Ukraine Adoption

Growing girl

Each day, Tara announces that she has grown. Indeed, she is taller. She has grown nearly 6 inches since we brought her home from Ukraine in April 2005. And, she weighs 30 percent more now. She is still petite, though I am beginning to realize that is just her nature.

She had a wellness check-up today at the doctor's office. The nurse asked her all kinds of things to test her, like what color are my pants? What color is your shirt? She responded, quietly. She asked her if she can stand on one foot. Tara said yes but she wouldn't do it. She asked if Tara can hop. See? Like this? Can you hop? Tara watched her. I nudged her a bit. Go on.

A few seconds passed by. I'm looking at the nurse, shrugging my shoulders, giving her a weak smile. Then Tara proclaimed: "I can hop higher than that!" And she showed us. She wanted to know if Tara can say the ABCs. I said yes, but she gets the LMNOPQ part kind of blurred together (who doesn't?)

Finally, the doctor came in, a gentle man with white hair and a warm smile. You can tell he has worked with little ones for many, many years. Tara immediately relaxed. She did whatever he asked. She watched him carefully and answered all of his questions. Even when we know our child is OK, we still worry about exams. Her heart, lungs, everything is fine. I exhaled. The doctor asked if she gets dressed herself and picks out her own clothes. And how! I exclaimed. She tells me when things don't match, she refuses to wear some things that she just doesn't like. She is very much into her clothes, her appearance.

After the exam, the doctor picked up his chart and he said: "I'm going to write in here that she is very bright."

google this and hello and bye bye.

Finding their children

Some families are in Ukraine now. If you have a moment, check out Amy's story in the column on the right, under blogs. You will see the adorable little girl that they are adopting.

"I can't drive."

Tara's language skills improve every day, it's amazing. The only time we have a little trouble understanding what she is saying is when she is real excited and is telling a story. But sometimes it's the way we use words. Then, it's really our fault!

Today I asked her if she wanted to drive to the park. She replied: "I can't drive."

PS: Please keep all of the adopting families in your thoughts. Some are in Ukraine now, and others are anticipating appointments in the next few months. When my friend gets her appointment, I hope to post a link to her blog here. So stay tuned...

Moon walking

Moon walking
Originally uploaded by lessnau.

My little observer

This morning I was watching Austin walk to the bus stop, and he looked cold, so I ran in and grabbed his sweatshirt. His friend Andrew was walking in front of our house so I ran out and handed it to Andrew and asked him to give it to Austin at the bus stop. I came in the house, and Tara was standing there and she said, "That was nice of him."

We drove by a bunch of big trucks parked near a pile of dirt near a busy road. I said I wondered what they were building now. Tara looked at it: "I think they are maybe building a house," she said.

The director of her pre-school told me today that she cannot believe how much Tara notices about her. "Almost every day, she looks me up and down and tells me what she likes, or asks if my nail polish is new. It's just incredible. I could just be walking by and she'll say something about my skirt. They all have their own little traits, and that's definitely Tara's."

When I get a haircut, she is the only one in the house to notice. But maybe that's because the other two people (and the cat) are males. Hah.

Remember?

I opened a photo album last week and showed Tara some pictures of her in Ukraine in April of 2005. I slowly turned the pages, watching her reaction. She smiled and said, "that's me!" Playing at the park in Kiev, laughing in the apartment, sitting in a stroller in downtown with a balloon in her hand. Then we got to the ones from the orphanage. Do you remember this? I asked. In her picture, her eyes are puffy and her face is pale, she looks frail, tiny, scared. Do you remember? "Yes, I was sad," she said.

Why were you sad? "Because Mommy is at work," she said. "You left me there."

I asked her where she is, in the picture. She tells me she was "at school." I asked her if she remembers a long plane ride. "Yes, with Mommy!" she answered. Where were we going? She smiled. "Ummm, tell me!" So I told her we were going home. Who was waiting for us at home? "Daddy! Austin! Kitty!" Right.

What does she really remember? I'm trying to piece it together. I think she feels that her orphanage days blur together with her pre-school memories now. Maybe that's how she wants to remember it.

She loves to hear stories about when she was "little." Sometimes after a bath I carry her like a baby, and tell her she will always be my baby. She loves to hear that. We tell her that she used to call Austin "Sa sa." She laughs, it sounds so silly to her.

If she sees a family picture from a few years ago that she is not in, she asks why. Sometimes she'll point to something in the photo, like a couch, and tell me that she is hiding behind it. (she was really hiding within our hearts).

Hang on

We're well into September and there are many families waiting to get word about their October appointments at the new adoption center in Ukraine. Could be any day now. Most of them had to update just about all of their documents that expired because the country put the process on hold. How frustrating! But frustration and patience are the key words here. I remember being so driven to get everything done, even when we had to update our documents and wait six months longer than we anticipated to travel. I just don't know how we did it. I look at Tara, I see her sweet smile, I hear her little voice singing in her bed at night in the dark, I smell her little-girl-sweaty hair after a day at the park, I see her small, pink flip flops parked near the front door.

Oh my gosh, you just have to keep the faith!

At the lake

Her little purses are filled with the things that she can gather: keys, a doll brush, tiny plastic fruit. A yellow Matchbox car, some pink lipstick, a tiny green ball. A small stuffed tiger, Dora band-aids, one piece of Trident orange gum from her brother's dresser.

So when I asked Tara to help me pack her suitcase for a weekend at a house on the lake, I should have known better. Before I knew it, her suitcase was filled. (She couldn't quite say it right, she kept calling it a "gooshcase" which made us laugh and beg her to say it again. She obliged, for a while,then she was on to us.) So in her suitcase: two blown up balloons, three stuffed animals...

OK on to the weekend. I took the kids and my niece and we drove three hours and stayed at my brother-in-law's family house on a lake. It amazes me how an internationally adopted child like Tara can adjust so easily to traveling and staying at unknown places. She acted right at home. What a great get-away for us! (Thanks Mike) We had lots of sun and a gigantic raft that held all four of us. Talk about bonding.

We laughed a lot, we slept a lot, we ate a lot, we played a lot. A great escape: We did a lot, and we did nothing.