Exploring
Monday morning is my off time, and I feel like writing . . .When we adopted the older five children, we spent our first several nights together at a large apartment in Kyiv. We're pretty sure that the kids didn't sleep much, and they spent a great deal of time looking through every nook and cranny of the apartment. Jonathan and I did our best to watch them closely, but there were five of them and two of us. We were more concerned with safety, since our fifth-floor apartment had three balconies, so we locked, blocked, or watched the balcony doors. They still managed to throw paper airlanes and a few heavier items onto the street below. Other exploration included:
Entire boxes of soap disappeared (dishwashing liquid, laundry detergent, shampoo), since it's more fun to wash or bathe if you make tons of suds. The large bathtub became a swimming pool, complete with jumping from the edge into the water. One of the kids told me years later that only the wealthiest home owner in their village owned a bathtub, and our kids had never used one before.
Of all the cabinets they explored, the most interesting was the one with small appliances and hardware, which they conveniently "reorganized." On the public stairway, they found an old aquarium, and the gravel and rocks in it went into their luggage.
One of the older boys slipped out of the flat without our knowing and took a walk around the neighborhood; our landlady in a neighboring apartment gave him a lecture that he was in the city now, not the countryside. It was difficult to give up the freedom of walking whenever he wanted.
Upon arrival at our home in Chicago, another new world of "stuff" opened up. Within hours, anything not tied down had moved. Being inexperienced parents(and also short on time with ten days to prepare for our trip), Jonathan and I had not put everything away before leaving for Ukraine. Books, recordings, toys, soap products, fruit, etc., were objects of value. We locked the basement and put the medicines in a box on the top shelf of the pantry, so once again the most dangerous things were off limits. But we couldn't watch all five all the time. After the fact, neighbors told us they saw several children remove the screen from a second-story window, climb out onto the roof, traverse the length of the house, and reenter through another second-floor window. After that, I was thankful when they chose to climb trees!
The children were also amazed at the goods you can find in the alleys. Many people purposefully leave items there that are in good repair but no longer needed. If no one collects them for several days, they either bring them back in the house or let the trash collector take them. The older boys wanted a television in their room, and even though we said no, they kept bringing TVs off the alley just in case we'd change our mind. We eventually took about eight of them to Goodwill. The Lutheran Witness article described the seven tires we rolled down the streets to our mechanic for recycling. Costume jewelry, old china, National Geographic magazines, building materials, a vacuum cleaner, and even a guitar have entered our home from the alleys. The guitar is an especially interesting case. It was broken, and the owner specifically told the boys that he didn't want to pay for the repair and that they could take it. We spent $200 and four weeks of waiting to obtain an acoustic guitar appraised at $900!
I make lots of trips to shops like Goodwill, since our house constantly gets stuffed with things. At first the children couldn't part with anything, but after a few years they're getting tired of the mess. I cringe, however, when they want to clean their rooms. Sacks of stuff emerge from their room, and I've learned that valuable things are always mixed in with the paper and broken toys: tools, journal entries, Christmas ornaments, writing utensils, and tons of recycling and Goodwill items.
I can only sort this stuff when my schedule is not too full, which is not too often. These bags pile up under the laundry table in the basement, and a few weeks ago several of them sat in water when our basement flooded. The paper bags and their contents soaked up water, and even the plastic bags got wet through the rips (those writing utensils!). Suddenly, my time frame for sorting moved up, since the mold would be setting in. I spent an entire morning while Kola was sick, going through wet stuff. But one of the great things I found: a cassette of Bach cantatas lost since the first week the kids arrived!
posted by Stahlkes @ 10:25 AM
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