Category Archives: Adoption

Gotcha Day +4; Growing Together

12 Sunday Sep 2010

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It has been 5 grueling days since we got the boys.  They both have issues and problems-they have both lived a life of rejection and learned survival among others who have also been rejected.  I have no doubt the staff at the orphanage/baby home were very nice to them, but I also have no doubt they did not give them the attention needed to make them into functioning members of society.

Benjamin’s Progess

Ben on Arbat StreetSo let’s start with Benjamin.  Benjamin has been the problem so long.  I have referred to his problems repeatedly, and he has caused us much grief.  But we have learned greatly over the last two days, and the little boy is beginning-just beginning-to emerge.  So far we have only been able to see a series of bad behaviors.  But we have learned how to discipline him.  We tried several things, and finally found something he hates.  🙂  And it is beginning to work.  We spend every waking moment redirecting him, but he is beginning to trust us more, and understand us.  Today he began playing better.  He still doesn’t know how to play with toys appropriately, but his playing is actually playing and not just throwing toys at Nathan.  Rather than redirecting him non-stop, he is understanding what things are inappropriate and what things are not to be touched.  He only touched the computer once today (as opposed to yesterday when he touched it probably a dozen times).  He only touched the TV… let’s say five times, which is better than yesterday’s countless times.  He bit nobody today.  He did not hurt anyone today.  He had a great conversation with Nathan (about what we don’t know, we can only imagine, though).  He sat through two Thomas the Tank Engine Storybooks, and Shannon taught him to count to eight.  He is starting to repeat words in English as well.  After lunch he even said, “I’m finished!”  (I didn’t catch that-Shannon pointed it out.  “Did you hear that?” she asked.  I had to think about it, but wow, that is really impressive).  He really acted like a little boy all day today.  I think on the first day I mentioned he acted more like a feral dog than a little boy, and I am very serious when I say it.  But I have also described the changes he made.  Honestly, they day we picked him up he went outside to play, we came and got him straight from the playground, put him in the car while Irina told the director that we had him, and he was gone.  He said goodbye to nobody.  He had never met us before.  An entirely new life, instantly.  Today he let us touch him more, and even let me tickle him just a little bit.  He really likes to help with things.  Make no doubt we have a very very long way to go, but it was better.

Nathan’s Day

Nathan couldn't wait to into his stoller!

Nathan had issues today.  He has a lot of anger.  Fortunately, he is too weak to cause any damage.  He fought and fought against me today, and lost every bit.  He took a lot of frustration out… against my index finger.  Literally.  He tried to squeeze, pull, bite, but it never caused any damage.  (He didn’t bite, he only tried).  He is so physically frail.  He is four years old yet weighs about the same as our rat terrier.  Granted we have a fat rat terrier, but he’s four years old!  He could pass for a two year old!  But that will change quickly.  He has a big appetite, and we have food.  He will grow and grow strong.  His issues today revolved around nap time.  Why they fight naptime so badly I do not understand, but wow do they ever fight.  It didn’t help that he got into trouble right before nap time.  It actually took him longer to get nap started (Ben only took 1 hour and 15 minutes. Only, haha).  He is continuing to learn.  We had a great conversation about language today.  He would tell me the name of something, and I would tell him the English word, then he would repeat it a few times.  It was going good until we got to the pillow.

“Shto eta?”  I asked.

“Eta paduska.”

“Good,” I said, tapping it.  “Pillow.”

“Nyet, paduska.”

“Yes, but it is a pillow.”

“Nyet, it is a paduska!”

So he is starting to mix some English and Russian together.  I would say he’s got about 15-20 words and Ben has about 5-10 words (which may be better if he remembers the numbers).

