Ukraine Adoption

Flashlight!

So Tara and I pulled into the Target store parking lot the other night to buy some new snow pants and she began to scream, hysterically. Oh my gosh, what's wrong? I slammed on the breaks in the parking spot.

"I forgot the soundcan at school! I needed to bring it home! WAAAAHHHHHHHH!!" Tears were streaming down her cheek. I couldn't figure out what she was talking about. Soundcan? What is that? Did you just remember this right now? "YEEESSS! It's all DADDY'S FAULT!" she wailed. John had picked her up from school a few hours earlier. She was so upset she was shaking. This wasn't her typical cry.

Do you put stuff in it to shake and make a sound? I asked. "NOOO!!" After many questions that frustrated her more,I finally figured out that the kids are taking turns bringing home a can and they are supposed to put things in it that start with a particular letter, a sound. For Tara, it was the letter N.

I told her not to worry, that we will arrive before the teachers and fill the sound can and they won't even realize we didn't take it home. This calmed her down (though I think she still sought out John and yelled at him when we got home, to which he replied, "A soundcan??")

So that night we hunted for some items that start with an N. N-n-n Napkin, n-n-nail polish, nickels. I think it's a pretty cool school project, teaching the pre-schoolers to sound out letters in words. Then Tara excitedly proclaimed: "I know! N- N- N- flashlight!"

We have been retelling this one at dinnertime, it still makes us laugh. N N N flashlight!

Tara's World

In Tara's drawings, there are rainbows and sunshine, her and her brother, her mom and dad, her cat and sometimes the dog she never met. There is a house and grass and some flowers. There are a few clouds next to the sun, with a few rain drops falling.

She draws the nearly identical picture over and over again. Sometimes she staples them together and calls it her book. These are all over the house, they are slid under our bedroom door on weekend mornings. Sometimes she tells me to take one with me, when she is being left behind. Sometimes she asks me to draw her a picture, and then dicates its familiar subjects: A rainbow, first red then orange, then yellow...right down to the last color. She shows me where I go wrong when I improvise with the colors.

She does other drawings and has big explanations for each line, each person, each square cut out. A few times, her art came back from school and it was all black finger paint blurred together like a scary night. I asked if she had a bad day or a nightmare. She said she didn't and that she just felt like painting something all black. But always, she goes back to drawing rainbows and her family under them.

I suppose a child psychologist could have a field day with this. Me, I just smile and hug her every time she hands me one.

Much to be thankful for...

The tables were set, the candles lit, the turkey nearly finished when our guests arrived for Thanksgiving. Timing is the key when you have so many side dishes, coffee and dessert. I told my brother that one year, after all of our family had left, I found a side dish of green beans in the microwave. We had a good laugh over that.

This year, after everyone left, I opened the refrigerator and realized I had forgotten to prepare the ham I bought for dinner. Good thing there was enough turkey to go around...!

So this is the time of year we stop and think about what we are all thankful for. Close family, good friends, our children, however they arrived here. And now is also the time to think about the children that are less fortunate. For me, that's all of the orphans we left behind in Ukraine. It's so hard to imagine the children that Tara spent her first years with may still be living in that same orphanage, waiting and hoping for a family to come and get them. And as they get older, even 5 or 6 years old, their chances of adoption become remarkably less.

So for anyone in a mood to improve the lives of a child without a family, I'm providing this link to an organization called Life 2 Orphans. They help the children of Ukraine. There is a list of orphanages that they specifically help. There is one in Kyiv for ages 7-16, which may have been the one that Tara would have ended up in if she was on the typical path of orphans. After 16, the children are set out to make it on their own. If you know a 16 year old, just try to imagine that!

Here is the link to Life 2 Orphans. You can choose an orphanage to help and send actual items, or make a monetary donation, or purchase something in a fundraiser. If it's something you feel the need to do this holiday season, please remember Tara's native land and the little people who are in such need. With her generous soul, I know that she would appreciate it.

Holidays on the horizon

We are getting ready to host our family on Thursday and no one is more excited than Tara. She wanted to set the table yesterday.

Before we get caught up in the crazy Christmas rush, it really is a good time to think about what we're thankful for. I have a lot of things, mostly people. And here is one of them...

Shake shake shake

We are all being slammed with advertisements on TV and huge catalogs with awesome toys and beautiful people in must-have outfits. And Thanksgiving isn't until next week, here in America.

I started to feel a tad anxious last week and went online to buy some toys for Tara, some gadgets for Austin. I looked for good deals, the best toys possible, the hard-to-find items that are already getting all the hype.

But just as I was about to check out and pay all of this money, I stopped. And I thought about it. And I deleted the file. It is so easy to get caught up in the fray. I really hope we can all be reasonable about our holiday purchases. We say this every year, but we still run around like crazy people trying to get just the right gifts, spend just the right amount of money.

The teachers, the hair stylists, the lawn guys, can't forget any of them.

And apparently it's never too soon. Tara's preschool sent home a note this week about holiday giving. Actually, it was the parent group that sent it, but it was obviously endorsed by the school because the office assistant is in charge.

Parents are "asked" to drop off $25 cash that will be collected and evenly distributed in gift cards to every single person on the staff. OK, that makes it easier, and we really like this school, but I can't help feeling a little like someone turned me upside down by my ankles and is shaking the money out of my pockets. And it isn't even December yet.

Say What? Part XII

"When I'm 37, you can live with me," Tara said today while mixing the banana bread dough. "And if you need to go to the hop-sital, I'll take you there."
(At this point I joked with Austin, who was in the other room, that if I'm ever in a nursing home, she'll probably actually visit me, to which he smirked.)

"Draw me a picture, Mommy, and make a rainbow. And my whole family. And the kitty. And draw a house, and some grass, and dirt, and a sunshine, and draw some water, and a gold pot , and , and........"

"You're mean, Mommy, I'm serious. You're really mean," she shouted from her time-out chair...

A sick day

Tara stayed home from pre-school yesterday with a cough and stuffy nose, though no fever. Today, she looked and sounded much better and wanted to return to school.

And now I am home sick today. I have realized that this is the first sick day I have been home without kids in 2 years and 7 months. This is because Tara's pre-school was near my work, which is far from home. So when I stayed home, so did she.

Now, I can drop her off at classtime and crawl back into bed. The house is quiet. Should I feel guilty for feeling like this is a luxury?

Halloween cheer

OK, here she is. This is Tara on Halloween. She loved being a cheerleader. But I must say, this outfit was given to her by my friend who is also a Michigan State grad like me, (Go Green) so what was she thinking? Of course, it didn't matter to Tara who she was supposedly rooting for. In fact, she cheered: "Go Blue, Go Purple!"

The brave cheerleader

This was Tara's third year trick-or-treating as an American and I must say she gets it. She marched up to houses in her cheerleading outfit, leaving the pom poms in the wagon every time. The new pom poms that I had to chase around to different stores for after she lost one of her old ones at the park a few days ago. (Why do we bother??!)

Her brother Austin chose to run with a pack of friends this year. Groups of neighborhood kids were all around, but at each house, Tara waited for the other goblins and fairies to step away from the porches and then scurried up on her own. Someone at work told me she probably did this to increase the cuteness factor and therefore generate more candy for herself. Now I'm thinking that was indeed her strategy.

They both got enough candy to last through Christmas. Great.