Neat tools for protective parents

I know we are all super protective of our adopted kids, but at the same time we want to make sure they get to benefit from some of the great technologies and resources we have access to in the US. I found these two resources that were a great help to us and our girls, and have turned on other parents (not just adoptive ones either) to these tools.

Glubbles by Firefox
http://www.glubble.com/glubbles
This is an internet safety program. It uses a “white list” instead of “black lists” or keyword filters. Basically kids can only access the internet through the Firefox Glubbles interface (you have to be sure they can’t get to internet explorer, or otherwise they will just use that instead), and the only websites that they can view are the ones you explicitly approve. It comes with a set of preapproved sites that you can enable or disable, things like Disney.com, Barbie.com, Discovery channel Kids, etc.

Some other websites I’ve approved include:
YouTube (I know this can be bad, but there are tons of Russian TV shows and music videos on there that the kids like to watch)
Millsberry.com - arcade games by General Mills cereals
Brainpop.com – educational videos and quizzes on every subject
Clubpenguin.com- owned by Disney now, arcade games played by your penguin avatar.
Wikipedia.com – online encyclopedia, great for school work
Rosetta Stone online through our library – award winning language software, offered free through many local library systems. Good for practicing their English, and remembering their Russian!

Kajeet mobile phones for kids.
http://www.kajeet.com/4u/index.html

Kajeet phone are finally available at Target and Walmart and the phones look like “normal” cell phones, unlike the FireFly kid mobile phones that look like toys. You buy the phone, activate it online, set up your controls, and then buy minute refill cards. No contracts (unlike Disney Mobile), no overages, and no HUGE bills – it’s all prepaid. It can even be part of your kids “allowance package” if you want. Katya got one of these phones before she went to visit my parents for a month this summer and she liked it.

You can lock the phone so that your kid can only make calls during certain times of the day (like you can make sure that no calls are made during school hours, or after bedtime!) and you can limit who your kid can call and who can call your kid (no boys for Katie and no telemarketers or 900 numbers)

It has games and ringtones that the kids can download for free, and it looks like a regular phone. You can set certain numbers to “always” be allowed – like your cell phone or home number, so they can call anytime day or night or while in school in case of emergency.

You can get one of the phones for around $20 and the minute cards are comparable to other companies’ rates.

VisaBuxx cards

I hate giving my kids cash – cash gets lost, spent inappropriately, etc. And our new American culture is becoming more and more “plastic” in our money. VisaBuxx cards are prepaid credit cards for teens that come with a bunch of online tools and educational resources to teach kids how to manage money, and use their credit cards wisely. Parents can set up auto refills on the cards from their own bank accounts for the kid’s allowance and other family members (grandparents) can “gift” your kids money onto this card for birthdays or good grades. You can also log on to a parent portal to monitor your kids spending and balance.

Life books

So, I finally am near finishing up the girls life books. I’ve had to add a few photos to the existing layouts as Gene got us some additional photos that I hadn’t expected. We also finally got Marina a regressed baby photo from Phojoe.com and she wanted that added to her “birthday” page.

I decided to do an 8x8 scrapbook for each of them as apposed to the larger sizes, since I knew I would be short on photos in some places and larger pages are harder to fill when you have limited photos. They also fit nicer on book shelves than the larger books. I used the Creating Keepsakes layout magazines to come up with my layouts – I altered them according to the photos I had and I tended to lean towards the more geometric, balanced layouts.

Here is the general table of contents I used:
Cover page – “Your Lifebook”
Your Birthdate
Your Birthparents
Your Birthplace
(here it varied due to the girls life experiences)
Your Childhood- Katya/ Shelter Nadiya- Marina
Your Journey (shelters and orphanages)- Katya
Barvinok Children’s home- Marina/ Oleksandriya Boarding School- Katya
Your German Host Family – Marina
(here it goes back to the same for both girls)
Your Birth Family (still working on clarifying this as it is complicated)
Your Adoption

When I didn’t have photos, I used Flickr.com to find “fake” photos or photos of important objects. For example, Katya remembers riding on her aunt’s pig when she was little, so I found a photo of a little pig and used that in the scrapbook. Or they had some experience in a Ukrainian outdoor market (Rinok) so I found a generic photo of a Rinok and used that.