Names

They are responding to their new names very well.  If I call Nathan, Nathan responds.  If I call Benjamin, Benjamin responds.  We still call them by their old names a bit (which are their middle names) but they understand the new ones, too.  As for my name, I honestly do not want to be called “Papa.”  I want to be Daddy.  I will be Papa for as long as they need to call me that, because they don’t have a reference to the word Daddy.  But then, they don’t really have a reference for what Daddy or Papa really are, so it shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

Food

Our biggest issue today was over food.   They fought all day, but what two four year old boys confined to a little hotel room wouldn’t?  They acted very normal today.  But they had some serious issues over snack time before bed.  Nate dropped some food, and Ben picked it up-being a helper.  But Nathan freaked out, because he thought he was trying to get his food.  But he wasn’t.  They kept going back and forth.  Finally we separated them.  At one point Nathan pushed his away-showing out in a temper tantrum-and so I did what I always do when presented with this sort of temper tantrum.  If you push something away in anger, I will take it away.  (Sam used to do the same thing).  And he freaked out again.  So food is a very serious issue.  Tonight they were running and playing and Benjamin spotted a chip under the chair.  It was the most pitiful thing I think I have ever seen.  He literally dove for it, squatted down and ate it with both hands just in case someone else might try to claim it.  It was so horribly sad.   As for the food issues, they still were kind of arguing back and forth and Shannon said, “I know how to end this.  Ho’chesh budium koopatsah?”  Koopatsah is the four-year-old-Russian equivalent of winning the powerball.  A koopatsah is a bath, and I have never seen two children get so excited about bath time.  They run and tell each other that it is time, yelling “KOOPATSAH!!!!”  I’ll have to talk more about Koopatsah later.

Choosing Battles

We have also chosen to choose battles.  Hurting someone is serious trouble.  Not sharing is trouble.  Throwing things inappropriately, touching things you have been told not to touch, spitting… all trouble.  But other things we let slide.  Spit your water into your cup and drink it… we’ll get back to that one.  We’ve made enough changes, we’ll get to some things later!

Arbat Street, Again

IMG_1607

The boys with spaghetti at Sbarro.

Starbucks on Arbat Street. What can I say, it was a black and white kind of day.

We woke today to a very dreary Moscow morning.  It was chilly and rainy.  But there is no way we can stay in this hotel and keep our sanity, so we ventured out down Arbat Street again.  Our main goal: Starbucks.  There are two, about 2 blocks apart.  We had a good walk.  Arbat Street is an old street closed off to auto traffic.  It was very quiet on Sunday morning, so we strolled along, got a couple of

souvenirs among the many shops and just hung out.  Yay strollers!  We had lunch at Sbarro on Arbat, and just a generally decent time.  Both boys really love their strollers.  LOVE THEM.  They get excited when I get them down out of the closet to go out!

I can honestly say, this day was enjoyable.  We have a very long way to go, and we will certainly have setbacks, but we are so thankful for the progress made.

Prayer Requests

Prayer requests now, continue to be for our growth in God.  Today was another exceptional day of prayer and relying on Him.  Yes it was a very hard day, but it was also a good day.  There is such a mix of emotions going on, but today was the first day we felt rested.  We all slept all night, and I am typing this not falling asleep over the keyboard like I have been.  I have been posting really the minimal because I was just too tired to do anything else.   Mostly our requests are the same.  That the boys would continue to grow in their trust.  They still are very unsure of us.  They still don’t really like us.  We still don’t love them like our own children, but like I mentioned before, we are determined that we will!  But we are all growing closer to one another.  There has been improvement there.  But if we left tomorrow, and a new couple came to be Mama and Papa would they really care?  I don’t know that they would.  We haven’t bonded yet, but we are getting there.  Shannon and Nathan aren’t feeling that well.  They both are having prob

lems with sinus drainage and just feeling under the weather.  Nate had a little bit of a fever, but we have found Claritin for mom, Zyrtec for Nate, and Ibuprofen for Ben’s teeth and Nate’s fever.  Please pray that our health would be good for the rest of the trip, and that we would get through each day.  We are very homesick-we miss our kids, our house, our ability to communicate with everyone we come into contact with, our dogs.  We are just stuck here.  Also pray for our trip to the US Embassy tomorrow.  I’m not sure what to expect from it!  Our meeting is at 2pm Mosc ow Time (5am Cape Time).  That is right in the middle of nap time, so we may have troubles tomorrow night!IMG_1594

Gotcha Day +3, Still in Moscow

11 Saturday Sep 2010

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Our room in Moscow, Yes the "beds" they gave us are playpens. But they will sleep there.

