Snippets of Conversation

James: Patrick, computer .....
Patrick: James, it needs charging, it's low on batteries. BAAA-TER-EEEES.
James: Patrickkkkk, computer!
Patrick: BAAAAA-TER-EEEEEES!
James: Patrick, you owned!
Patrick: No, YOU owned!
James: Patrick pookala [pass gas]. POOOOO!
Patrick: No, James pookala!
(These last two you can play on a loop as long as you like)

Rosie: Julie -- M and I are going out sledding. Wanna come?
Julie: No. Julie, Mommy.
[Julie's sentences resemble addition word problems, where she strings together a bunch of words as though adding them all up]
Julie: Mama? Julie, Mommy, macheena, storya. Yes?
Me: No, Julie, not right now. Nee see ches.
Julie: Mama? Julie, Mommy, help, mmmmmm, oojin? Mmmmm, dinner?
Me: Yes, Julie, you can help me make dinner.
Julie: Owww!
Me: Julie, maybe if you give Mom some space (gesturing like a crazy person), I won't step on your foot when I turn around.
Julie: yaneepaneemyou [I don't understand].

School on the Run

Seemed like a simple plan when I made it. Clear the morning calendar. Make a nice space in the dining room for ESL (English as a Second Language) lessons. Every morning, get the other kids on the bus, then sit down with James and Julie and proceed to teach them English. Follow each well-taught lesson with a trip to the barn together for chores, and then a stroll down our country lane, pointing out the English words for familiar items such as fence, tree, goose. Throw a few bluebirds twittering around our heads and you get the picture.
Yeah. Well. That's happened all of like, twice. More commonly, we're picking one of the kids up from school to run them to the doctor or orthodontist, going to the grocery store for the third time in a week, schlepping out to the social security office for more paperwork, or any one of the myriad of things that keep popping up to fill these new gaps in my calendar.
So usually we have school on the run, as we listen to ESL CDs in the car or I point out things while we're driving around, like truck, bus, train, etc. Skojit "hobo". One drawback to this method is that I'm about to lose my friggin' mind. If I have to listen to this Bryan Adams wannabe and his cheesy accompanying musicians sing "What's Your Name" or "Supermarket Sally" one more time I am going to leap out the window and start playing in traffic. But the kids love it. "Mom, Mom, What's Your Name. Please? What's Your Name." OK. One more time ....
Another occupational hazard to being in the position of ESL teacher is that I've come to resemble a silent movie actor in my manner of speech. As I point out a new word to them, I am striving with every nuance of my facial expressions and body language to convey its meaning. Imagine, if you will, my melodrama as I teach by charade the words happy, or angry. While it seems helpful during the lessons, it's gotten to be a hard thing to switch on and off. I might say to someone, "I like your shirt (sweeping my arm up and down across my torso to indicate shirt). It's pretty (with a stupid happy face on). It's red (might gesture to several red things at this point)". They just look at me and I know what they're wondering. Where's her 'special helmet'?

Daniel

Daniel. The baby of the family. The red-headed monkey. For as long as he's been on this earth, Daniel has been making people laugh. He definitely has a gift for story-telling, and will captivate his audience du jour with his vocabulary and creativity when spinning his latest yarn. He has the need to pace when he talks, so be prepared to get dizzy as you watch him walk round and round the table while his eyes sparkle, his dimples deepen, and his tongue waggles. Not sure how it's possible, but he seems to grow more freckles as he talks.

Besides creative story-telling/writing, Daniel is also a gifted artist and never ceases to amaze me with his artwork of knights, soldiers, dragons, maps. He can play for hours, with only himself for company, creating set-ups with his army guys, his Playmobil castles, blocks, or whatever he has on hand at the moment. Or I'll see him in some corner of the house, wearing a mask and cape, wielding a sword against some unseen enemy, keeping the house safe from imminent danger. His imagination is bottomless, and his ability to tap into it never fails to enthrall me.

He, like his brother Patrick, has provided me with quite the challenge over the years when it comes time for discipline. A parents prized possession is the privileges we allow our children to enjoy. But because Daniel has such an incredible ability to use his imagination as a source of entertainment, we can remove every fun modern kid magnet from his world and he's still good to go. No X-Box? No problem. No TV? Doesn't put a hitch in his stride. Time-out? Plenty of fun material in that brain of his to keep him entertained for a good long while.

But it all adds up to one interesting little package. Each day with Daniel is a new adventure, and I always look forward to seeing what's in store for the day when he's around.

Julie

Julie is the most recent addition to our family, and 5th in birth order. There are 7 months separating all three girls, which means that life as we know it should be kicked up a notch in a few years when they are all teenagers. As you probably all know, I didn't know a thing about this girl till the day I met her in late Oct 2008. How she ever kept herself contained, sitting primly and quietly on her chair as all the grown-ups prattled on about procedural stuff, I'll never know. She had passed the years 2001 - 2008 in two different orphanages, just life as usual, when all of a sudden Fred and I show up and they tell her, these people want to adopt you and take you to live with them in America. MinistryofEducationOfficialsayWHAT? She was kinda like, uhhh, OK. But it seemd more of a question than a statement. What it was was a gigantic leap of faith. And it's a leap I'm glad she was willing to make.