If your kids are older, talk to them and try to construct a timeline of their life – it may be fuzzy at first, but they will remember more and more as they become more comfortable with you and they start coping with their loss. ** A therapist is a good idea for this as well – not only to bring up memories of their early life, but to SAFELY deal with those memories!** Talk to the kids about things they did in the orphanage – ask about funny stories. These can be focal points in your kids’ life book. If they are younger kids who have been in the orphanage their whole lives, try to take photos of every inch of the orphanage. If you forgot to, or weren’t allowed to, talk to other adoptive parents who adopted from the same orphanage – maybe they have photos they can share.

Also, charity groups are a great resource for photos of the orphanages in Ukraine and possibly your kids! I found a group that had done work in both my girls’ orphanages over the years, and they had photos of my girls when they were younger! I saw the low quality photos on their websites, emailed the group via their “contact us” email on the website, and got a warm response with 20 or so high quality original photos. Peace Corps volunteers are also a good source of photos. Do a Flickr.com search for “Ukraine” “orphans” “orphanages” “children” etc and you will find tons of photos.

Birth family search

So we finally had the extra money to attempt a search for the girls’ bio mother and get some photos to fill in some gaps in their life books. Thankfully, our girls remembered much of their early life, so we had a lot of good info for Gene Sagin to start with. We also gave him Aunt Nadiya’s address and phone number as she would have even more info and be able to help him find the girls’ bio father’s grave in the cemetery.



We had some specific questions and tasks we wanted him to accomplish and he was successful in all but one, which was not his fault. The birth mom, as usual, is roaming with gypsies, and was not nearby to visit. Gene got photos of the maternity hospital where the girls and their little brother Kolya was born, better quality photos of the birth parents wedding photos, photos of the girl’s grandparents and birth father as a child, photos of the birth father’s grave and the graves of the
paternal grandparents graves, and he managed to find the maternal grandmother’s home and to speak to her. The maternal grandmother gave Gene info on the birth mother –
saying she had visited only one month ago and that she returned on a fairly regular basis to Znamenka, and lived mostly in either Znamenka or Belgorod Russia. The maternal grandmother also confirmed the existence of a 4th sibling – a 3 year old little boy named Georgiy who is still with the birth mom. Funny enough though, the
birth mom wrote down the girls’ birth father as the father of this 4th child on the birth certificate, even though the bio father is the gypsy she lives with – maybe for stigma reasons? The baby doesn’t look gypsy at all, based on the photo Gene got from the maternal grandmother – big chubby cheeks and white blonde hair. Can’t tell the eye color though – probably brown like our girls. The birth mother looks HORRIBLE in the photo though – I think she may have HIV or tuberculosis.


Not much else was able to be accomplished with the maternal grandmother as she was drunk and Aunt Nadiya was ready to fist fight with her.

Upcoming blog topics

So, I have been wanting to update this and keep it going - I think of topic ideas almost daily, I just don't have time to get on the internet and update it. I need to figure out how to email the posts to the blog again like I did when I was in Ukraine.

So, what I hope to blog about soon:
Review of the girls first year home!
Neat tools and services for keeping our kids safe
Lifebook's I made for our girls
Our birthfamily search results
Medical problems in our kids - including the emotional and developmental ones

Long time with no blog access

A few people have been on me to update this. Been busy with life and didn't have alot of access to the internet for a bit.

Brief overview of the last few months:

We moved into the three bedroom place - so normal move related stress, disorganization, and unpacking.

Lost my job at Macro - but found another job within two weeks, though didn't start said new job for about a month. Been at the new job now for about a month and loving it. I'm back in the lab, making more money, and get to go to Africa in September to do REAL public health work.

Dealing with the tax return - government captured ALL of our stimulous package and our adoption credit for my husband's student loans even though we filed injured spouse forms. Our accountant is working on getting my portion of the refund.

Had to turn in the Aveo as the lease was up. With gas prices where they are, we decided against the minivan for now and have been using one car.

Had Katya/Katie's 15th birthday party this past weekend. Not many of her school friends showed up, but got to see Dee and her kids and one of the Barr girls, so it was great. Took Katie to take the test for her driver's permit, and she failed the written test. She is taking the test more seriously now and is studying her butt off and we will take her next Saturday to retake the test.