Yes.  We are in Moscow.  It seems like it has been forever, but it has only been 3 nights.  Four more to go.  We have learned some good things.  For example, having a child with you seems to entitle you to special privileges.  Russians seem to hate lines, and prefer mobs instead, but if you walk up holding a child, the seas part, and you get to go first.  It is actually refreshing.  On the other hand, dear Russians, if someone asks you “Do you speak English”  and the only word you know in English is “Yes,” then that would not be the time to use that particular word.  But thankfully, a large percentage of the population speaks “a little” English, and we can get through our day with broken English, random Russian words, pointing and holding up the number of fingers of the things we want.

We had an adventure today because we decided we needed strollers.  We didn’t get strollers before we left, because we thought it would be okay, but after these 3 days, we decided that they would be very helpful.  (And after walking with them down to Arbat street-two blocks away… they crashed and burned pretty quickly.  Strollers would be a good thing.) 

I realize many are saying “but they’re too old for strollers”.  Not really.  They are very small children.  Nathan doesn’t weight 25 pounds, and is four years old.  He is too small to fit into the 2T clothes we brought.  Ben is only slightly bigger.

Strollers.  We asked the man at the hotel desk where we might find them and the only place he knew of was a place that would have them, but “there they are very expensive.”  But we tried it.  We got a taxi and took off.  He was right- there they were very expensive.  It was one of those boutique stores, and the least expensive stroller was $400.  So we asked our taxi driver if he knew of any other place, but he didn’t speak English very well.  It turns out he was a friend of Sasha (who went to his country home because it was the weekend).  We called him, and he directed his friend to a children’s hypermarket.  So the driver went there, and then helped us with the transaction.  We bought us two strollers, but they didn’t take credit cards (and we didn’t have that many rubles on us) so our driver found out where there was an ATM.  So we made a 10,000 ruble withdrawal, which covered two still expensive strollers and the taxi fare.  (I thought the price for the cab was excellent, considering he waited for us, carried one of the strollers for us, and Ben puked in his car twice.)

And the boys LOVE strollers.  They both thoroughly enjoyed them.  We used them to go get lunch: pastries from a little shop under the street.  But they wereWalking on Arbat Streetn’t really pastries, they were baked breads with stuff in them.  Some were sweet, but most were meats.  We had the hot dogs and I got one with cheese and mushrooms.  And there are several tunnels that go under the busier streets so that no pedestrians have to cross these streets. The tunnels have a name, but I don’t know it.  They are tunnels with shops in them.  With good prices.  I got a liter of Pepsi for 50 rubles.  That isn’t bad at all.

We also used the strollers for going to the grocery store.  It made the trip much better.

We continue to learn more about the boys.  We’ll start with Nathan.  Nathan is a very smart, well rounded little boy.  We watched him playing really well tonight.  He has a great imagination (he used his Lego blocks to build a gun- simple and crude, but that’s abstract thought.)  He has started repeating English words to us.  Just a couple here and there, but each day it grows ever so slightly.  When we say, “Nathan!” he looks up and comes to us.  So, he is learning his new name.

Benjamin, on the other hand, has some serious issues.  We don’t know how deeply they go.  He seems to be sincerely trying to get us to reject him.  The poor little guy doesn’t realize that no matter how much he fights, we will not give up on him.  I got bitten pretty hard today.  I also got smacked, pinched, and spat upon.  Yet no matter what he couldn’t make us go away.  He is very intelligent-there is no doubt about that.  He started singing “You Are My Sunshine” today with Shannon (with no intelligible words, but the tune was right).  But he cannot focus on any given task for more than about 15-20 seconds.  He does sometimes listen to an entire Thomas the Tank Engine storybook.  And he already is calling them books, and yells “Peep Peep!” when  we start to read.  And on the airplane I got him to color with me for a few minutes.  But he has no idea how to play with toys.  Every toy he either chews on or throws.  Nor does he look at the books, but he throws them, too.  He is very upset that his new car only has three wheels, but when you bite one of them off, there isn’t much that can be done about it.  He has such a long way to go, and is the source of 99% of our struggles.   If both boys were like Nathan, this would be a very fun and enjoyable time.  We would probably venture out to the zoo, or maybe take a walk (with strollers) to Red Square.  But they aren’t. We spent six of our 24 hours trying to get him to sleep today.  He fights it.  He fights us.  We have no support team here.  So we are really in a sort of survival mode.  We spend the entire time we are awake redirecting him.  He   Things are moving in the right direction, though.

