Another Homophone (Sort Of)
Jonathan eats agonizingly slowly, while I eat too quickly. (Guess who struggles more with their weight?) But now that we have children, our differing speeds at eating help us a great deal in the morning.
As usual for us, Jonathan handles more child care, and I do more managing. Therefore, he sits at the breakfast table with the children, keeping the peace, while I finish making lunches in the kitchen. When I finally sit down for breakfast, I usually finish faster than the younger children who have been eating the entire time. Not good for my health, but great for getting things accomplished quickly in the morning.
A few days ago, however, I gulped my coffee too quickly and broke out into a long coughing session to clear my windpipe. David, who delights in homonyns, smiled and told me that "coffee" and "coughing" sound pretty similar!
More on Clothes Washing
I should follow up my last blog post:
While Jonathan and I did not see any laundromats, there are laundry services. We first used one in 2005 at our hotel in Kyiv. Each floor of the hotel has a desk near the elevator, where the woman who "runs" the floor sits. Besides her primary job of cleaning, she is also available for questions. When we asked about laundry, she told us she could take our clothes home and return them clean the next day, for a fee. It was expensive, but the clothes came back immaculate, and all of them were ironed--even the underwear!
Last fall, Jonathan also used a laundry service in Kirovohrad, located in a storefront near the downtown area. Once again, it was quite expensive, but they did a good job. I'm sure the fees are beyond the reach of most Ukrainians.
A Loose End
I wrote a blog entry from Ukraine on 9/21/08 titled
Reality? Or a Dream? While intending to follow it up with another entry, events moved on, and I never answered the question.
The only laundromat in Ukraine that I visited was the one in my dream (or more accurately, nightmare!). The source of anxiety that prompted the dream was the washing machine in our Kirovohrad flat. While I enjoy traveling, one of the challenges is figuring out myriad new ways of doing things, especially, it seems, with plumbing. Which way does the faucet turn? Which spigot has hot water? How do you turn on the shower? Where is the handle to flush the toilet? How many handles are there to flush the toilet? (We saw toilets in Ukraine with two different flushing handles--one for a lot of water and another for just a little. Creative idea.)
Jonathan and I have previous experience with clothes-washing equipment from the communist era. In 1994, during our time in eastern Germany, we lived for a few months in one of the ubiquitous concrete apartment blocks there. Our two-room flat had a spinner to remove the water from the clothes after we hand-washed them. The first time we attempted to use it, the machine marched all over the bathroom and made a deafening racket. We eventually learned to pad it with several towels to dampen the noise, and Jonathan sat on the thing to hold it still. The spinner was so energetic that I wasn't strong enough to control it. The trouble was worth the effort, however, since the clothes dried a whole lot faster and our arms didn't get so sore from wringing out clothes.
In 2008, Jonathan and I found ourselves in another concrete apartment block, with another clothes-washing appliance in the bathroom. The instructions were brief, but it didn't matter since they were in Russian, anyway. This washing machine was a large cylindrical canister, about three feet high and 18 inches in diameter. It sported a lid on top, a slanted floor inside at the bottom, and a rubber drain tube at the lowest point. Underneath the canister was a small motor to run the agitator.
I was tired of washing clothes by hand, and it was difficult to get them clean enough. (One challenge was the weather--it had been so wet that the clothes had soured before drying and now they were even harder to wash.) So Jonathan and I agreed one night that we would tackle the washing machine the next day. That night I had my nightmare.
The next day, we spent about two hours washing our clothes. I used the detachable shower head to fill the canister with water, and the timer on the motor got the agitator moving. The drain tube worked as a siphon, and we managed to empty the water into the bathtub most of the time. (It did create a mess when it slipped and emptied out on the floor once or twice.) But I was happy that our clothes were now quite clean. The one thing the machine didn't do, however, was dry the clothes. While line-drying worked for most things, the damp weather meant that we had to iron our socks, sweaters, and other thick clothes.
Once we figured out how to work this appliance, my dream did not recur--thank goodness.
Kola' s Homophone
Yesterday, I brought Kola into the master bedroom to get dressed, since he was getting David all riled up. To save time, I put on my own clothes at the same time. Kola laughed that he and Mama were both standing there in our underwear. Since he has recently learned that English word ("underwear"), he started saying it over and over. I slipped on my skirt, thereby hiding my underwear. He grinned at me, and asked the following question in English:
"Mama, WHERE is your under-WEAR?"