In behavior news, Marina is doing much better and is much more consistent in her behaviors. We are still trying to get neuro psych testing done on her due to her continued memory problems with are likely due to very mild FAE or head trauma from her abuse. We are working on her "backtalk" and sassiness, but its getting better. The girls also deal much better with the rules we set and the consequences for not following them. They whine and stomp for a few seconds and then they are fine. Big issue the past few weeks has been them not wanting to wear their glasses and or losing their glasses. Marina has lost three pair so far. If anyone has any suggestions on how to get them to wear the glasses and not lose them, let me know.

Another new thing has been their interest in boys. Katie is wanting to start dating or having a boyfriend. We said no, not until you are 16. But we relaxed it a bit, allowing her to have a pseudo-boyfriend who she can call on the phone, email, and hold hands with at school. We may even allow her to have a boy over to watch a movie, with us in the same room of course and the lights on. We are trying to encourage her to find a Russian boyfriend. Language is such a big issue in dating since communication is the corner stone of a good relationship. Most of the boys she is in class with are hispanic, since she is in ESL and ESL-friendly classes all day, so they don't speak English very well and they definately DON'T speak Russian.

I added some photos above - the blonde girl is my cousin Liza. She is 17 and has been staying with us for part of the summer- partly to get away from her family, and partly to help us with child care while the girls are out of school.

Sibling reunion and Marina turns 11

Been muddling along the past few months - losing Oksana hit me hard, but a few good crying and screaming sessions in the bathroom helped me get it all out. The girls are behaving better now, not too many tantrums or fits in awhile. Only "normal" kid behaviors that we are still not "ok" but are at least managable.

We finally got to meet the girls biological brother, who was adopted to the US in 2002. He and his adoptive father came down on a train to visit us for MLK weekend. It is amazing how much he looks like Marina. Katya loved taking care of her little brother, holding him on her lap, helping him with his jacket and gloves. Marina liked having a playmate around - they spend hours playing in the snow outside, building snowmen, throwing snowballs. We also took the kids to the new World of Coke and the Georgia Aquarium - it was pricey but worth it. The kids even handled their frustrations and occasional tiredness with self control - no melt downs, just a few pouty and grouchy moments.

While Kolya and Greg where here, we had Marina's 11th birthday party. My parents also drove up from Florida to be at the party. Thankfully everyone stayed at hotels! The party was red and pinked themed, and I was SOOOO stressed out planning and getting everything ready. It was my baby's first birthday in America and I was terrified it would not be a happy event for her. Thankfully 6 of her friends showed up, and they all had a great time sledding in the snow, playing barbie, watching High School Musical 2 on the big screen projector and playing with Marina's hamster. Food and cake went over well, and everything was eaten so no leftovers to clean up. Some of the girls parents even stayed for the party, so it was nice getting to know them too. Half of the kids spoke Russian, so that was also nice for Marina. I really liked her friends, really sweet kids.

Farewell to SnowWhite

So, Snow White, aka Oksana, is out of our reach and unless God himself intervenes and a miracle occurs soon, she will never be part of our family.

The foster family in Nizhyn intends on adopting her. The family is wealthy, powerful, and will be able to care for Oksana as she deserves. Supposedly, this is some new program open to Ukrainian families - foster-adopt fast-tracking. They pick a kid out at the orphanage, and even if the kid has no legal release or registration papers, they can take the child and adopt them. Even unregistered kids. The legal guise is that the child can live with the future adoptive family as a "foster child" while the legal paperwork is sorted out. while this is a great thing that now a lack of legal paperwork will not prevent a child from having a chance at adoption, I still think the program is a little shady and open for corruption and bribery.

I still don't understand why this powerful, rich family would want an older child like Oksana. She is 8 1/2 years old. She has major personality - totally high maintenance and stubborn as a mule. Millions of possible reasons swam through my head in the last few weeks since we found out. Some good, some not so good, some criminal....

We hired a family-finder to try and meet the foster family - discuss our wishes to adopt Oksana ourselves, exchange photos, maybe become friends with them. The foster father wanted none of it, and refused to let the district social worker office release his address to our representative. Thankfully I also had a contact who spoke with the regional social worker in charge of visiting this family checking in on Oksana, and this social worker is supportive of us being in contact with Oksana, and agreed to deliver a letter and photos to the family and Oksana on our behalf.

So Oksana beat the odds. She was an unregistered, older child, and she was chosen by a Ukrainian family for adoption. This happens in less than 1% of the time for children in her situation. Most Ukrainian families want to adopt babies, or to foster older kids in a group home.