Now I said, “if both boys were like Nathan” but I want to make sure that everyone understands that we do not regret the boys we have.  We wish the baby home would have given us a better heads up, but knowing that he is the way he is would not have deterred us.  We are not adopting to make us a happy little family.  We are adopting because we were called by God to serve in this manner.  Because two little boys on the far side of the world need a place where they will be loved and will grow.  We do it because He adopted us.  We are seeing the gospel all over this.  As I watch Ben fighting me-I get frustrated.  Yet my frustration is me fighting against God.  He is sovereign, and has put this very difficult task before us.  We had no idea it would be so difficult.  But he has been preparing me for something for some time.  I have told several people that he was going to do “something” in our lives.  I cannot explain how I knew it, but I knew something incredibly difficult was coming.  I think this is it.  (Actually I thought it would be something different than this- but this is really very close to what I thought).  Sorry if that sounds enigmatic, but I do not know how to describe it.  I was being prepared for some unknown thing. 

But we got the boys to bed fairly quickly.  We have prayed and cried more than we have ever done before.  I have begun praying regularly with Shannon, which I am sad to say was by far the exception than the rule.  It is a difficult time in a difficult place and we desperately miss Erin and Sam.

So please pray that we would continue to get to know the boys and their idiosyncrasies. That Ben would begin to trust us.  (Right now he does not like us to touch him).  That fear would leave him.  That both boys would bond with us.  That Erin and Sam would continue to enjoy their time with Grandma.  (Spending last weekend with cousins in Kentucky and the fair coming up this week has helped tremendously.)  Pray that Shannon and I would continue to grow closer to God and one another.  That we would have the strength to endure four more nights in a foreign city with two boys we don’t really know.  And that which we fear the most-our trip home Thursday (adding an extra 9 hours to the day because of time zone changes, 12-13 hours in an airplane, and getting to meet new siblings).  The trip from Vladivostok to Moscow was not bad at all, but I think that was mainly because they were still in shock and terror of having left everything they had ever known behind.  They will have a week, and will be more comfortable (and likely more unruly) by then. 

Thank you everyone, again, for all of the help and support you have given.  We have been given clothes, beds, food, money, prayer, a housecleaning (yay!), babysitting, and so many other little things.  Thank you, everyone!

Gotcha Day +2; Learning about our New Lives

10 Friday Sep 2010

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We made it to naptime

Here, I begin typing during nap time.  I am posting this at 2pm Moscow Time.  We are not having a fun day; we have two little boys who still don’t know what parents are, and that every contest that they get into with them will result in total loss for children.  But they are both very strong willed, and it is wearing out the parents greatly.  But the parents have the power of God who is granting patience and strength and compassion.

Last night went pretty well.  Nathan slept all night- he went to sleep about 9pm and slept through the night until about 7am.  That would be a normal night in the orphanage for him.  Of course, it was really 4am Vladivostok time that he fell asleep, but he slept the night.  Benjamin, on the other hand, had some issues.  He was so exhausted from the long day that he fell asleep pretty quickly at about 9pm.  He woke me up about 3:30am (so he could have been awake 5 minutes or 2 hours) in his bed singing.  We tried to tell him to sleep, but again-language barrier.  Finally I asked Shannon, “What would we do if Sam was acting this way?”  And so we put him in bed with us.  He didn’t like it at first, but we played some music on the computer (we only have two songs, so we looped them) and he fell right asleep.  Shannon has discovered that he really likes music.  He slept really well until about 7am, and then had a bad dream.