"A - B - C - D - E - F - G
H - I - J - K - L - M - N - O - P
Q - R - S - T - U and V,
W - X - Y and Z
Now I know my A - B - C's
Next time won't you sing with me?"
"Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep;
Keep me safe throughout the night,
Until I see the morning light."
"Dobre spati." [Sleep well]
"Ya lublich tebe." [I love you]
I hugged Kola in the dining room, as he stood quietly and listened intently. Then he ran off to play as I departed for my evening rehearsals. He continued his afternoon activities, unhappy that I would be "robiti piesne" [working late] and therefore missing his bedtime, but comforted by engaging in our nightly ritual.
Hope
"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose . . .
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? . . .
Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
- Romans 8:28, 35a, 38-39
Me and I
You can learn a lot about someone's native tongue by the mistakes they make in a foreign language. Kola is exclusively using "me" instead of "I" in his English: "Me is hungry," or "Me and him go to library."
Jonathan knows more Ukrainian than I do, so I asked him for his take on this issue. Sure enough, there are a lot more reflexive constructions in Ukrainian than in English. I know from past experience that German has similar characteristics:
The weather was very cold as Undine and I waited on the platform for the train. It was late, as the trains in east Germany often were in the years right after the 1989 Wende (literally, "change" as in the Berlin Wall coming down). Undine and I normally spent time together at the Institut fuer Musikwissenschaft, where she taught as a postdoc and I was based for my research. But this weekend, she had invited me to travel to her home and meet her family.
Undine knew that my spoken German wasn't too strong yet, although I was able to read well enough to get my work done. Undine spoke very good English, but she suggested that we speak German together so I could improve my skills. One way she helped me was to suggest I use the formal "Sie" (you) with her rather than the "Du" that is more typical for friends. The "Sie" construction meant that I could use verbs in their infinitive form, which was much more manageable.
As we waited for the train, the weather was quite uncomfortable. "Ich bin kalt," I told her. At first she stared at me with an odd look, and then I could see her role as a language teacher kicking in. "Mary, it's ok in English to say 'I am cold,' but in German 'Ich bin kalt' does not have the meaning that you intend. Instead, you need to say 'Mir is kalt' (To me, it is cold)."
Or, more concisely, "Me is cold"!
The Command
I found another website with information about childen rocking:
http://books.google.com/books?id=wGdp9GROm1YC&pg=PA198&lpg=PA198
&dq=adoption+rocking&source
=bl&ots=JT2quixXHN&sig=fWOmcHFWo3g4kCuji1qyzzZVc7
Y&hl=en&ei=abqUSay-EZC4MsSegIYM&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result
This book suggests that the parent rock with the child as a means of entering their world of solitary, self-soothing behavior. The theory is that this interaction will help the rocking to cease sooner. Two nights ago, I tried this with Kola. After draping my arm over him, I starting rocking with him in rhythm. He stopped immediately, and I could almost hear the wheels whirring in his head as he tried to figure out what was happening.
Kola: "Mama, do you like to rock?"
Mama: "Yes, Kola."
Kola: "Why?"
Mama: "Why not?
Kola: "I don't know."
After a long silence, he said to me, "Mama, GO!"
He didn't mean that I should leave him alone. Instead, he wanted me to rock while he laid still! He contentedly sucked his thumb and I rocked, with my arm transferring the motion to his small body. What a positive step that he wanted me to rock him. I love those words: "Mama, GO!"
Noises in the Night
We have a three-bedroom house and a wet basement, which means that the two girls sleep in one upstairs bedroom and the four boys occupy another. Jonathan and I use the downstairs bedroom located right off the living/dining room.
When Kola makes noise at night, his brothers are close enough to notice. We've told them that if Kola keeps them awake, they should carry their blanket downstairs and bunk on the living room couch.
One morning last week, I found Paul asleep in the living room. He complained that Kola had been rocking, singing, and moaning, keeping him awake. Paul had retreated downstairs, but that wasn't much better. His parents were snoring so loudly that he almost returned upstairs!
Hah!
After our frigid Chicago weather during January, it was fun to see the local weatherman on ABC gloat last night. Our high temperature yesterday bested the ones in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. And today, in the 60s, is even warmer and breaking records. (I'm starting to sound like a snowbird.)
