girl and 2 kids on the way... Amanda decided he was great fun along with his motorcycle gear.

Afterward we decided to go with the family in the new car to a new Mexican restaurant we really like.  The kids hadn't had fried ice cream before and theirs was REALLY good.

So we have a big ole 2009 Ford E-350 12 passenger van that gets 13mpg... the kids love it.  Dennis came in excited about the BBIIIIGGG car.  With 4 kids that is almost a bench each.  We had to replace the mini-van which was dying and with hosting 2 teenagers this summer and a possible chaperone that exceeded any possibility of fitting everyone in one care.  Last summer when it was just us and Dennis/Snezhana we could squeeze into the mini-van and when we had someone else we just had to take 2 cars everywhere.  Anyways, it'll be nice and when it is just the 6 of us I'll probably remove the back seat for the cargo space.  Though this means that Melissa is driving my RX-8 to work (RIP)... which means we will probably break even gas wise over all since the RX-8 got better gas mileage than the mini-van and the van won't get driven as much.

Ouwies

So last week Dennis had his war with the trike and the hill... this week he and Ashley both ended up with infections.  Ashley's outer ear is all swollen and draining... Dennis, well he has a bad rash.  I think for D it must be not being used to having showers and clean clothes every day :)  Either way both kids made a trip to the doctor on Friday.

We've gone two weeks now being unable to get a hold of Snezhana.  Last week I figured she was busy with the upcoming holiday.  I know she's using her phone so it's just off a lot.  Disappointing, even more so for Dennis who has gotten used to the Russian automatic response when the phone is off... you could see his frustration when it came on.  Oh well... nothing we can do and we'll try again after church tomorrow.

Snezhana should get a package from us hand delivered this week.  We've been blessed by so many people going to that orphanage being willing to take stuff since no other method is successful these days... it's also nice to see so many kids being adopted.

We will be sending our first package and letter to the other girl we are hosting this summer... sent in our rehost application and first payment.  Dennis and Amanda are going with me to look at a 12 passenger van today... preparing for summer hosting and fitting 8+ comfortably with luggage.  They'll be excited... then back home for a party this afternoon with 20ish folks from church that we are hosting (borscht, varenyky).  Looking forward to this weekend.

About time to start working on another letter/pictures to Dennis' Ukrainian gma.

Progress

We are all amazed at how well Dennis is picking up on stuff.  Keep in mind he was in 3rd grade in Ukraine but couldn't count past 3, didn't know his alphabet, and got his colors mixed up.  There are a lots of interesting twists we find in communication/learning with him not being able to read -- I previously noted about the Russian translator program for the Android which will speak the Russian translation, that is still helpful daily.  He's now only really been in school (public school) 2wks.

Yesterday, Dennis started naming off all the English words he knows and Ashley wrote them on our white board.  We couldn't fit them all... and I was surprised at how much he's picked up.  The teachers haven't even started him on vocabulary yet.  This week he started trying to communicate back more rather than just responding with yes/no all the time.  I also started to get him working on complete sentences for the basics... "May I have water please" instead of "Water please".

Last night a friend came over for borscht (see other post) and was impressed by how well he's progressing on his English.  She had him count and he made it to 15 without a hiccup... the best he'd done for me was 12 so I was doubly impressed.  He still struggles with his colors and his first answer is often wrong (blue or pink nearly always)... but if you sit there and make him think he tends to get it right for red, yellow, and blue which were last week's focus colors.

It is really good to see him progressing so well... we had thought that most of his issue was opportunity and people working with him.  We are very glad this is proving out correct.

Melissa got an appointment in early April with a team of specialists in Baltimore.  They'll bring in a Russian translator and do a full evaluation of his issues... it'll be nice cause we currently have to balance between what we do and do not believe from the cursory evaluations in Ukraine as well as some stuff that is in English and what we can make out of it being in Russian.

Speaking of medical, Melissa had a "nice" conversation with BCBS insurance last night as they sent us a letter saying that Dennis would not be covered for pre-existing conditions for a year.  Of course my first thought was to think "fine, he's never been seen by anyone that the US considers an accredited doctor so he has no diagnosed pre-existing conditions"... anyone who works with me long enough knows that is one of my methods in avoiding time wasting obstacles in the [often] giant bureaucracy I work at.  I was pretty sure their assertion was bogus and sure enough we found the 1996 act which confirms adoptions, just like births, are exempt from the pre-existing exclusion if added to the policy within 30days.  The funny part was I also found the same reference to the act on their own website.  They of course didn't admit they messed up and acted like they were doing us a favor when they manually changed the record to make an "exception" for him.