Our morning was pretty nice.  Breakfast went wonderfully.  I went to the store by myself last night.  It’s only across the street from the hotel, but wow that feels like an accomplishment for me.  (I went to McDonald’s earlier yesterday, too, by myself.  I’m so proud! But I do regret not spending enough time in Rosetta Stone!)  So far today was not too bad until nap time.  Nathan only got hit with a book one time, and so far nothing in the hotel room is broken.  (Well, the TV doesn’t work, but that is only partially their fault-it involves the cable being attached with electrical tape so that once it came out it wouldn’t go back in).  The boys behaved pretty well, but again, not good.  But not like they were demon possessed like on the first night.  We watched a little TV (it was still working then) and read a couple of books.  Shannon went down to the lobby and asked a couple of questions and had a cup of coffee (which we can only drink in the lobby-we can’t bring the cups up to our room), then I went down and checked my e-mail and had some coffee myself.  Sasha came and got our documents ready for the embassy.  We have an appointment on Monday to go for our interview so that we can get visas for the boys.  By doing it this way, the boys will be US citizens as soon as we land at JFK.  So that leaves us in a foreign land for 3 days (the rest of today, Saturday and Sunday and half of Monday) alone with nobody really to help us with two boys who can’t speak to us.  We are really afraid.  We then have Tuesday and Wednesday to register with the Russian consulate office.  Why it takes so long, I do not understand.  We need to get home!

Naptime was, what’s the word… traumatic? I think that’s a good choice of words.  For some reason, Benjamin hates to go to sleep.  He fights it.  Erin fought it, and so I would walk her around the house and sing to her.  So maybe fight isn’t the right word.  It is beyond fighting.  It took an hour-and-a-half of working with him to get to sleep, and he was so incredibly tired!!  It involved screaming and spitting and hitting but in the end we won (note he was the one hitting and screaming and spitting).  It was a hard battle, but he is so tired that he simply cannot function.  He must sleep.  Kirill is fought it as well, but understands naptime a little better, and so gradually (once new brother wore himself out to sleep) fell asleep on his own.  Shannon went right after that, and we have decided to sleep in shifts.  Hopefully they stay asleep- Moscow traffic is horrible, and for reasons only known to Muscovites, they enjoy laying on their horns when they aren’t moving.  All of them at the same time.  So we are staying on a major loop around the inner part of the city, and there may be a hundred cars honking at once.  Just for fun, I guess.

So we have another half of a day to go.  I will be so thankful to be back at home, where we can speak to people we understand, and our support network is available.  At home we have doctors and social workers and friends and family who can help us.  Here we have facebook messages from everyone and prayer.  So thank you thank you all!  They are very helpful!  We appreciate the messages and the prayers; right now that is what is keeping us going.  Because we are limited in internet access, we have very little access to Erin and Sam (aka “our children who already speak English”).  We haven’t spoken to them since we left on Sunday, and that has been extremely difficult.  It doesn’t help we are so very tired.  I think I am actually doing better than Shannon, but this has been such a busy and tedious 3 weeks for us (30,000 miles is circumventing the earth more than once) in multiple cities, states, and countries.  Countless lines to get onto planes and get through immigration and eating what we can find because we don’t have a fridge and pantry of food (although we do have a fridge, and we have made us a little pantry in the closet.  Right now it has two bananas, some shortbread cookies, and bread.

The language barrier isn’t moving much.  A funny example, I tried to teach Nathan the word “Bread”.  I said, “Skaghee bread.”  (Say bread). And he responded with “Hlep” the Russian for bread.  I said, “No, b-r-e-a-d.”  to which he responded, “H-l-e-p.”  It was great.  So they aren’t getting far very fast, but we are working with them.  We are saying the Russian (which is oh, so limited) and then the English.  We are doing the same with their names.  When I blog, I sometimes refer to them with their new names and sometimes with their old.  Right now they are interchangeable.  Nathan is Kirill and Benjamin is Yarrig or Yaroslav.  So far we haven’t called them much by their new names, because they just don’t understand.  I wonder if they will still remember Russian after a few months.  They do, after all, have each other to communicate with.

