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!

2 months home

We’ve been home for 2 months now, and it already feels like Rachel’s been in our family forever. She’s such a sweet little girl, very well behaved, trying to please us, always doing what she’s asked to do, etc. She and Victoria are a very good friends even though there is a healthy sibling rivalry between them :) Lately they started bickering a little bit more than before, but I think this is very normal after their “honeymoon period” has ended. There is still some jealousy between the girls in regards to the attention they are getting from Oleg and I (especially from Rachel, which is expected). We are trying very hard to spend an equal amount of time with both girls, and I think we are doing very good.

Rachel started gymnastics a couple weeks ago, and she loves it! She also started ballroom dancing lessons! Our local “Fred Astaire Ballroom Dance Studio” has a spring session for 4th-graders at our elementary school, and Rachel is a natural! Ballroom Dance is my weakness – I used to dance back in Ukraine, and Alex took several years of Ballroom Dancing as well, so my goal now is to find partners for both girls and start the formal lessons ASAP :)

Now that Rachel is getting more comfortable with her new life in America, I’d love her to find friends her age, but it’s not an easy task because her English is almost non-existent. One would argue that it’s because of the fact that we speak Russian at home, and I agree. According to Dr. Gindis, the leading expert in international adoption, a second language is usually acquired based on two models: "additive" and "subtractive". Internationally adopted children replace their first language by a new language, it’s a subtractive model, and the immigrants learn a new language in addition to their native language, which is an additive model. Since Rachel is speaking Russian at home, she acquires English by an “additive” model, and her language acquisition is supposed to be slower. But we’ve been through this before! Oleg, Alex and I started learning English virtually from scratch. All our friends came to the country not speaking any English and were able to learn it and go on to receive BS and even MS degrees. The process to learn English in immigrant families is usually the following: start with learning some basic vocabulary, then able to translate simple written English sentences into Russian, then being able to build simple English sentences, then start understanding native English speakers, and then finally start speaking. After this stage many kids (depending on age) usually stop speaking Russian, but still understand it, so when their parents ask them something in Russian, they reply in English.

After 2 months we see some progress with English, but it is VERY tiny. Oleg and I even decided to speak to her in English, but it doesn’t work! She starts crying when she doesn’t understand us! So what’s more important for us – her language development or her happiness? Of course her happiness! Yes, she’s very behind, yes, it takes her more time to memorize things, but hey – she has all time in the world to catch up. We are working very hard tutoring her, and I’m sure she’ll get there, even it will be later then we we’d want her to.

She still loves school :) Her teachers are AWESOME! I had a parent-teacher conference last week, and even though her academic progress is not as fast, her social progress is much better! She’s trying to communicate with other kids at school, which is a huge plus with her lack of language, and she seems much more comfortable in the classroom. She’ll probably repeat 4th grade with the same teacher, and hopefully by the end of next school year we’ll see more results.

Though I’m a little bit disappointed with her slow progress, it’s something that was expected. The post-institutionalized children are usually developmentally behind because they didn’t have a chance to be nurtured and educated by their parents. Of course a child whose parents started reading to him from birth, and a child who never had an individual attention, will have different results. I firmly believe that parents play a huge role in their child’s academic progress. It’s a parents’ job to prepare the children for school, to tutor them as needed, etc. Though all children have different abilities, I can say from my teaching experience that the kids whose parents work with them at home usually are better students.

Speaking of students, I recently connected with my former students in Ukraine! There is a new social-networking website http://www.odnoklassniki.ru/, where I found my old friends, classmates, neighbors, and even students! I used to teach Math for 6th – 9th graders, and imagine my surprise when I received a message from one of my former students! Then another, and another, and now I’m in contact with many of them! I only taught them for 3 years, but they still remember me! It was so nice to hear that I was their favorite teacher :) These “kids” are now almost 30 years old, married with their own kids, and it’s so strange when they address me formally with my patronymic name: “Nataliya Vitalievna”!

Anyway, back to my thoughts about parents working with their kids. I taught Alex to read by 4 years old, and I felt guilty that Victoria still didn’t read at 5. She recognized alphabet since 23 months old, she was doing “Color by number” and “Connect the dots” activities by 3 years old, etc., but I didn’t know how to teach her to read in English. Well, I’m happy to report that she’s reading now! These tutoring sessions with both Rachel and Victoria were good enough to get her started! Yesterday she even took one of the books to preschool and read a story to her class. The kids were very impressed :)

My other “baby” Alex doesn’t need my tutoring anymore, and even if he needed it, I wouldn’t be able to help him. Last semester he took a “Differential Equations” class, and even though I wrote my Master’s thesis in Differential Equations many years ago, I don’t remember ANYTHING :) His program requires several co-op blocks as a part of curriculum, and he’s looking for a job now. So if any of you are hiring a computer engineering/computer science/information technology intern, please let me know! Yesterday he attended a huge student job fair, and it was so neat to see him in suit and tie – he looked like a real professional!

