Ukraine Adoption

An interview with a toddler

We took a few minutes to sit down with 2 1/2-year-old Tara Vika, a US citizen for 6 months, and ask her some questions about her new life, her views of the world, and her new friends.

Q:What's your name?
A: Tara! (pointing to chest)
Q: Who lives at your house with you?
A: Mama! Daddy, Austin! Kitty-Kitty!
Q: How does it feel to be an American?
A: Yeah!
Q: Do you like your pre-school?
A: Yeah! Talia! Loris! (friend, teacher) She's nice.

Q: Who do you like on TV?
A: Barney. Dora.
Q: Do you like to go to the park?
A: Yeah. I swing. I like it. Fun.
Q: Can you tie your shoes yet?
A: I can't do that.
Q: Can you get dressed by yourself?
A: Yeah. I do that.
Q: What toys do you like to play with?
A: Book! I like it. Draw. Cut. I like it.

Q: You are a pretty little girl...
A: I know.
Q: How do you know?
A: I can SEE me!
Q: How can you see yourself?
A: Mirror!

Then and Now

It's been six months since Tara Vika stepped foot on American soil and automatically became a U.S. citizen. Her life changed in an instant. But there have been so many gradual changes since April.
Here are just a few:

Then: Quiet and shy. Now: Very chatty and friendly.

Then: HATED baths and showers, acted like the water was acid on her skin. Now: LOVES baths and showers, insists on one every day before bedtime, sometimes two if someone else is in the shower and she feels she should get another turn.

Then: Shy around her daddy. Now: Runs toward him squealing when she gets home, insists on hugging him every night before bed, walks through the house shouting, "JOHN! JOHN!? JOHN!!" (sounds vaguely familiar to me but I'm not sure why.)

Then: Would point to her mouth to let me know she was hungry or thirsty. Now: Goes straight to the cupboard to find a cup, yanks open the refrigerator, pulls out the milk carton, unless it's too heavy, and brings it all to me. (how's that for a hint?)

Then: Would go to her Grandma for about 1 second and then lean right back into my arms. Now: Asks me every weekend if we are going to Grandma's house. "Gamma? Gamma?"

Then: Loved to get new clothes and try them on, sometimes changing her outfits 2 or 3 times in a day. It was such a new concept to her to have her own stuff. Now: Same! (OK, maybe she is taking after me on this one...)

Looking up

So we're driving to work and school the other morning, me with my hot coffee and Tara with her bagel in the backseat. Sometimes we just move along silently, other times she watches a DVD. But on this day we both felt a little chatty.

I asked her what color was her shirt. Pink, she said. Right! Good! What color are your pants? Red. No, try again. Green! No, they are blue, Tara. Yeah, blue!

How many shoes do you have? Two! How many noses do you have? One! (Impressed yet?)

OK, time to mess with her a little. How many Mamas do you have? Two! No no, you have just one Mama. No, she insisted, two Mamas. Tara, you have one Mama, one Daddy, one brother, I pressed on. NOOOOOOO!!

OK, OK. I give up. I'm your Mama, who is your other Mama? She smiled. "Laura."

Fall is here

I think Tara likes her fall jacket. They are doing all kinds of things with leaves at pre-school.

We will be going to an apple orchard, a Halloween parade and a pumpkin patch in the next few weeks. I will show Tara why this is my favorite season.

Little princess

Can she possibly understand what Halloween is all about? Her brother keeps scaring her with monster masks.

Tara loves trying on costumes. Maybe she will be a little princess. Wait until she sees all of the candy.

Silence in Ukraine

So many families are trying to figure out what is going to happen in Ukraine. They have submitted documents, or they were just about to when the National Adoption Center temporarily suspended accepting dossiers from Americans. But trying to find any updates, any real facts, has been very difficult. People are hearing all kinds of things, but no one seems to really know what is going to happen next, and when. There are no news stories, no updates on the US Embassy Web site, nothing.

There's a family that has been in Ukraine for at least 10 weeks already, trying to get through the confused court system so they can take their new little daughter home. That beats our 7 weeks total (in two trips)!

Meanwhile, while this chaos is going on in her former homeland, our daughter, Tara, has been fitting right in with our family. She snuggles up with us on the couch to watch TV, she insists on hugs from her "daddy" and brother every night before she lets me tuck her in, and she wants to be involved in just about every conversation. Yesterday, she bugged me for hours to go visit Grandma. Who thought she was shy??

Social butterfly

When we saw little "Vika" for the first time in the Ukraine orphanage in February, just days after she turned 2, she would barely look at us, opting instead to cover her eyes with her hands and whimper. She didn't know why she was taken into the doctor's office to meet these big people from a strange land. I wanted to hug her but didn't want to scare her.

After a few daily visits, she mostly stared straight ahead, with no real expression, just blank, clutching a cracker in her hand the entire 2 hours. We wondered: Will she ever get used to us? Will she ever smile? The following week, John imitated her every move. She tried to hide her smile, like an adult with an inside joke. But we saw her teeth! Each day, she opened up more. It always took 10 minutes to get her to warm up and lose the blank face. But then she got downright silly.

We didn't know then that we were getting just a glimpse of the hidden personality of the little girl. Today, Tara Vika is a social butterfly. When we are home on the weekend, relaxing, she gathers up our shoes and drops them on our feet, asking, "bye-bye?" At parties, she happily samples the snacks, wiggles to the music during the commercials, talks to people she just met, and even lets our friends hold her sometimes.

She has a butterly theme in her room; I never knew how appropriate that would be.