Pen Pals

While preparing for our trip to Ukraine, I virtually "met" Kelly, another adoptive mom. We had so many similarities in our trips – our SDA appointment was on the same day – November 20th, we both had a court session in the beginning of December, both went home during the holidays, both went back to Ukraine in a middle of January (I’m on Jan 14th, she’s on January 12th), and both came home at the end of January (I’m on Jan 26th, she’s on Jan 27th)! Kelly and her husband came home with 2 kids – a 10-year daughter Diana and a 4-year old son Will, and now Rachel and Diana are pen pals!!! Of course, Rachel’s English skills are not good enough to write letters yet, so she’s writing her letters to Diana in Russian. Unfortunately, her Russian skills are also very limited, so I’m helping her to write the letters (while Diana writes her letters by herself!). But I think it’s a great idea to exchange real letters, and Rachel thinks so too!

What else is new? A couple of days ago we celebrated 3 months since Rachel came home. And you know what? All of a sudden I noticed that she started understanding more and more English, and even started to communicate in English! Just a couple of days ago I heard her saying to Victoria’s friend “Come here” and “I’m gonna get you”. Maybe for some kids it’s not a big deal, but for Rachel it’s huge, and I’m anxious to see the difference at 6 months’ mark!

This weekend we went to the Fish Hatchery at our local park, and the girls had a lot of fun feeding the fish with the special fish food. It was so cool watching the fishes jumping out of the water and opening their mouths to get the food!




We also went to the circus – the Damascus Shrine Circus was in town. Though Rachel has been to the circus in Odessa (there is a permanent circus there), she’s never seen the show on 3 arenas at the same time! The girls loved the show and especially the pony rides during intermission.



Another first for Rachel last week: a lawn mower! After a week of summer-like weather our lawn needed a trim. But that was something Rachel couldn’t understand! There are almost no lawns in Ukraine, so people don’t mow them! Can you believe that she’s never seen the lawn mower before?

And this is the last warm day last week (it was only 34 ° F this morning :). Rachel is reading "Neznayka" (a boy that didn't know anything) to Victoria. It was my favorite book when I was growing up, and it's so nice that my daughters like it too!

Weather in Rochester

March 30, 2008. Temperature: 28 ° F

April 3, 2008. Temperature: 54 ° F

April 18, 2008. Temperature: 85 ° F (notice the lack of leaves on the trees!)




Also we had some other "firsts" this week for Rachel:

- First playdate! An 11-year old girl from our neighborhood came over, and all 3 girls had fun riding the bikes and drawing with the sidewalk chalk. It was so neat to hear Rachel trying to use English words to communicate!

- First Delta Sonic Super Kiss Car Wash! Cost - $11.99. Rachel's reaction - PRICELESS!

Spring break

The spring break is here, and the girls are having fun. A couple of days ago we bought Rachel a new bike – something she wanted for a long time. She was SOOOOO happy, you can’t imagine. She repeated over and over again how happy she is that her dream came true!

On Sunday we went to the mall, and I ended up having a make-up session at the Estee Lauder counter. I’m not a make-up person, so I almost didn’t recognize myself in the mirror :) Oleg and the girls approved my new look, but then Victoria started crying that she wants her mommy back :) To appease her, the make-up lady put some lipstick on both girls and gave them a lip gloss as a gift. Of course, Victoria immediately stopped crying :)










Then, after a mandatory ice cream and carousel ride, the girls had their faces painted and received balloons from the clown. Again, it was one of the “firsts” for Rachel. It never occurred to me that she’s never had anybody to create a balloon especially for her or to paint her face. When the clown gave her the balloon flower she requested, her face just lit up. You would’ve thought she’s got a new car or a moon from the sky!





Every time Oleg and I are amazed at the little things that make Rachel happy. We take so much for granted, not realizing that simple things like riding the bike or getting a balloon made by a clown are not available to all kids in the world. Yes, biologically she’s 10 years old, kind of too old to enjoy some of the little kids activities. But socially she’s like 6-7 years old, who’s catching up on everything she missed in her life. Take the playground for example. I hear “Mom, watch me” more often from Rachel than from Victoria.

She’s making more progress with the school work. Yesterday I gave her a page with 50 division problems (from the multiplication tables), and for the first time ever she didn’t make any mistakes! The math word problems, even the simplest ones, are still a mystery to Rachel, she’s having difficulties with abstract concepts. With her reading we are making one step forward, and two steps back. It’s hard for her to remember all the rules: the “ake”, “ike”, “ain” families, short or long vowels, etc. But by now we know that the only thing that works for her is repetition, so we make sure to work on the same concept over and over again and then return to it to make sure she didn’t forget.

This week I signed both girls up for gymnastics camp in the mornings, and for swimming classes at night. And the swimming lessons are free because our local YMCA has the “free swimming lessons” promotion during the spring break!


And finally last week I received Rachel’s Ukrainian passport back from the Ukrainian Consulate at New York City. We are done with the post-adoption paperwork!

Our Anniversary

21 years ago, on April 9, 1987, Oleg and I got married! We’ve been married for more than half of our lives, and we’ve met on the first day of school in first grade in 1974. Here is the picture of the day we met. I’m the second from left, and Oleg is staying next to me :)



This is our last day of classes in High school. My Mom is next to Oleg – she was our Math teacher and homeroom teacher for 7 years. The little bells symbolize the very last school bell we heard on that day.


And this is our wedding day!

Gymnastics

This week both girls had open lessons in their respective gymnastics classes. Of course we made sure to make lots of pictures, and both girls were very proud to show us what they can do. Especially Rachel! You should’ve seen her face – she was so happy she had her parents coming in to see her in class, she kept looking at us and smiling for an hour and a half non-stop. That’s something the kids who grew up with parents take for granted – what’s the big deal? It is a big deal for Rachel. She finally has her Mama and Papa cheering for her!



Victoria is helping her big sister with the bridge:




In other news Rachel’s made a lot of progress with multiplication tables. Even a month ago it was a hit or miss – she would get it right at about 50%. Now she’s more at 90% mark, and I’m very proud of her. She also started to understand the concept of division, so I think we are going in the right direction.


Victoria continues to improve her reading. Yesterday she read me a book about Spot the dog. She looked at the word “Spot” and told me: “Mama, if you read this word backwards, it will be Tops (this is the name of our local grocery store)” Then she looked at this word again and said: “If you swap “t” and “p”, it will be Stop!” Isn’t she one smart cookie?

Now that she started reading, she corrects my pronunciation more often :) Since I only started learning English at 29, I have a very thick Russian accent, and there is nothing I can do about it. Recently she corrected me when I pronounced the word “it” as “eat” or vice versa. I even consulted with my friend from work about pronouncing long and short “e”, but I still can’t get it right :)

In addition to English reading, Victoria started reading in Russian this week! Even though she knew Russian alphabet, I didn’t teach her to read in Russian on purpose – I wanted her to become a solid English reader first. But a couple of days ago she looked over her Grandma’s shoulder, who was reading Russian book at the time, pointed to one word and said: “Grandma, isn’t this such and such word?” It was a short 3-letter word, but she got it right! My Mom was speechless, and then she showed Victoria how to read in syllables. It’s very easy to read in Russian if you know the letters, it’s somewhat like Spanish: what you see is what you read. Of course, there are some rules, but most of the time, you just put the sounds together, and that’s it. By the time I got back from work, she was reading simple sentences! So now every evening we have a new ritual – both girls read to me in both languages!