Borscht

When we hosted last summer we had a chaperone stay who makes great borscht.  Snezhana helped her cook and I watched just cause it was neat watching S cook (she was pretty excited with helping) and I learn by seeing.  I really liked it and enjoyed the borscht I had in Ukraine though it honestly wasn't as good.

The chaperone had given us the recipe and I decided that I would try it last night.  Dennis loved it... he was smiles the entire time eating it.  So despite my other 3 kids not being too happy with it, all but one tried it... but I figure if Dennis liked it I must have done alright.  Our guest took some home and my wife & I liked it... my wife actually asked me to make it Saturday for our party (supper 8 with folks from church).  I'm going to make some varenyky which Dennis definitely likes from looking at pictures... probably with potatoes.

Anyways, the recipe I got had a few holes in it so I figured I'd post what I actually did since it wasn't a disaster.  It took 3hrs to make though 2hrs of that was just having the pork boil in water.  Many of you reading the blog have kids from eastern Europe and might enjoy it also.  We served with garlic rolls which I admit I cheated and bought from the store... I'll make fresh ones when I actually don't have to work the day I make it :)

2lbs pork (thick sliced boneless or pork chops with bone)
8-10 potatoes
1 28oz can of crushed tomatoes
2 14.5oz cans of sliced beets
1 yellow onion
2 large carrots
half sweet red pepper
half head of green cabbage
fresh dill (or dried if fresh unavailable)
sour cream

Place pork in 8qt pot and fill slightly over half way with water.  Bring water to boil and then let simmer for 2hrs.

Cube potatoes and place in pan with water and pork.  Add salt.

Thinly slice onion and cook until golden in a 2qt pot or very large pan with a small amount of vegetable oil.  Once golden add thinly sliced carrots and red pepper.

When the carrots and pepper are cooked, thinly slice the beets, and add the beets and tomatoes.  Cook 10min while periodically stirring.

Add vegetable/tomato mixture to the pork/water.  Chop the cabbage and add that with the dill and some black pepper.  Cook 10min or until boiling while periodically stirring.  Verify the potatoes are properly cooked before serving.

Serve in bowls with sour cream.


NOTE: Our Ukrainian host girls wanted to dice everything instead of slice which made a more consistent soup.  In having spend nearly 2mo in Ukraine and ordering borscht every where I went, I've never seen it diced... but it is a variation if you want to try it.

Bill 7496

So my primary contact hadn't heard of the bill but reiterated an expectation that Ukraine will go Hague sooner than later.  The bill doesn't seem to mention "Hague" explicitly but the title to describe what it is preparing for is exactly the same as the Hague convention title.  The Bill and comments seem to make little fanfare about what it is doing.  Oddly the Bill reduced my concern since it paves the way to put in place an intercountry agreement that the US is already party to.  Will just be praying that they can do a nice smooth transition if it happens.

Anyways, we start our second dossier in April with an updated home study.  I noted the I-800a requirements are nearly identical as the I-600a.  In our case our home study agency is Hague accredited and actually does mostly Hague home studies... since California is the only state that we lived in >5yrs ago and they don't do the background checks (some states don't) the main thing we'd have to change is to attend the 8hrs of training.  We are going to talk to them about making sure we do anything extra we can do to make a conversion to a Hague home study be quick.

We also already use an adoption agency on the US side who does adoptions from Hague convention countries... so we should be reasonably ok there.  Basically we are making sure we understand what a conversion means as best as possible to be prepared but not sweating it... the timing and outcome isn't ours anyways.

(no subject)

Blogs need to have untitled comments to be posted to them.  Still no vote scheduled on 4313 through March 18th.