Everyone in our home is crushed, but we are trying to be happy for Oksana. As I wrote, not many older Ukrainian orphans will ever be adopted at all.

Disney Photos and Thanksgiving

Here are some of the photos from Disney. We only went to Magic Kingdom to minimize the girls chances of being overwhelmed. Over Christmas break we will bring them to Animal Kingdom most likely.

Updates

I've been meaning to update again, but I've had this respiratory virus for a few weeks now, and I can't seem to kick it.

The Ukrainian family picnic went well. Katya and Marina didn't want to socialize at first and Marina ended up sitting in the car towards the end, but the kids did ok overall. I think it hit them that Ukraine wasn't all good, especially if that many kids needed "new" families in America. And this was just the families with Ukrainian kids in the Atlanta area.

Katya had a root canal on one of her teeth. Thankfully we have good dental insurance with all the work the girls needs and are getting. She was very good through the appointment and it didn't take too long. Actually it wasn't a full blown root canal - since she is still a teen, they did a REALLY big filling in the tooth, and tried to save it best they could. She had a bit of bleeding for a few days, but that itsn't any different from when the tooth was just rotten and broken. She has three more major teeth to be fixed, but I think we will wait until the new year to do that. Marina also needs one more trip to the dentist for repairs. Then one visit for sealants on the few good teeth they have then just normal cleanings every 6 months after that.

Did a two day intensive therapy session this past weekend with Marina. The first day we worked on major behavioral issues and started teaching her to look us in the eye when asking for things. The second day, Saturday, we did a reclaiming narrative. We held marina in our arms, like a baby, and talked through what her life would have been like if she had been born to us. As we went through the "story" the therapist gave her things that we had put together in a box for "baby" marina. So, we fed her a bottle of apple juice (she won't drink milk, only kefir), a pacifier, teething ring, little stuffed lion, baby book, bib, onesie, etc. She was really good and seemed truly engaged in the story. Afterwards we took her and Katya to the animal shelter to play with the animals.

Our mistake was taking her to IKEA and then Target afterwards. She was just too tired after the therapy session and she ended up having a meltdown in Target. We ended up having to chase her down in the women's lingerie section because she wouldnt come out to the parking lot with us when it was time to go. We had to split up and corner her because she was weaving in and out of the aisles to avoid us. We also had to carry her into the house when we got home. We ended up having to use the slide lock on her door again. Thankfully Katya was happily playing on the main house computer, so only Marina was locked in this time. She raged for about an hour or so, screaming bloody murder and pounding her fists on the door, the walls etc. We heard things being broken and thrown about.

She spend Sunday at home, with no TV, no phone, and no computer. Andrew only took the girls to the park to ride bikes. Otherwise, Marina spend the day in her room with a book. She seemed ok about it, and we talked to her about why she was "grounded" and she understood and agreed that she had behaved badly.

We have one more of these intensive sessions for Marina and we decided with the therapist to leave that for when we get back from Florida. This will be the session where marina says good-bye to her birthparents. After that it will all be play therapy with Magda (the therapist).

Tomorrow the girls go to a local church day camp, since they don't have school. Katya friend Masha will be there too, so they are looking forward to going. Then we leave for Florida tomorrow afternoon. Hopefully we won't hit too much traffic. We hope to be in Orlando at my parents house by 10pm or so. Turkey day with my parents and family there, Friday I will go gift shopping at 5am with my mom, and then Saturday we take the girls to Magic Kingdom at Disney. Thankfully my parents agreed to go with us and her keep an eye and hand on the girls! And, since my dad works there we don't have to pay of course. And with him there with us, we will get his 30% discount in the gift shops there too hehe

Will post pictures of the picnic tomorrow, and will take tons of disney photos too.

Halloween Photos and American Adventures

Compassion Fatigue or Secondary PTSD

I was reading an article on Rainbowkids.com today and discovered the term Secondary PTSD. As I did some internet searches on it, I started to realize that this is a sorely understudied and underreported syndrome.
http://muskie.usm.maine.edu/helpkids/rcpdfs/Sec.Trauma-foster.pdf

Most of the literature refers to mental health providers, healthcare providers and "first responders." But there is almost no mention of adoptive or foster parents. We deal 24/7 with our adopted kids past trauma, through counseling sessions, through their behavior, through visits to the doctor and dentist, and through their story telling.

