Postscript to Kola's Birthday
I've been asked how the children handled Kola's birthday celebration two days ago. Overall, it was a very calm day. That tells me that they've made progress since last year in dealing with his absence. I'm sure it helps that our trip to adopt him is coming into view.
One of the neighbor children on our street asked Luda about coming to Thursday's party. Luda told her that it wasn't really a birthday party, since we weren't playing games and since her little brother wasn't here yet. Instead, we were just having our regular snack time after school, but with birthday cake rather than another kind of dessert. It was clear to her that we were marking the day, but that it wasn't the same as another child's birthday.
_______________
Someone also asked me how Kola's birthday might have been celebrated in Ukraine last Thursday. I don't know the practice in his orphanage (which is for very young children), but we know how birthdays are handled in the orphanage where our five children stayed. Because the orphanage is home to several hundred children, it is difficult for the caretakers to mark every birthday on the exact day--they would be planning something for almost every day of the year. So instead they have one party at the end of the month, and that's when there's a celebration for all children with birthdays that month.
Misha had his sixth birthday just two days after we met him. We bought him a stuffed animal and took it to a stationary shop to have it wrapped with lots of bright-colored paper and ribbons. He was thrilled to receive the gift, especially when he learned later that he would miss the end-of-month party because of the adoption and trip to the U.S.
Big Weekend
The squares in my weekly planner aren't big enough for all the events this weekend--I had to slip my own daily sheets into the calender to keep everything straight!
Tonight, Bogdan is playing clarinet in the spring band concert, followed directly by a Boy Scout informational meeting for the two older boys. Jonathan will leave the meeting early to attend the University Band Concert at Concordia. In the meantime, I'm going to try to take the three younger kids swimming at a YMCA to wear off their nervous energy and help the tendonitis in my shoulder.
On Saturday, the four younger children have the usual Ukrainian school from 9:00 to 1:00. During Jonathan's dress rehearsal that morning for Sunday's orchestra concert, I'll go shopping at Costco for some much-needed groceries. In the afternoon, we'll try to swim again to take the edge off the kids' energy. In the evening is Trinity's fundraiser for Kola's adoption, held at the Elks Lodge in Villa Park near the church. From all indications, it will be a wonderful event--the church as well as the communities in Villa Park, Forest Park, and River Forest are really helping to bring Mikola home.
On Sunday at church, the late service involves trumpet, handchimes, and soloists from the confirmation classes, since the 8th graders are being confirmed that day. So I'm booked up from 7:30 am straight through to 12:00 noon with either rehearsals or services. I may cancel my regular rehearsals for the Sunday School choirs, which would free up a 15-minute break in the middle of the morning. Ruslan, too, has a big role in the service--he is serving as torchbearer in the procession of palms.
Sunday afternoon will have a little bit of down time before Jonathan's big orchestra concert that evening. Since Concordia is hiring a new orchestra conductor (starting next fall), Sunday's concert is Jonathan's last full performance with the orchestra. (The orchestra will play only one piece on the spring music festival in April.) The first half of Sunday's concert features the winners of Concordia's concerto competition, and part of their prize is playing with orchestral accompaniment. The second half of the program is Part II of Handel's
Messiah, which Jonathan has prepared with the orchestra. The director of the Festival Chorus, Chuck Brown, will conduct the work, and Jonathan will sing in the bass section to help them out. I will sit with the children during the first half of the concert, then head home for baths and homework. At that point, I think we'll probably all fall in bed exhausted. On second thought, only I will fall in bed exhausted, since the kids have a seemingly endless supply of energy. I'd be rich if I could bottle and sell it!
Kola's Birthday
Today is Kola's fourth birthday. It is important for our children that we mark such an important day, and we've planned a birthday celebration after school. We'll sing "Happy Birthday" to him and all blow out the candles on his cake.