We still didn’t have a chance to take a new family portrait, but I’m working on the plan to get everyone together for a photo session :)

First Road Trip

This past weekend we drove 6 hours to New Jersey to visit our dear friends Anya and Dima. We’ve known each other forever – Anya, Oleg and met in 1st grade and were classmates all the way to the High School graduation. Then Anya, Dima and I were classmates at Odessa State University studying Math and Computer Science. So every time we get to see them it’s a treat.

It was a first road trip for Rachel. She loved it! Both girls had fun in the car watching cartoons as well as educational phonics DVDs :) We had to drive through downtown Philadelphia, and Rachel finally experienced bumper-to-bumper traffic in America! The traffic in Odessa is very bad, so she was very surprised not see it in our every day life in Rochester (there is no traffic on her school bus route :)

The weather was gorgeous – 60s and sunny – a welcome change after snow and 30s! All 5 kids (they have 3 kids ages 9, 12 and 14) had a blast riding the bikes, fishing and even riding the boats! So overall we had a great weekend, and the girls can’t wait to see their friends again.



In another news I’m happy to report that our post-adoption paperwork is done! Here is what we’ve accomplished:

- Social Security Number: applied in 2 days after arrival, received 10 days later;
- US Passport: applied 2 weeks after arrival (could’ve done earlier, we didn't need SSN to apply), received 3 weeks later;
- Certificate of Citizenship: received by mail 37 days after arrival;
- Ukrainian Consulate registration: sent last week!

Some people do these steps in a different order, but I wanted to get Rachel’s US passport before sending her Ukrainian passport to Ukrainian Consulate for registration. They take a loooong time returning Ukrainian passports (like several months!), that’s why I didn’t feel comfortable sending the only document verifying Rachel’s immigration status. But now she has her US passport, so I don’t really care about her Ukrainian passport anymore. Knowing from other people’s blogs how the Ukrainian Consulate tends to lose important paperwork, I sent Rachel’s registration by certified mail with return receipt. This way they won’t be able to lie and say they didn’t receive it. I intend to do the same when sending annual post-adoption report to them next year.


For those of you waiting to go, I would really recommend getting “Adoption Certificate” in Ukraine. It’s not required for American families, but it’s very handy! This certificate is issued at the same place where you get a new Birth Certificate, and it looks very similar – one page with parents names, adopted child’s old and new names, the court date and court decree number. It’s much more convenient to show this one page document than a multi-page court decree written in legalese. I also ordered certified translation of both Birth and Adoption Certificates from Hudson Translations, and used them everywhere. They have a raised seal and look very authentic!

International Women's Day

Tomorrow marks 6 weeks since Rachel came home. It’s also a second biggest holiday in Ukraine (after New Year’s) – International Women’s Day! Women of all ages receive gifts – daughters from mothers, teachers from students, aunts from nephews, etc. And since it’s a national holiday, everyone gets a day off! We don’t celebrate it with the gifts in our household anymore - Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day are enough – but it still feels like a holiday to us!

We’ve come a long way during these 6 weeks at home. I’ve become a strict disciplinarian, which is a totally new role for me :) We have a routine for everything: playtime, study time, TV, bedtime, etc. Of course, Victoria had a routine before, but now I really enforce it, and I think it’s the reason Rachel is doing so well. All children are different, and it wouldn’t even occur to me to send Alex to bed at 8:00 pm when he was 10 years old. But Alex was always very mature, so this approach wouldn’t work for him. As most post-institutionalized kids, Rachel is emotionally much younger than her biological age. She’s more like 7- or 8-year old, and she needs a totally different approach than home-grown 10-year olds. I’m tutoring her every day in Math and English, and she’s really making progress! We started from scratch with the kindergarten and first-grade level work, and both Victoria and Rachel are doing amazingly well. I’m sure Rachel will be able to catch up very soon on her age-appropriate level when she learns the basics. Victoria really benefits from these sessions, and I’m afraid she’ll be bored in kindergarten next year :)

What else is new? Rachel experienced a lot of “firsts” during these 6 weeks.

First visit to the Strong Museum, which is one of the best children’s museums in the nation. The girls had a blast “working” as cashiers at the children’s Wegmans:

doing the weather forecast on TV:

and riding the carousel:


First visit to the mall, with an ice cream at Maggie-Moos:


First visit to the zoo:


First haircut! The hairdresser just trimmed the ends, but the result was awesome:






First gymnastics lesson! Rachel is very good in gymnastics, she should definitely try out for varsity team in high school :)

I started thinking about summer and already signed Rachel up for soccer and swimming. Both girls will go to day camps, it should keep them busy :)

Overall I’m very pleased with our transition so far. Rachel’s attaching very well, the girls are the best of friends, and our life is slowly getting back to our “new” normal.