Ukraine Adoption

The beach?

Every day, Tara asks me if it's time to go to the beach house. The trip is about a week away and her pink Dora the Explorer suitcase on wheels is mostly packed and sitting near her bedroom door. "It's too early," I have told her. "You don't need to put clothes in there yet."

Ah, I might as well be speaking another language to her. She is strong willed. She is ready for the beach.

This is a girl who for the first two years of her life lived in an orphanage in Ukraine. Now, she is the go-girl. She always wants to go to the store, or the park, or to Grandma's house, or to her friend's house, especially to a party. Any party.

"We need milk," she tells me. "We need shampoo."

And now, this little Go-Girl wants to go to the beach. "Let's not wish our summer away," I tell her. "It'll be time to go soon enough. And then it will be fall."

This doesn't bother her, because there are lots of places to go in the fall: Apple orchard, pumpkin patch, trick-or-treating. Maybe she is making up for lost time when she was stuck in one place as a baby. Maybe she is a natural explorer. We know that she is very brave.

But now I must go and unpack her socks; I think she put 10 pairs in the suitcase. And two pairs of goggles. And three pairs of sandals, four bathing suits...