Last year on March 29, Kola's birthday fell on a Wednesday. Because of after-school activities and Lenten services, the only time that all of us were together was before school. So we had birthday cake for breakfast! It was very emotional. The children were excited to be singing and eating cake, but when an innocent joke was taken wrong, one of them burst out crying. It was clear that underneath the birthday excitement was a great deal of grief and frustration.
Hopefully, next year at this time we can celebrate WITH Mikola.
Homework, Homework, and More Homework
Last year, the children's English ability was limited, and most of them did not have a lot of homework. The exception was Misha, who entered kindergarten and therefore learned the alphabet at the same time as his classmates. (He had his own challenges, however, since he was simultaneously learning the Cyrillic alphabet at Ukrainian school. Some of the Ukrainian letters are identical to English but have completely different sounds.)
This school year, the children's English abilities are much, much better, and so they are bringing home the same homework as the other students in their classes. But with English acquisition, verbal and aural skills come much faster than reading and writing skills. So this school year is probably the hardest one for homework, since they are assigned everything but need a lot of help.
When both Jonathan and I are home, we tag team the work needed for dishes, baths, choosing clothes, and homework. But Tuesday and Thursday nights are rehearsal nights for us, so only one parent is available. I've been recruiting friends to help on Tuesdays, and it's made a big difference. The three older children often have lengthy literature assignments, which an adult must read to them. (We are finding tapes now for a few of these readings, which helps.) All of the children have spelling tests each week, and we practice flashcards every night. Math is their best subject, but even there the word problems require help with English.
And even when the children CAN do something independently, they don't want to because they like the attention from us. But I've heard that's true of all children!
Update on Ukrainian adoption
Well, my resolve to write every day was severely challenged the last two weeks. I won't give you all the details, which would take way too long, but I'll talk about a few things in the coming days. But this morning, I had an important conversation that I'd like to tell you about:
I talked by phone with Darlene, our social worker at Lutheran Social Services of New England, and she gave me an update on the adoption system in Ukraine. As I mentioned in a previous post, Ukrainian adoption (formerly administered by the National Adoption Center or NAC) closed in 2005 because the adoption bureaucracy was being moved from one ministry of the government to another. They reopened in late January 2007 as the State Department for Adoption or SDA, and immediately started receiving lots and lots of dossiers from facilitators (which makes sense, since they had been closed for 1-1/2 years). Before long they closed again for a month to come up with a different system for receiving dossiers. This new system is described in two letters from the Ukrainian government which are posted on the US Embassy (Kiev) website:
kiev.usembassy.gov/amcit_adoptions_notice_0305_eng.html
kiev.usembassy.gov/amcit_adoptions_notice_0326_eng.html
Another reason for the closure in February was that the Ukrainian parliament has drafted more legislation concerning adoption, and the SDA had to sort out how these changes affect their procedures. None of the new laws apply to us; for example, Ukraine will no longer allow single parents to adopt, and the age differential between the child and the parents must now be 45 years or less.
Some of the main points of the new system for submitting dossiers:
It applies only to foreign adoption, and requires that the dossiers are submitted in person either by the parents or their representatives with powers of attorney. (I believe that formerly dossiers could be mailed or dropped off.) Only one dossier can be submitted per appointment, and an entire day each week has been reserved for appointments with U.S. facilitators. All dossiers are submitted in folders, and the U.S. folders must be red. The number of dossiers that will be accepted this year from the U.S. is 558. The U.S. tops the list of countries, with Italy second at 494 dossiers and Spain third at 380. This number is based on the average number of adoptions to each country in the last five years, adjusted for other factors including the compliance rate for post-adoption reporting.
(Every family who adopts from Ukraine is required to submit yearly reports about their children to the Ukrainian government. Ukraine feels very strongly about these reports, and the poor compliance rate by adoptive parents has been one of the reasons for adoption reform in Ukraine.)
Darlene told me that our facilitator Masha has our dossier ready to submit, which means that all her translation work is done. She hopes to schedule an appointment for this Friday for one of two LSS dossiers that are ready. There are only a limited number of appointment times on any given day, however, and all facilitators for US parents are competing for those slots. Darlene didn't know if Masha hoped to submit our dossier first or the other one.
