Crazy doctor and tooth fairy

The girls have been to two meetings with the therapist so far, and though we love Dr. Magda, the girls are still hesitant. They think that only crazy people see psychologists, so they think we think they are crazy. Thankfully Magda explained to them that she does not see "crazy" people, and then she explained why they would be seeing her - she explained about how that when babies grow in their mommy's tummy and when they are babies, they learn that when they do certain things, a mamma or papa respond and meet their needs - ie trust and attachments are formed. Magda then explained that they most likely haven't had those types of relationships in a long time, since in the orphanage there are just so many kids and not too many caretakers. So they got used to taking care of themselves and not having someone meet their needs, and that is what she was going to help them do with us - have them learn to trust us and attach to us. They seemed ok with this.

Magda did say that Marina's relationship with Carola and Dieter will likely cause problems in her attachment process, since she saw this as a type of "family" experience, even though it was more like "going to the grandparents for the summer" type of experience. Carola and Dieter didn't have Marina for long enough periods to really enforce behaviors or norms on her, and they didn't really have to make her do things she didn't want to do like going to the dentist or going to school etc. I know they didn't spoil her with lots of toys, as dieter told me that they did teach Marina about spending money and how to be responsible about it. And she is good at that for the most part.


Katya has very low self esteem, which Magda says is why she wants to wear the skimpy clothes. She prescribed at least 7 hugs per day for Katya, even if Katya doesn't want them. This will teach her that she is worth receiving love and affection, and hopefully enhance her self image. Katya has had a rough few days - it may be PMS, it may be normal teenager mood swings, or it may be her starting to grieve....we don't know. We are going camping this weekend and she had a meltdown in Target because we wouldn't buy a lawn tennis set she wanted. We did offer to buy the less expensive set, but she wanted the expensive set, so we said no. She stormed off in the store, disappeared for 20 minutes, was crying in the ailes, and then went out to the parking lot alone. She wouldn't even get in the car when we were leaving. Finally, when threatening to physically put her in the car, she got in, but not after spouting out a loud protest of some sort in really fast Russian. We have no clue what she said, but she sounded upset and she was still crying. She was still pissed off this morning.

Marina also had a melt down on Wednesday, but I can't blame her for that one. We ended up waiting for close to 3 hours at the dentist office for them to fit her in to pull two of her rotten baby teeth. We had a scheduled "exam", but not a scheduled "treatment" so they had to fit us in. Marina was bored and frustrated, and probably scared. They gave her nitrous/laughing gas, and a local numbing gel and pulled the two teeth. One was so bad it came out in pieces. The other they put in a little plastic treasure chest for the tooth fairy. Unfortunately since the girls are still having problems with their sleep routines, we couldn't get the money under her pillow. I think we may send her the money in the mail "from the tooth fairy" since she likes to get mail, and it will hopefully let her believe in the tooth fairy for a little while.


The girls each have one best friend, who are of course both Russian speaking. We have met Marina's friend Syka who is from Kyrgystan, and tomorrow we meet Katya's friend Masha and her family as they are coming up to Helen where we will be camping to go to the Octoberfest there with us.

Little brother found and health update

So, we finally got up the courage to call the phone number the Kirovograd lawyer gave us for the little brother's adoptive family. I left a message during the daytime, so as to give the family the choice to call us back or not. Well, he did - Kolya's adoptive father that is. Greg adopted Kolya in 2002 from the Kirovograd baby house as a single man. He had little to no info about Kolya's siblings or family, other than the parents names. So I filled him in on all the family drama, and exchanged email addresses so we could trade photos of the kids. Kolya looks so like Marina that they could be twins. I sent some photos of the girls and the birth family to Greg and am waiting for his response to those. So it sounds like the girls will get to have continued contact with their little brother and Aunt Nadiya will be happy to have photos of her lost nephew. We did find out that Kolya also had strabismus and is now in corrective glasses- I guess it is genetic!

In medical news, the girls bloodwork came back and it was better than we hoped for. Marina doesn't have Hepatitis C! She was positive for Hep A antibodies, but that is only a mild short term infection, and it gave her the same antibody results that having the vaccine would have given her. She does have a little anemia, but thats to be expected. Katya was also good on all her bloodwork.

Their teeth are another story. Let's just say that they have one or two good teeth in their mouths. both girls need tons of work - cavities filled, root canals, teeth pulled....they did very well though in the dentists office. The hygienists were great, showing the girls all the instruments first and letting them play with them before they were used in their mouths. Marina has an abcessed tooth, so she will need to be on antibiotics before she can have that pulled. Thankfully that one is a baby tooth and the adult tooth will eventually come in to replace it. Katya needs at least 5 visits to complete all the work she needs done, so we'll spread that out over the next year. I've heard good things about xylitol, so I will look in to buying that type of toothpaste and see if we can prevent further damage in the girls teeth. We did cut off their candy supplies though - they weren't happy about that.

So, upcoming appointments include Marina's audiology appointment next week, and then both girls go to the eye center at emory for an evaluation in october. Marina sees her ped dentist later this month, and hopefully we can get Katya's painful teeth taken care of in october or november.

Right now its just a matter of money - we are still recovering from the adoption trip itself, so it will take some time to get our finances back in order.