Dennis vs the trike

So today was great weather... I was out in my shorts and a t-shirt while I could sneak time between meetings.  Dennis went out with Ashley and road bikes.  Dennis has this big boy trike from summer that he loves.  He's SO much stronger now with his legs, having no issue starting himself with the pedals, steering more smoothly, and just moving faster.  He went out of our cul de sac and when he was called back he decided to stand up and turn his trike around while straddling it.  He fell... which he does a lot but this time he was of course standing next to the steepest embankment in the neighborhood.  The neighbor actually ties a rope to the lawn mower and lowers it down.

So Dennis and the trike go tumbling down and he catches a rock in the eye at the bottom.  He's gonna have a good shiner tomorrow.

Dennis doesn't handle real hurt like this well.  The normal simple spills, needles at the doctor, etc are no issue at all.  I'm not sure how that behavior developed in Ukraine.  So Ashley helps him out of the gully and starts taking care of him.  Then he starts running to the other side of the cul de sac and part way up a driveway... no idea at all why, it is the neighbor's house.  When Ashley catches up to him and tells him to sit he falls on his back against the hill (intentionally) and then starts crying and refusing to be consoled.  At this point Ashley is trying to give him an ice pack and starts crying herself cause he won't let her help.  Through the tears she's trying to tell me it is the trike of death and needs to be destroyed... I'm quite sure he'll be back on it tomorrow.

When he cries like this it is kind of like when he's mad.  He doesn't want to be bothered or helped, he'll cover his eyes for hours, and just curl up into a ball.  I held him for quite some time but he wouldn't eat and I had to force feed him some medicine, water, and to use an ice pack.

This picture was actually after I got him to open up for a little while and his eye looks better than it is.  I tossed him in the shower and then jumped in to help him wash up.  After a while he found that amusing -- I'm sure me tickling him had something to do with it too.  He ended up back upset later after saying good night to mom... I'm sure he'll be fine by morning but will just look half raccoon.

The rest of this week was uneventful.  He can count to twelve... keep in mind he couldn't count past three in Russian.  He's starting to get the hang of red ("vred"), yellow ("chellow"), and blue which was the goal for the week.  I had been concerned he was red/green color blind as he wasn't very good at colors in Russian and in English everything was blue or pink... but I tested him with one of the online things and he was quick to point everything out.  Now that he's actually getting the colors we should be good.  I suspect some of this is that he's never been asked to learn before so it's taking him a while to understand how to learn, pay attention, and people will actually keep on him to tackle it.

Family Announcement

Figured most of you probably haven't seen a picture of the family.  We had family portraits done and Melissa did a great job of getting these made.

New favorite holiday

Dennis came off the bus even happier than normal shouting VALENTINES.  Apparently getting cards and candy from classmates and pretty girls is quite the holiday.  He's been very pleased all afternoon talking about his valentines and wanting to show mom and dad over and over.

CoC Arrived

Dennis' Certificate of Citizenship arrived today.  That's really cool... I'll have to show him and try to explain today when he gets home.  Good timing as I was wanting to register him with the Ukraine Consulate but really wanted proof he "belonged" in the US before we did so.  I do find it funny the document says it can't be copy, printed, or photographed.

So 3 kids Dennis knows are being adopted right now.  We enjoy looking at their pictures, naming them (and whoever else is in them) and then praying for them at bed time.  He's really excited about it.

Another funny thing is our ginormous 80lbs hound/boxer (Gus) and Dennis get along great.  Keep in mind Gus weighs 35lbs more than Dennis does.  Gus likes to curl up at the foot of his bed... maybe it's cause Dennis doesn't wiggle, is small so there is lots of bed left, and Dennis likes to keep his heated mattress pad really warm.  This morning I found Dennis awake and laying on Gus with his arms around him smiling.

We had our IEP kick-off meeting at the school today.  He's able to carry his own lunch tray and apparently everyone in class wants to help him... so much so the teacher has to make them take turns :)  His teacher said he's doing really well.  There will be a lot of testing going on and it'll be interesting to find out what reality is with him medically since the stuff in Ukraine really wasn't detailed.