As for the timing after submission, Darlene has heard from other agencies that it takes approximately six weeks for the SDA to process dossiers and determine an appointment date for the parents. (This assumes, of course, that all the paperwork has been completed correctly.) The timing between notification of an appointment and the parents' travel date is usually an additional six to eight weeks. So if our dossier went in this Friday and needed no revisions, we would probably travel in July.
--------------------------------------------------
As you know from my previous post on 3/14, waiting is hard, especially when you don't know how long. We got some answers today--still uncertain, but a little clearer. That helps.
Waiting
In the last few days, the children have been asking more about our upcoming trip. The permutations of how it will happen feel endless, all depending on the date of our appointment in Ukraine. The dynamics of the trip will change a lot if it takes place during the school year as opposed to the summer, which means decisions about their staying in Illinois or Texas. And summer is not less complicated, since all of the children have been admitted to summer school in Forest Park.
The waiting and the uncertain timing are both hard. But God knows when we need to travel, so I just have to be patient.
Helps for Our Life with Kids
Every morning as I start the day, I wonder how we would get by without certain appliances, machines, and other helps in our lives. Here is a selected list of things that we did not own in our life before kids. Many of them were gifts from people who knew we needed them.
One big difference between the 2005 adoption and the current adoption is that everything in the list below is already in place, and we're not spending time now shopping at stores and garage sales, or living through the dust and noise of renovations. We have a few other things to occupy our time!
VehiclesVan (with eight seats and extra length for luggage)
Parking pad for our two vehicles
Electronic DevicesCell phones
Digital camera
DVD player
Electric pencil sharpener
FurnitureSecond couch in living room, with hide-a-bed
Large dining room table with eight chairs
Three sets of bunkbeds
New desks for Jonathan and me (with doors that hide everything)
RenovationsRenovated bathroom on first floor
New bathroom on second floor
Ceiling panels to make the crawl space in the attic usable for storage
New plumbing throughout the house
BasementWashing machine with extra-large drum
New storage units in the basement
Locked furnace room to block access to the heater
Multitude of plastic storage bins of every size
KitchenDishwasher
Second frig/freezer
Many large pots and frying pans, as well as lots of spatulas
And lastly a coffeemaker--we have always owned one, but now it's the FIRST thing I turn on every morning!
A Barrier Overcome
Many people ask us about the language issue with adopted children from overseas. We studied Ukrainian with a private tutor for six months before our trip, which helped us learn the Cyrillic alphabet and get a good start on the basics of the language. We then learned a lot while in Ukraine and from the children after our return. And very quickly, their English outpaced our Ukrainian. In addition, they have had wonderful tutoring in English through their schools.
Let Adam tell you in his own words about the language challenge. The following is his own school assignment to describe a personal barrier and the ways that he overcame it. I have a hunch that the student thesaurus on our bookshelf at home came in handy for him.
_____
1. Hi my name is Adam
My barrier is -- Moving from country Ukraine to
America with a new family when I was 10 years old.
2. I could not talk English at all when I came to
United State.
And when people are trying to talk to me all I
Do is smile and wave my hand at them.
3. I used Courage, Determination, Teamwork,
Persistence, Integrity, Citizenship, Justice,
Commitment, Excellence.
4. Now I am talking a lot of English.
Stahlke Adoption Fundraiser
When we traveled to Ukraine in 2005, we planned to do only one adoption. One of our many reasons for adopting a sibling group was that we couldn't afford the expense of several international adoptions. But when we found out that Kola couldn't come home with us, it was clear that we needed to make a second trip.
We paid for the first adoption by refinancing our house, taking out a line of credit, and receiving several generous cash gifts from family and friends. At this point, refinancing again is not possible, and putting it all on the credit card is not wise from a financial angle. Two important churches in our lives, Trinity and St. John's, have come forth to help us afford Kola's adoption.