I've heard stories come out of my girls mouths that would make the strongest and manliest man cry. As my husband says, its a good thing their birth father is already dead, because otherwise he would hunt him down and kill him for what he put our girls through. Andrew is still considering this action with the birth mom's new husband, who also abused our girls.

I think Andrew and I are both suffering from some degree of this Secondary PTSD, via our girls. We are just handling it in different ways. I am the one who takes the girls to the doctors and dentist, and we both take the girls to the therapist. We see first hand what years of abuse and neglect have done to their minds, bodies, and souls. Their teeth are rotten, they are short due to calcium deficiency, they have parasites, latent TB, horrid scars on their bodies, warts, eye disorders...all on top of serious behavioral and emotional issues.

Sometimes the girls are so upset that we didn't "come get them" sooner. Other times they want to go back to their orphanage (where rules were more flexible and they had more control over their lives).

I feel like crying almost 24 hours a day. I am exhausted mentally and physically. I just want to lay in bed all day. Now, I do suffer from generalized anxiety disorder and secondary depression, but this is above and beyond that. I know this is not "normal" for me. I don't feel attached to the girls, and many times I just don't care about them. I robotically go through the motions, hugging them, making their lunches, getting them ready for school. I thought it was because they are constantly critical of the food I make, even after they picked it out at the Russian food store, or maybe because when Marina doesn't like the clothes we bought, she "runs away" and says that she doesn't want to live with us. But maybe its all this on top of my empathy for them working through their grief. Now that they are in therapy, more of the "stories" are coming out. I feel like a walking zombie most days, always in a state of shock and detachment.

Just wanted to share this as I suspect some other adoptive parents are feeling the same thing. Sometimes once you are aware of the problem, you can work on fixing it, or at least minimizing its effects, right?

Happy Halloween!

So, we found Oksana. She was NOT adopted by a Ukrainian family. She was chosen by a local foster family to move into their foster home. Supposedly, they saw her photo and information on a website and liked her, and wanted to bring her to their home.

This does NOT exclude her from adoption. We only know of two websites that have her photos on it, other than our blog, and that is Big Family Charity, and PrayerforOrphans. The Prayer site has a more concise bio about Oksana, and clearly states that we are trying to adopt her.

Of course the director is all clouds and rainstorms about it, saying that he doesn't think we will ever be able to adopt her now, but I'm not going to start trusting that man now after all he has lied about in the past year.

The action point now is to get the contact info for this foster family. We know they are in Nizhyn, which is a pretty big city for Ukraine, and its closer to Kyiv than the orphanage was. Hopefully, the foster family will either already know about our efforts from the webpage, or will be accepting and maybe supportive of our efforts when we find them. Worst case is that they try to stand in the way of the adoption. Best case, they support us and help us get her registered and let us stay in contact with her. Based on my experience with other foster families in Ukraine, most of them are caring Christian people, who only want a good life for these kids. Based on that, and what my prayers have told me, I think this family will help us adopt Oksana. Either way, at least she is in a better place than that remote orphanage.


In other news, Marina graduated from the intensive English program yesterday. She gets her little diploma on Friday and starts full time at her home base school next week. I don't know what the exact requirements of "graduation" are, but she is definitly NOT fluent enough to operate in a English speaking classroom all day and do the work. She can speak and understand English well, but she can't really write, spell, or read at all. She doesn't seem to understand that once she goes full time to Briarvista that she will be required to do all the same work as the English speaking students. She seems to think that she will continue to only be required to do the math work. So we went to Americanski Puzata Hata (Ryans steakhouse and buffet) last night to celebrate.

Also had an appointment with Magda yesterday afternoon, for Katya. Marina played on our laptop in the next room. Katya seems to think that we don't give her enough privledges compared to Marina, and that she is treated unfairly. Well, don't all kids think that? Darn, most adults think like that!

Perfect example, on the drive to Puzata Hata, we were confirming with Katya that she wanted to start volunteering at the local animal shelter (one of the things she said she wanted to change about our home was she wanted a kitten and a big dog - we already have 2 cats, a small dog, and a hamster, so no more pets - so we suggested she volunteer at the animal shelter and she agreed). Marina of course wants to go too, thinking its going to be all fun and games and playing with the animals. We tell her no, this is something special for Katya to do as Katya is a teenager and she is only 10. She them goes on this tirade about how we let Katya do EVERYTHING and buy Katya EVERYTHING and buy nothing for her. *sigh* Katya says the same thing.