Valentines

My wife and I had one of the few date nights in 8 months.  We went to see Harry Potter at the cheap theatre and then to a nice local Mexican restaurant I've been wanting to try.  I really liked the restaurant (two good Mexican places in the east coast so far) and the movie was ok... probably the worst one in the series so far but it wasn't painful to watch.  The company wasn't bad either ;)

With hosting, paperwork, planning, calls to the kids, weekly packages, saving money, and actually adopting there haven't been many opportunities though a friend of ours has been gracious to offer to help.  Tonight we had a babysitter that Dennis knows from summer swim lessons.  She paid special attention with him this summer and he really likes her.  When we said she was coming he made swimming motions and repeated her names... *very* happy and remembered her after 8mo.  Sounds like they all did well and the kids managed to convince her bed time was 9p :)  Apparently Dennis "went to bed" with a play phone and pretended to talk to me on it for quite some time to the annoyance of Sam.  When he heard me come home I heard him talking REALLY loud to me but still pretending to use the phone.

Dennis has gotten a kick out of the picture of Amanda and me from our Father/Daughter dance on Friday night.  My oldest daughter decided it was "EWWW" so didn't come.  Dennis keeps talking about daddy dancing.  He made mention of daddy and mommy dancing when we talked about us going out.  "Dancing" with a 7yr old is pretty much all I've got in that arena.  Dennis is going to LOVE father/son camping in May.

Otherwise today, the boys and I went shopping and got mom two bouquets of flowers for Valentines.  We called S and she spoke mostly in English with minor chit chat.  She told us she is coming for summer hosting... which we of course knew but we liked hearing it from her and wanted her to tell Dennis.  He was quite happy and so are we.

Summer Hosting

Those of you that have been reading this a while will know that summer hosting has been a topic with some consternation.  This is because we have choices but in the end the outcome is mostly out of our control.  I've gotten really used to having no control and completely relying on God the last few months... obviously one of the lessons I was supposed to exercise through all of this.  My wife could go into my "evil plans" that I'm always hatching and that I like to be in control... so let's just say I'm sure I need some practice.

Anyways, no surprise... we want Snezhana to change her mind and come be our daughter.  After she said no, she and the Director gave the "host me again" line.  At the time it was a tough topic for us with a lot of hurt but we did decide we needed to even if just for the sake of Dennis.  When Melissa left the orphanage for the last time with Dennis, Snezhana did say wholeheartedly that she wanted to go for summer hosting but then 4 days later she said she did not with the same "brainwashed" words she SMS'd us about Dennis the day Melissa picked him up ("No want to go to America").  So we've been praying a lot over her and Dennis has been excited to do so also... he smiles so big as he lays there when we get to pray for the people on his list -- which he adds to nightly and tonight we added Ksenia.

Soon after Snezhana said no, we found out about another young teenage girl and both Melissa and I were drawn to her.  Ironically Melissa got to meet her in Ukraine the same night Snezhana said she didn't want to be hosted for the summer.  We had actually already been talking... do we want to adopt two teenagers, what if, what if, what if...

  At this point I'd learned the lesson well that God has been teaching me... we both desire to grow our family through adoption, know that God instructs us to take care of orphans, have adoption mirrored in our salvation, are able to adopt, and this girl is placed in our path who we are both drawn to... so basically keep moving forward until all the doors are closed or we cross the goal line.  So it was pretty easy for me to decide to just move forward and let God work out the details... Melissa followed shortly after.  We actually had this topic come up in our Sunday school class but I was a bit too choked up just asking to pray about Snezhana's hosting decision on Monday to speak up in class.

... so back to the other girl.  She got along great with Dennis and was very sweet, amazing considering she had probably been awake for over 24hrs traveling.  Everything we have been told is she is a sweetheart and would be a very good fit for out family -- with or without Snezhana.

Monday was Snezhana's day to decide... I honestly was completely prepared and expected her to say no.  Suddenly we heard she probably said yes and it was confirmed later.  I will now stand up as a man and say I wept like a baby.  Ok... so enough of that... she was told clearly by the director and translator that her decision must be final whichever way she answered.  Still, lots of pressures before she leaves and we'll be continuing to pray for her every day.  We haven't fully told the kids yet but we'll have to make sure they aren't to badger Snezhana about being adopted.  But anyways... great news... and certainly a necessary step to maintain the relationship with Dennis and leave open the possibility to be adopted.

So with the other girl who I'll just refer to as "H" since "other girl" is starting to bother me.  She was asked today or yesterday (it's a blur) and she said she wanted to come too.  So this is double great.  We will start sending her packages like we do S soon so she can get to know the family.