But make no doubt, this is a difficult time for us, but we are not discouraged.  We are at the most difficult time in the process.  And we are making it.  Day-by-day and moment-by-moment.  We are getting there.  But believe me that Thursday cannot come quickly enough.

Gotcha Day + 1

09 Thursday Sep 2010

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When I said that no day could possibly be worse, I failed to take into account the fact that we only had both boys for 10 hours from the time we picked them up until they screamed themselves asleep, and that today included an extra 7 hours due to the time zone change and 9 hours on a plane (have I mentioned that Russia is really big?)

That being said, today was good! Not perfect by any means, but much closer to what we expected difficult times to be. Personally, even I don’t act that well on a 9 hour plane ride, but once Yarrig fell asleep it went pretty well.  We’ll say on a scale of one to ten, Gotcha Day was a -18. Today was a 4, possibly even a 6 (but there may be some inflation due to their exhaustion).
The two boys are very different. One is a cute little boy. The other is more like a feral dog with rabies. (I’m not trying to be funny, that’s really what he acted like, including the growling and biting).

But all is well. A hard day was to be expected. But let’s compare my prospective compared to theirs. Compared to them, not much changed in my life. Two new children, compared to what just happened to them, is minor. What changed for them? Everything. Everything they have known in their lives is now new and different. New food, new schedule, new family (of which they have no reference to understand what “family” even is), new location. Everything just changed for them. Nathan, for example- when we visited him in the orphanage last trip- insisted that he was NOT going to ride in an airplane. He was going to ride in a car to get to his new home in the United States. He explained that the cars that he saw would go to the end of the street and turn. So for him, going around that corner was synonymous with going to the ends of the earth.

So today was pretty good. Nobody got hit or bitten or spit on.  Growling was pretty light.  They did far better on the plane than I expected. And my wife is entirely awesome. She has this way of picking up on others needs and understanding personalities and doing things I can’t even describe let alone accomplish. (Yarrig likes to be sung to, Kirill was a follower-the youngest and smallest at the orphanage, Yarrig was a kingpin-the oldest of anyone at the baby home, and on and on and on…) She got both of them to take a nap, and to go to bed tonight. She is bonding pretty well with both of then I think.

They aren’t really bonding with me, but that is not unexpected either. First of all she’s a mommy, and mommies are just generally well liked by all family members. Second of all, the boys really don’t have a reference point for a man on their lives. All of the caregivers at the orphanage and baby home are women. So they have no idea as to what a man is supposed to be in their lives.

So thank you all SO MUCH for your prayers. They are much appreciated and, quite honestly, successful. (But don’t stop now- we still have a long easy to go!) We understand that this is a task that God has put us on. We understand that His purpose is NOT to give us an easy life, but that His name be glorified by conforming us more to the image of Christ. Nothing about this process has been easy, but here He used yet another point of difficulty to help us realize that we are absolutely powerless. So we turn to Him who gives us our foundation, strength, and purpose.

So tomorrow… will it be as good? We will just wait and see.  We made many strides today.  We must overcome the language barrier in order to accomplish great strides.  (If I tell them to come to me, and they respond with NYET! there really isn’t discipline that I can do.  I can pick them up and put them where I want, but I can’t take away privileges because they have no idea that the things we have given them are actually theirs–  they have no concept of personal possessions.  Nor can I do any spanking, because they simply can’t understand what is happening and why.  But we will get there.  We are getting them to repeat words, but so far it is just repeating- no speaking English of their own accord yet.  But over the next couple of weeks (especially once we leave Russia) they will increase, and within about 3 months they will speak well enough to understand, and in 6 months they should be pretty good at it.  Within a year (sadly) they will probably not remember Russian at all.  We will try to help them keep their language, but it will not be easy.

So again, thank you, and please continue to pray!

Gotcha Day

08 Wednesday Sep 2010

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It has been a very strenuous day; it started by us being exhausted, and ended with everyone crying.  Shannon and I are not yet asleep, but we, too will probably cry ourselves to sleep.  I’m not going to sugar coat it anything- this day was ugly.

This has been probably the most difficult days of our lives for many reasons.  There are many emotions tied up with everything, and we have two more children  A four year old and an almost-four-year-old!  It is a wonderful and beautiful thing.  We have had fun today, and we are getting to know each other.