I am seriousely considering taking everything of theirs away except the BAREST minimum, so they can see how much they BOTH have. Then they can earn each thing back with good behavior.


We are also doing some slight redecorating to their room, now that they are home and settled in. I know, what horrible unfair parents we are, right? Buying them stuff to redecorate their rooms and agreeing to the redec in the first place. Horrible. LOL So we got rid of the "baby" toys like the play kitchen, and are putting in a little work table for homework, cards, puzzles, crafts etc, fabric covered cork boards, and shelves for displaying their favorite photos or mementos on. Oh, and we are putting curtains around their bunk beds so they can each have "privacy" by closing their respective curtains.

Financially we are starting to recover and get back into a routine. Thankfully we don't have many more expenses with the girls home than we did by ourselves. The girls eat more fruit, but we also eat home more and go out less with the girls home. Except for McDonalds. That is almost twice a week with them. Hopefully we will eventually get this refund from the student loans department (they were taking too much from Andrew for a year, so they agreed to refund it) so we can pay off some of our relatives who helped us out with the adoption, and pay off the few credit cards we used. Thankfully we got the girls social security cards shortly after turning in the applications. It was way easier than I thought it was going to be. They didn't need a certificate of citizenship for Katya, her entry visa in her Ukrainian passport was enough. So now I can concentrate on getting a "receipt" from Masha our facilitator for applying for the adoption tax credit this January.

Upcoming plans include trick or treating tonight at one of our local malls, and then this weekend maybe visiting Andrew's aunt and uncle here in Georgia ( they live about an hour away), and going to the Ukrainian family reunion on Sunday at Stone Mountain park. Julie Nolte organizes these a few times a year for all the adoptive families with Ukie kids. This will be our first one WITH the girls.

Prayer Request

So, I've heard yet another rumor about Oksana. One of my friends in New York, who is trying to adopt two girls from Oksana's orphanage was told, by her kids, that Oksana was adopted by a Ukrainian family and was leaving the orphanage.

Now, I've heard this rumor a dozen times before, and its never turned out to be true. But there is still that kernal of anxiety in my heart about it. The fact is, Ukraine is unpredictable and there is a slim change it is true.

But, there is more of a chance that it is not true. #1. You can't always believe a 10 year old's word about something like this - they could be fibbing, it could be a misunderstanding etc.

Also, the woman helping all of us with the kids registration for adoption confirmed that Oksana's parents rights were never terminated, and she was never registered for adoption. The only possibilities are: its foster home program, or her birth mother was found and has taken her.

Ukrainians don't adopt older kids. Almost never. I think its less than 1% of the time Ukrainians actually adopt domestically do they choose a kid over 2 years old, and most of those times its a biological relative (their niece or nephew etc).

We also confirmed at the SDA when we were there adopting Marina and Katya that Oksana was not registered. Ukrainians can't adopt the kids either if they aren't registered for adoption. That is what the 14 months is for - for domestic adoptions only. Once that 14 months is up, then the kid can be adopted internationally.

Also, the director, the regional inspector and the SDA are all aware of our efforts to adopt Oksana. I know they can't "stop" a ukrainian family from adopting the kids, but they do have a say, and usually once the ukrainian family knows that the kid is going to America, they back off. Same with the foster homes. Once the foster group finds out that the kid is going to America soon, they take them off the list.

So, I'm at a loss, and I am praying desperately that this just another misunderstanding and rumor. With so many people aware of our efforts, I don't see why someone would allow an adoption or foster home to go through for Oksana. Oksana is also aware and wrote us a letter just a few weeks ago, calling me Mama Melissa and telling me to hurry up her documents so she could come live with us. The kid has to agree to an adoption or foster home placement, so I don't thik Oksana would agree either, and she can be quite the handful when she doesn't want to do something!

So please, pray for our family and for Oksana that the situation will turn out the way it is supposed to. In my biased opinion that means Oksana being part of our family, as any placement in Ukraine will not give her the opprotunity to reach her full potential as living in America would.

Parenting with Love and Logic

So I broke down and bought the book. I've heard so many good things about it. As I've started reading it, I've realized that alot of the ideas are good ones, but they would be hard to implement when my kids don't speak fluent English yet. Most of PWLAL is about talking...giving the kids control through options, expressing feelings instead of giving order etc....but what do you do when your kids speak only pidgin English?!?!

