Ukraine Adoption

Little shoes, hair ties and hope

My house has been taken over by a little girl. Tiny pink shoes that light up are parked in front of the door, a little plastic wagon carrying a doll with messy brown hair sits in the kitchen, art work with tiny pom poms and stars is stuck on the refrigerator, four wooden puzzles sit upside down with pieces in a pile next to the television. This is my house right now. This is the result of my 3 1/2-year-old daughter with an active imagination. Tara will help clean up. But there will be more activities to follow.

Sometimes our house is just crazy. Add an 11-year-old boy's stuff to the mix:A baseball bat and glove are leaning on the front door, (tripped over it twice), two coats are hanging on the staircase rail, a book bag that weighs 50 pounds (I'm fairly certain)sits in the middle of the foyer. It's happy chaos.

And it's this chaos that many, many families are hoping for every day as they continue the process of adoption in Ukraine. There are many families there right now (!) and many are anticipating a phone call from their facilitator or adoption agency, or a letter from Ukraine, any day, with the good news that they have an appointment in December. I look at some pictures of the precious children who are being adopted right now (!) and I see some blue eyes and angelic faces that remind me so much of Tara.

Sometimes I wish I could go back and get more children (don't worry, John), but instead, I will live vicariously through all of the other families. When we picked up Tara from the orphanage filled with 150 toddlers and babies, someone told us it's like she won the lottery of life. Well, we feel like we're the winners. And finally, now that Ukraine's adoption system is back on track, there will be many more winning families in the coming months. And soon, they will see little pink or blue shoes by their front doors and they will smile, just as I do every day.