She is one of the most vivacious, fun-lovin' little gals I've ever met. She's always laughing, and if she still has a bit of a shell to come out of, I have to say it makes me nervous. She has an uncanny knack for comprehension, piecing together bits of language, facial expressions, and context so that she pretty much has known what we've been saying to her from the day she came home.

She loves pink and red, dogs and horses, running and riding her bike. She also loves to tease James and then play the part of the innocent, turning big doe eyes at me when he accuses her of name-calling. I look forward to knowing her more and more each day. I love her to pieces already and can't wait to see the person she will become.

Rosie

Middle-of-the-bunch before we began adopting, Rosie is sandwiched between her two bio brothers. I believe this, in part, along with the crazy genetics she inherited, helped form her personality which can best be described as bulldog meets sweet pea. As a toddler, if there was something she wanted, I would see her set her jaw, squint her eyes, and march right on over and make it happen, Clint Eastwood style. This is probably also why she loves being goalie on her soccer team. She looks at that ball and just dares it to even think about approaching her goalie box. If it does, she'll jump, dive, leap, stretch and kick till it's outa there. And yet her teachers, year after year, have described her as a sweet, kind eager learner, always taking the initiative to help other students. Consistently a straight-A student, she's also a talented drummer and loves to choreograph dance numbers to her favorite music. She gives new meaning to the expression "Daddy's Girl" and she lights up the second he walks in the door. Anyone ever messes with her Poppy, they're gonna have to answer to her. So she's pretty cool. Smart, kind, beautiful, athletic, loving.
So what if she's a bit ..... gassy.....?
It's a point of pride with her, actually. She can rapid-fire burp if she's had the privilege of enjoying a soda and she'll challenge any takers to surpass her numbers. As to the gasical stylings of her preference, I won't share with you the details. Just suffice it to say she takes pride in her work and keeps her friends and family rolling their eyes and trying to suppress their giggles. But that's a hard thing to do when she starts filling the house with her laughter. Perhaps she's not roses to our noses, but her laughter is music to our ears.

Bella

Third by birth order but fourth to join our family, Bella is quite possibly the sweetest child on earth. As my sister says, she is a muffin. A love muffin that could cuddle with you all day and not tire of it. She is observant and nurturing and bright .... in her own way. She also has a learning disability as well as a speech impairment, but she doesn't let those things slow her down. What she lacks in ability she makes up for in effort and eagerness, and is generally an honor roll student, witht he help of her loving teachers and learning support staff. Her tastes in playthings/entertainment have matured considerably in the last couple years. Where she loved playing with Barbies and babies and kitchen, she now prefers her DS and her iPod and watching the shows required of all preteen girls, like Hanna Montana, Zoey 101 and HS Musical.

Sadly, as she and her school peers get older, they are beginning to notice differences more and pull away. Although it bothers her for the "pop-a-lar girls" to treat her badly, she has never let it destroy her world, and still has a smile on her face and love in her heart when she goes off to school. Don't know how long she'll be able to not let it get to her, but I'll continue to talk to her about it and support her through it the best I can.

She's a paradox on two legs. She would be a couch potato if I let her, and yet she's definitley got athletic talent. She's great at gymanstics, dancing, and ice skating (the latter she is taking lessons for currently). She's also quite a good shot with the basketball, though it's funny to see this little shrimp of a girl so accurately sink the ball through the net time and time again.

She still loves her homeland of Kazakhstan, and her trip there with us in 2008 was probably the highlight of her 11 years. She has some fond memories of orphanage life, where she spent her first almost six years, but she can remember some pretty traumatic events, too. Perhaps because of that, there is still not a day that goes by that she doesn't appreciate just about everything, and she relishes life. Each day I learn from her. She is truly one of my role models.

James

James (Borya) is our second child by age, but 5th by order of joining our family. I met him in August of 2003 during the bonding period while adopting Bella. I was taken with him from the beginning, with his quiet manner, his way of taking everything in with his soulful eyes. I remember him as a kind, generous, helpful boy who seemed so much older than his 8 years. On my first day in the play yard, with Bella in my lap and a million other kids swarming around, he quietly asked me, leaning over my shoulder, if I would find him a Mama too. That's the moment he took up residence in my heart, and I vowed I would find him a Mama. I just had no idea at the time it would be me.

So, as the story goes, we lost track of him, then found him again, then developed a relationship with him through correspondance, then finally learned we could adopt him. And adopt him we did, five years after meeting him. When I met him again in 2008, he was just as I remembered: quietly observant, artistic, kind, helpful, generous, bright.

I still sometimes feel like I'm living in a dream when I realize he is home with us, part of our family. A dream that was started in a dirt play yard on a hot August day halfway around the world so many years ago. Borya. A dream come true .....