Some of it we had already been doing too - if the kid doesn't change their behavior, you change their location. ie, when they throw a tantrum in Target, one of the parents takes the kid out of the store and to the car. If only one parent is present, you leave your basket where it is, and take the kids to the car and go home.

Many of our problems have been with the kids NOT making one of the given choices, NOT staying in their rooms to cool down, etc. They are far too big for us to pick them up, but we often have to do this in the end. Marina often needs to be physically restrained during her meltdowns so she doesnt "take-off", hurt herself or others or damage property. We have to physically pick her up and carry her out of the store when she has a tantrum as she will not walk out on her own two feet. We do't hurt her in any way- just bear-hug her until she calms down, or fireman carry her to where she needs to be.

Some of the battles we are losing include: being honest, going to bed at night, waking up in the morning, and constantly (and I mean constantly) comparing themselves to everyone else and how things that happen to them are "not fair!."

The food battles are mostly over. Marina is finally drinking milk, and they almost always eat their food at dinner. Lunch is another story, since I can't be there to make sure they are actually eating their lunches. I have talked to their teachers, who take them to lunch, so I have them keeping an eye out for me.

Another big challenge lately, including this weekend, is their Russian friends. Their Russian friends are not adopted. The parents are Russian immigrants, and these kids have lived with those parents their whole lives. Problem is, they still have many of the "bad habits" that are part of Russian culture - ie running around barefoot in the woods, peeing outside instead of using a toilet, going down to the lake to wash the dishes instead of using the nearby washhouse, letting the kids wear questionable clothing etc. Its been very hard to enforce our rules and boundaries on the girls when their Russian friends' families don't have similar rules.

We had an incident this Saturday while trying to attend Masha's birthday party. Even though Georgia is in a state of emergency drought, and Lake Lanier is 19 ft below where it should be, Masha's family decided they wanted to go camping and have a birthday picnic at the lake. andrew and I being in medicine, and I being an infectious disease specialist, we knew that in its current state, Lake Lanier posed a health risk to the girls. Their immune systems are still not 100%, they are on the INH for latent TB, and with the lake so low, all of the bacteria, viruses, and parasites are super-concentrated into a smaller amount of water. We told the girls that we would go to the lunch on the condition that they did not go in the water and they would not be allowed to go swimming. I dislike non-pool swimming anyways, but this was especially troubling, and they agreed to the condition. I was cleaning a few things out of the car when I hear Andrew bellowing across the park for me. Apparently, the girls, along with Masha and another Russian kid, went down to the lake to "wash the picnic dishes in the lake water" (YUCK!!!) and got their feet all muddy. On top of this they were not wearing their shoes while tromping through the forest (where there was visible broken glass from boaters). I catch up with them as they are returning to the dreaded lake to wash their feet. I stop them and reinforce that they are not to go near the lake water. I let the first transgression slide, as I thought that maybe they misunderstood that they were not to even put their feet in the lake. I tell them to go up to the little bath house and wash their feet there. A few minutes later we spot them on a private boat pier, splashing around and dipping their hands and feet into the water. Well, we had given them a second chance, and they chose to disobey us again. So we ran over, got them away from the water, and let them know that we were disappointed that they went to the water even after we reminded them not to, and then annouced that we were leaving the party and going home. PWLAL, If you can't change their behavior, you change their location - right? They were upset, screaming, wouldn't go get their shoes (which they had again left behind at the campsite and not worn while running through the woods), and we finally got them to the car, in tears.

The biggest issue came with trying to explain our decision to the russian families there. They had no idea WHY it was not ok for the kids to run barefoot and muddy around the lake. They seemed to not want to simply respect our wishes as the girls parents - i got the feeling that they felt that we were sub-par parents that needed to be educated on how to raise "russian" kids. that somehow by us not being russian, we were not good enough parents for the girls because we were depriving them of their "culture" by prohibiting them from doing these things. Not wanting to burn-bridges with our daughter's best friend's family, I explained as best I could over and over. Then I finally returned to the car, and we left. The girls wailed most of the way home, beat the back of our car seats, refused to put on their seat belts etc.

more later, and photos too.

Headless Ken

Sorry its been so long between posts. I'm trying to keep this up so that I have a written record of this process, and so other adoptive parents can learn from our experiences and know that they are not alone.

The photos are: the girls portrait, the girls at Sonic with Marina's friend Syka who is from Kyrgystan, and the girls in Helen Georgia for Octoberfest with Katya's friend Masha from St. Petersburg.