Now we have a bunch of problems I am happy to have...
* How do we deal with the room situation... I'll just leave it that we have a 5 bedroom 4.5 bath house with a guest room but it's more complicated than you'd think.
* Do we get the new used van, rent a van, or deal with two cars... I'm thinking getting the new van despite the pocketbook pain.
* When do we start the new homestudy, when do we submit the dossier... a million questions here.
* One of the hard parts is the interesting dynamic... H wants to be adopted but doesn't know us except for a brief time at the train station with Melissa, S has said no to adoption, D is S' brother, S knows the family already... we will have to make sure no one feels left out or at odds as best we can... there is enough of us to go around :)
* We have to communicate something before hosting and early in hosting to both S and H to make sure they aren't surprised by each other.  We aren't supposed to talk about adoption to H.  Everyone here knows... our intention is to adopt both so there is no competition here.  That will be an evolving topic.
* We plan to attend the "local" Russian speaking Christian church in the afternoon after our home church in the morning (church, lunch, church).  Will make for a long Sunday but we think that for the teenagers the social aspects and realizing they aren't "alone" in America is key.
* S will have some friends in the East coast of the US that we'd like to be able to visit -- again not "alone" -- so that will take some arranging.

I think this is enough for now :)

Family Portraits are available for online viewing!

Conversation

So part of me wonders in what detail I should keep blogging.  It is possible that some of D's relatives actually have found this... I guess with Google translate they might be able to read enough to make sense of it.  At some point I'm sure Snezhana will know enough English and I'd like her to read the entire thing from start to end.  Dennis certainly will in not too long.  Anyways, I've decided that any negative of what relatives could do is already past and I can only hope there is an opportunity for positive.

Our first letter to Ukraine grandma will go out this week... it isn't very long and just starts the conversation that we expect to be one-way.  We are also going to try to send Snezhana another package though since she has not received anything we have sent from Ukraine or the US in the past two months we are pretty certain someone on her end is filtering it.  We'll probably revert to sending a letter and pictures only via mail and if we know someone traveling there we will ask they take a package.

Dennis has been missing Snezhana and today he wanted to talk to her even though we just called her yesterday.  We caught her washing laundry and had a good conversation.  Dennis was showing off some of his new English words.  It was funny that he would actually talk to her in English more than in Russian (I love you, Snezhana America, School bus, shovel, etc).

We recorded the conversation just so we can understand what is being said.  I'm not really worried about her saying anything bad to him but having the recording allows us to give to a translator to remove all question of what is said as well as giving us an important perspective as to what he's thinking.  S asked D if he missed Ukraine to which he said yes, S said he shouldn't.  S asked if D wanted to go back to Ukraine to which he said no, S said that he shouldn't as it is much better for him here.  S told him to make sure to listen to us and to work hard in school.  So she was being a good big sister.  He asked her to come to America to which she said "we will see, ok?" -- I asked later about summer hosting and got similar indecisive responses.

I did find out some answers to out list of people D asks us to pray for.  Last night he listed Dana (teacher?), Ma***, and Snezhana.  He added Snezhana's friend O and "K'susha" to the list -- which could be one of the adults we know or another kid.  During the call Snezhana's friend T got on the phone to say hi... she's pretty out going and even called us the weekend we arrived in Kyiv when she heard we were there.  Well Dennis referred to T by her full name and the Ma*** name is her last name -- we noted the kids at the boarding school refer to each other by full or last names a lot.

In the next couple of days she'll probably get asked about summer hosting... that question for her will be essentially the same as asking if she wants to see Dennis ever again.  We pray she'll say yes, but I can say that the answers she is giving are the same sort she has given when being pressured to say no before.

Anyways... should go and the superbowl party isn't too long from now.  Dennis just showed me how to fix his new toy with my car keys... smart, I didn't think of that.  So metal plate bent properly and now it's working great.

Sweet kids

Last night D added two people to his list of people for us to pray for.  One is Dana (sp?) who I think is a teacher in one of the pictures we saw of O signing paperwork.  Another is Ma*** -- yes, I couldn't pronounce it then either and D wasn't helping :)  I have no idea why she (?) was on his mind but we prayed for her too.