Trinity set up an adoption fund for us, so that private donations can go directly to the church and are tax deductible. They sent out a lot of letters both to congregational members and also to the community to make our story known. Many people have already given, and we are humbled by the response which has been so generous. In addition, both Trinity and St. John's are putting on fundraising events for us. The one at St. John's, our former congregation, is still in the planning stages, and I will write more about that event in a later post.
Our current congregation, Trinity, is holding a dinner/dance/silent auction on Saturday, March 31, from 7:00 until midnight. It will take place at the Elks Lodge in Elmhurst, which is located very close to Trinity in Villa Park. The hall rental, live music, food, and auction items have all been donated--the fellowship committee at Trinity has been working very hard and has received a tremendous response from the people and businesses they have approached. The evening will include activities for children, too, and sounds like it will be a really fun time. If you would like more information, feel free to contact us or Trinity (630-834-3440).
We are so blessed to have such supportive friends and family. Kola is very much wanted not only by our family, but by many, many people here.
Don't Forget When to Come Home
Mama's sleepover in Ft. Wayne was very, very nice. It was great to spend time with good friends, visiting and talking and eating and resting. I slept and slept. Guess exhaustion was catching up with me. I returned to Chicago feeling like a new person.
The children greeted me with running leaps--that was very special. It was good that they had a little taste of a parent being gone, to get them used to the idea. When we go to Ukraine, I'll be gone about ten days, and Jonathan will be away for several weeks.
When I was preparing to leave for Ft. Wayne on Sunday, Misha told me he had some gifts ready for me. One of them was an old calender that we had given him last year. In his mind, if I had the calender, I would know when to come back home. Since our friend Cindy was also traveling with me, he told me she could use the calender, too!
Mama's Sleepover
This weekend is one of those long ones, since Monday is a holiday for Chicago-area schools. Jonathan started his spring break, so he's available to watch the children that day. (Normally, Mondays are his heaviest teaching day and he's gone from 8:00 am to 6:30 pm.)
Two of my friends contemplated kidnapping me for a getaway, but decided the anticipation would be more beneficial for me. I'm leaving today for Ft. Wayne, Indiana with Cindy to visit our friend Emily until Tuesday. This kind of trip is a first for me, and I'm looking forward to it very much.
Last night when I said goodnight to Lena, she told me she would miss me while I was gone. Did I really have to go? I reminded her that she had enjoyed her first sleepover a month ago, and that now it was Mama's turn. That made sense to her and put her at ease.
I think that this type of separation is also an important preparatory step for the time that Jonathan and I will be in Ukraine. That way it's not the first time that we're gone for the night.
Making Sack Lunches
I tried out a new store today--a wholesale grocery store called GFS that is directly on my drive to work. We've been members of Costco since the kids came. It's a wonderful store for us, but since it takes a lot of time to shop there, I go about once a month and spend several hundred dollars. The GFS is small enough that I can buy just a few items and be on my way quickly. The time that the kids are in school is precious, and it's impossible to work at church and do a big shopping trip on the same day.
The reason for this wholesale shopping is clear, but I'll give you a few details. While making sack lunches today, I used an entire loaf of bread, a large package of bologna, a complete head of cauliflower, a bag of apples, and an entire can of Pringles potato chips. For meals at home, we buy eight gallons of milk at a time--the store now loans me two milk crates to help carry it all home. By limiting the kids to one glass a meal, we can stretch the eight gallons to about ten days. One of our important purchases before the kids came was the extra refrigerator/freezer that sits on our back porch.
Several churches and many individuals have been wonderful about giving us food. It's also a great way for the children to try out new foods and learn "American" tastes. A majority of the children will now eat pizza, which initially had the dreaded ingredient cheese. And some of them will now cheer when we have corn, fried chicken, cottage cheese, or peanut butter/jelly. It goes both ways, however--last Easter we bought traditional Ukrainian foods and I could hardly eat the anchovies, mostly because of the salt. For our kids, that was the best part!