The most recent disaster happened Tuesday night and has had some aftershocks that are still continuing today. Marina had a MAJOR meltdown around bedtime on Tuesday. Initially it started out being an issue with her attendance in her school's after school care program. Its not like the kids are still in school during this time - they play, do fun crafts and activities, etc. Its necessary for her to go to this program as her school lets out at 2pm and we work until 5 pm or so, and she definately can't be at the house by herself at age 10.


So, we got her moved back to Briarvista after a huge disappointment with Fernbank Elementary, and she seemed happy about this return, but she was still having issues about staying at school after school ended for the day. She began to escalate, saying she wouldnt go to school, she wouldnt go to bed etc. The exact process escapes me now, as it was 10 at night when she was escalating, and I was tired. I remember that she refused all attempts by us to compromise with her and get her to sleep. She ended up sitting at the dining room table, which is very close to our foyer and front door. Marina has a habit of "taking off" when she gets upset. She literally leaves the house and disappears. Usually we get her back into the house quickly, but not without a physical fight on her part. Knowing this was a possibility, we were not comfortable with leaving her alone in the common area of the house for fear that she would take-off, this time in the middle of the night.


So we sat down at the dining room table with her, and tried to reason with her. We knew that there was something deeper at issue here than just not wanting to go to the after school program. Eventually it came out that she wanted to live "on the street" and not with us. She started to get really confused, angry and sad and started transfering her memories of her birth parents onto us - ie. we were the ones who drank vodka, we abused her, we gave her the scars on her arms and legs, we "boomed" her (our word for hit or beat), etc. She also started defending her birth father, the one who actually drank the vodka and abused her, saying she loved him and wanted to live with him. We tried to bring her back to reality, with reminders that her birth father was dead and that we were her forever parents now, and that we never hurt her and did not drink vodka, that we knew that those things happened to her and that it made us very angry and sad that it happened to her. We got out some Barbies from her room, and put them on the table in front of her. She picked up the Barbies and acted out some of the abuse (we had a ken, barbie, and a little sister barbie). By the end of the "skit" ken's head was chopped off, the little sister was across the room, and the barbie was on the floor. My table also has some nice big dents and gashes it in now from where she banged the barbies' nice hard bodies into it.

Eventually she let Andrew rock her, and we got her to lay down on the couch with Andrew. This was 2am. Needless to say, we kept her out of school the next day due to emotional exhaustion, lack of sleep, and a need to be near us after this catharsis.

Well, Katya had a headache that morning. I gave her tylenol and sent her to school. She had slept through this whole ordeal, and she was not fevered, so no staying home. She was livid about this. Also, I guess the girls had split up the barbies between them, and the ken that got beheaded was claimed by Katya. Katya is still pissed today. Almost no talking, no acknowledgement, she just sits in her room ignoring us. She wouldnt even eat dinner last night. She is also pissed because her friend Masha has not been at the English school for about a week now, due to standardized testing at her home base school and a dentists appointment. On top of all that (oh the teenage trauma right?), her homebase school electives shifted. She is no longer in "technology" ie computer lab, she is now in visual arts. This is part of the electives program here - every 9 weeks, the kids change electives. Next 9 weeks it will be music, or something. Of course the school is still a major issue, and does not communicate these things to us, so we had no way to explain or prepare her for this change.

Thankfully, that is one of our successes - we got the IEP meeting scheduled for November 7th. Since the parents get 50% say in the decisions, and we have Katya's english teacher on our side, the annoying homebase school counselor has no chance of opposing us! yippie! We are also having our therapist, Madga, come with us to speak on Katya's behalf. Thankfully, she and Ms. Savitt, the english teacher, are native Russian speakers and have both noticed that Katya has language delays in her native language. This will qualify her for the IEP. If not, we will claim that there were developmental delays noted on her medical records from Ukraine (which there might be, but I can't read all the records!), and Katya has PTSD and cumulative cognitive deficit. When Katya has an IEP, the school will be forced to make educational accomodations for her.

In other news, we finally got our first set of family portraits back, along with the portraits of the girls. We will probably take advantage of our portrait club membership and bring the girls back to take photos in their princess gowns this month, and again around christmas and maybe again in january. The princess dress photos are more for them - they really really wanted to wear those fancy dresses in the family portrait, but Andrew and I overruled them, and we all wore matching outfits.