Today we are off for family portraits.  Melissa and I have a disagreement over what is required to pay $300 for a picture to hang over the fireplace.  The current one is fairly formal and coordinated.  We didn't realize until last night that we had a disconnect so we'll get pictures and have to see if we agree they are ok for the formal picture.  I guess if I didn't want us looking like red necks I should have not chosen to head over to West Virginia for the pictures... ok, it's not that bad :)

Time to try to call Snezhana right before we leave.

First week of school

Hold on to your hats... it has been a good week :)  Dennis went to school 3 days this week.  One day was closed for  weather that never happened and he was sick the other.  Dennis loves school and leaves/comes off the bus with smiles each day.  Apparently his classmates think he is fun and he's well liked.  I can image having more kids around (there are like 80 2nd graders where there were about 80 kids in his entire boarding school), getting the 1:1 attention, and people putting effort into him for his education has to be nice.

Dennis finally getting to ride his bike.  He's been asking since his first day here.

On the bus... he sits near the front and they let Ashley sit with him to help.  Ashley has also been requested to pick him up and drop him off at his class, at least until he knows enough English to ask if he gets lost :)  One day the bus driver asked me if he was allowed on the bus as I don't thing anyone told her about the "new kid" and his siblings tell her Dennis was their new brother wasn't apparently believable enough.

Ashley on roller blades chatting with Sam.  Amanda is hiding in the snow somewhere off camera.

Dennis teacher has apparently decided Ashley is a reliable communication mechanism to us.  I'm actually really proud of Ashley... she's being a great big sister.  The feedback on how he was doing came through Ashley, she's his escort, and when the teacher asked for us to review his ABCs with him she asked Ashley to do it.  He didn't even have a problem stopping listening to music and playing his DSi to practice.  At first I was a little upset that we heard nothing from the teacher but I'm ok that he's doing well enough that she has nothing to report.

Amanda poised to attack.

Melissa got a bit tired of the default DSi songs so I grabbed an ancient 32MB (yes MB) SD card I had in a drawer and put 3 Toby Mac songs on it for him (ones I had bought).  He loves them so I'm going to have to get a bigger SD card for him... and Sam has requested such too.  Just wait until he sees I can put pictures on for him too.

Oh yeah... helmet.  Knew we forgot something... a helmet on a trike, ugh.
My sister-in-law will be happy to know we keep him in a booster seat
due to his size... yes, a 10yr old in a booster.

Last night was neat... well, he decided to spend like 45minutes in the shower which wasn't so neat.  But I can't really blame him... but the neat part was bed time prayers with the boys.  Normally we pray for the family, the boys, people we know in Ukraine (like O this week), and his sister Snezhana.  We've told the kids it is ok to pray that S will change her mind but not to bring it up on the phone calls... when I mentioned praying for Snezhana he said Violetta and "Lalik" (he's pronunciation of Yarik, his brother's nickname).  This is the first real indication that he understands what we are doing and he's engaged.

Today we got a couple of new pictures of Snezhana so I showed him those.  There is this "Russian Translator" application for the Android which is fantastic.  You can speak/type english and it will translate to Russian both in cyrillic and phonetic.  It will go in reverse too though you can't just speak Russian to it.  The big thing for us is that it will speak the Russian text and of course I have my phone with me all the time.  It speaks well enough that Dennis clearly understands.  I told Dennis that I love and miss Snezhana and asked if he did too... he said he missed her and with a big smile said he loves her too.  She's got some hard choices to make really soon... we'll keep praying for her and for her relatives.  Tomorrow we'll try to call her since all the kids are home.

We also looked at a blog on someone Dennis knows from Ukraine and her [new] mama and papa... he got a kick out of that.  Melissa and I are still working out and praying about another dossier and timing.  Even after all the craziness and heartache we had we still feel we need to adopt again from Ukraine... we'd have to do it all to go back for Snezhana if that happened to work out but, even if not, we still keeping moving forward as there are other plans for our family.