Self-Soothing Behavior
Kola continues to rock almost violently as he falls asleep or when he is stressed. Several years ago, we also had a few mild examples of head banging among some of the older five children. I found a good article about the topic on the following website:
adoptiondoctors.com/articles/Article/Post-Adoption-Peculiar-Behaviors/63
The best summary statement from this article:
"These behaviors . . . are basically a normal response to the abnormal environment in which these children were raised."
I will qualify this, however. The staff at Kola's orphanage did their very best with a large number of very young children and limited resources to care for them. It was clear to us that Kola was dearly loved by several of the staff members. But orphanage life can't replicate the attention that a child receives in a family setting.
The orphanage for school-age children, where our first five kids lived, received even fewer resources than Kola's orphanage. As Ukraine emerges from communisum, it continues to struggle with a very poor economy, which means a shortage of public funds. We were told by someone (I can't remember who) that the older orphans are less adoptable and therefore more resources go to the kids at the baby house.
__________________________________________
Here are some sections from Dr. George Rogu's article that I found especially relevant:
Many peculiar behaviors can be observed immediately post-adoption in many internationally adopted children. These behaviors provide self-soothing, self-stimulation and often times are used to attract the attention of the adult caregiver.
For the socially neglected orphan child, the lack of toys, limited human interactions and the lack of loving parent are the primary reason for this type of behavior. While these behaviors appear to be very peculiar, they are basically a normal response to the abnormal environment in which these children are raised.
In an orphanage environment, getting the attention of the adult caregiver is often extremely difficult. A well-behaved, disciplined child who does not disturb or bother anyone would never get any adult interaction. Many times, orphan children resort to attention seeking behaviors such as biting, hitting and various other types of tantrums in order to earn some extra adult attention. To a socially neglected and isolated child, even negative attention like discipline is better than no attention at all.
While I really do understand how disturbing [these behaviors] could be to new parents, I would like to assure you that these behaviors really do go away with time. As new adoptive parents, we must concentrate and reward the good behaviors while ignoring the disturbing behaviors. As parents, it is our responsibility to make certain that the child is always safe, and that the behaviors in no way injure the child. These behaviors generally take weeks to months to self extinguish, but eventually they do after the child settles into his new environment. It should also be noted that many times in moments of stress, these behaviors might reappear temporarily until the stress resolves.
The Loop
Kola: "Why?"
Mama: "Why not?"
Kola: "I don't know.
Kola: "Why?" . . .
Losing One's Temper
This morning, I didn't model good behavior to the children when I yelled "QUIET!!!" so loudly that my voice hurt afterward.
Guidance
Lord, take my hand and lead me upon life's way;
Direct, protect, and feed me from day to day.
Without your grace and favor I go astray;
So take my hand, O Savior, and lead the way.
Lord, when the tempest rages, I need not fear,
For you, the Rock of Ages, are always near.
Close by your side abiding, I fear no foe,
For when your hand is guiding, in peace I go.
Lutheran Service Book, Hymn 722, sts. 1, 2
Music
I now listen to a LOT of rap and hip-hop. I've decided that the greatest liability of this music is also its greatest strength. The pernicious beat, so uncreative to a classical musician, serves really well to calm down disruptive children!
Pickle Sandwiches
Many people have asked how Jonathan and I get six kids ready for school. In the morning, when our minds are not yet awake, the best solution is ROUTINE. Of course, coffee for me and a shower for him also helps. We also split the tasks: Jonathan wakes the children, supervises their dressing, and sets the table, while I make lunches and prepare the cooked portion of breakfast.
I always assemble the lunches in the same order, which keeps the job moving since I don't have to think it through every time. (The first week in fall 2005 felt like moving in slow motion!) One of the last steps is to assemble sandwiches and package them.
Last Thursday, the pickle jar sat very close to the edge of the counter. Adam suggested I move it, since a gallon-size container full of dill pickle juice could make quite a mess. In the ensuing conversation, my routine was interrupted, but I got back on track and finished the sandwiches . . .
At lunch, it was immediately evident that my sandwich contained only condiments and pickles. No cold cuts! Boy, would I hear about this one!
To my dismay, not one child said a word about it the rest of the day! The lack of meat hadn't made much of an impression on them.
Of course, Jonathan noticed.