On a completely unrelated note, there are people from over 12 different countries reading the blog.  I understand United States, Ukraine, Canada, and India as we have many friends and colleagues there.  Even Latvia makes some sense... want to say hi to the people from the UK, Norway, New Zealand, Chile, Brazil, Mexico, Germany, Sweden, and a half dozen other countries.  To let you know 43% of the people reading this use IE, 24% use Safari (lots of Mac and iPhone users), and 22% use Firefox.  The next highest is Chrome with 5%. Anyways, as an IT guy I was interested.  We had one person get to us with a search on "snezhana, blog, adoption" which I actually thought to be the most interesting way to get to our blog so far.

Home sick

Someone has been sick pretty much since I got back.  Sam and Amanda got it first and it lasted about a week... I've been trying to kick it for weeks but I suspect the lack of down time has made that hard.  Ashley was miserable for a few days.  We've had a lot of snow days so for the most part it hasn't impacted school.  So now it is Dennis' turn... he's had a low grade fever and been congested since yesterday.

He takes well to the chewable grape junior tylenol and benadryl... he acts noticeably better afterward.  The hard part is figuring out what he wants to eat.  He will eat a little bit of english muffin or bagel with butter but nothing else.  He did eat a good dinner of chicken and rice which I was really surprised... though it was S that really didn't like meats with sweet sauces (odd since we had a lot of that in Ukraine).

I will probably give cooking borscht a try this weekend.  Someone from Ukraine recommended Varenyky as a comfort food.  I showed Dennis pictures on wikipedia and he said he liked the non-sweet ones.  So now to see if one of Melissa's friends has a recipe.  I had to push him to eat half a bagel this morning... but he took his vitamins and medicine without issue.

We discovered this summer that his stability increases when he's taking vitamins.  I am really curious to get some more tests done as B12 can help some people with CP. Until then we'll keep doing what we know works.  I've been really impressed by how he is doing.  This summer, showers were a bit hard and I was thinking I might need to put one of those bars in the shower but he's doing fine.  He can even squat down and stand back up again without support.  I've only needed to help remind him to step on the carpet in the bathroom and not the floor with wet feet so he doesn't slip.

Another test has been his new DSi.  He learned to do animated slideshows on it with music and has spent HOURS on that.  I'm impressed that he's figured this out without really having any computer experience and not being able to read the buttons.  He's repeated it several times so he definitely gets it.  Physically the test has been him going up/down the stairs with it.  As background, at the orphanage he always had someone's hand where ever he went... and you could see him use it as a crutch... totally not paying attention to actually walking and just making the other person control his fall.  It took a few times before he learned he needed to pay attention but with the DSi folded in one hand and the other on the rail you can't even tell he has CP.

He's working on figuring out the home theatre system and can change between the Wii and the DVD player with no issue -- I may have an issue with it but he doesn't.  The Wii is something I didn't think about as helping him as much as it does... if you've ever used one you'll know that even without stability issues it can be a bear to use the menus and press the right buttons.  It really makes him focus and concentrate on keeping steady.  At some point I'll get some time and we'll work on balance exercises and games on Wii Fit.

One of those mornings

I'm not sure why we have school closed but we do.  The prediction for weather is mild and we've had nothing since the last storm.  I think the schools wanted to just round out the last week or so to an even week of closures.  To some extent this was a blessing as we got a chance to have dinner with Uncle Kevin who we haven't seen for years... but it was in DC so we didn't get the kids to bed until after 10p.

So getting all the younger kids DSi's had worked pretty well up to this point.  Dennis love's to use it to take pictures of everyone... and the nerf armor has been great.  Amanda's DSi needing to get repaired has also resulted in friendly sharing.  For some reason this morning Dennis decided to horde all the games even though he wasn't playing any of them.  I had the intervene to ask for Amanda's pony game back which he reluctantly did.  Then Sam asked to play one of the other games and Dennis didn't want him to... I tried to explain sharing since they'd done it so well.

At this point Dennis just took all the games and tossed them onto the bed... then curled into a ball pouting.  This seems to be a not uncommon reaction... if he doesn't get enough of his way he throws his hands up and pouts.  We just left him to himself and went about our business -- tough.  He's decided he's not going to eat breakfast either... so he's just being stubborn.  At the boarding school they ate 5 meals a day so it's going to be a long time until lunch.

In less than an hour some of their friends are going to come over so their mom can head into work -- reminder, crazy school closures and Melissa is home on leave.  I suspect that activity will pull him out of his shell again.  The kids really like the table tennis table in the basement we put in this weekend.