So let’s recap the last couple of days.

We awoke around 8:30 today, after falling asleep at about one am (which is after we slept off and on through the entirety of Tuesday.  I actually slept almost the entire way on the plane from Moscow to Vlad (Monday night), then stayed awake as Irina took us all over Vladivostok to do paperwork.  I am very thankful for the work that she has done.  All of that was more or less easy for us- she told me where to sign, and I signed.  So on Tuesday, we got our official court documents, got the paperwork for the passports turned in, IMG_1490and papers copied, and I’m really not sure what else, but there were many other stops.  (They only needed one of us to sign, so Shannon stayed at the hotel and rested).  We both napped and woke up about 8pm, then went to talk to Todd and Rebecca, a couple from Pennsylvania who are adopting as well.  That was a wonderful visit.  We ate supper about 11pm in the hotel (we were at the Hotel Meridian, which was wonderfully inexpensive, but it was not the Vlad Motor Inn- we like the VMI for many reasons (the one exception being COST!)IMG_1507

This morning we awoke and went for a walk with Todd and Rebecca- it was short, because we didn’t have much time.  They had their court date after ours, and so they stayed here in Vladivostok for the entire 10 day waiting period.  Todd is a park ranger, and spent a lot of his time going for walks, and using the various mountains of Vlad as landmarks to get around.  It was helpful to have him explain things to me and a wonderful visit.  The plan was that Irina would bring Nathan to us and for us to leave for the baby home to get Benjamin.  Our plans didn’t quite work out the way we planned because we switched hotels.  It is a good thing, but really threw our plans off-and kept the boys from getting a nap. 

There was no room at the Vlad Motor Inn, which is why we were at the Meridian.  However, Todd and Rebecca planned to move to the VMI today- but they were gracious enough to let us have the room instead (they will move once we leave tomorrow). So Irina brought Nathan Kirill (who we will be calling Kirill for awhile because he doesn’t understand anything else!) and then we packed up very quickly and went to get Benjamin Yaroslav (who we will be calling Yarrig for awhile because he doesn’t understand anything else.) 

IMG_1532We drove to the baby home and got Yarrig, then came and checked in at the VMI and had lunch with Lana and Irina.  We went for a short walk with the boys, and then got ready to go to see the doctor.

The doctor’s visit took over an hour, which combined with two boys who don’t understand you and the fact that they had no nap and what else… oh, absolutely everything in their lives just changed, it was not a pleasant experience.  Fortunately Kirill took a short nap in the car with Lana and Irina.  I spent the time holding Yarrig.  If I didn’t hold him he would run away.  Or fall down.  Or do something dangerous.  The parking area of the doctor’s office was littered with Much Broken Glass, so it was really very important to not let him get away.  I kept thinking, “Oh, if I only had a rubber room!” 

It only got worse from there.  We have no control over them at all.  They speak no English, and we speak no Russian, so there is just no communication.  Yarrig has bitten Kirill three times-completely at random.  I have been spat on, smacked, and Kirill tried to bite me but was unsuccessful. 

The thing is, if someone tells them what to do in Russian, they immediately obey.  So it isn’t that they are horrible children- they are just children who have no idea what parents are who are testing their boundaries to the fullest extent possible and they are doing their best to do whatever they want to do (that is, to be the ones in control).  Which isn’t working for them.  If we let them win, it will only make things worse.  So I suppose it would be much easier if we just let them run amok, but that would serve no purpose.

The Vlad Motor Inn caters to adoptive families, so there are several people here.  Shannon met someone in the hall who asked how things are going.  “Not good at all,” she said.  The woman gave her a hug and said, “Let me give you two of the best pieces of advice someone told me.  It is ok to not like them and it will get better.”  Trust me, that is good advice.  We want to love them, that is why we are adopting, but at this moment… it just isn’t there.  It will come, I am certain.  What we need is that they will love us in return.

We finally got them to sleep by rocking them until they cried- it was the first time Yarrig showed any emotion all day except defiant laughter.  He finally collapsed into bed, and then it was Kirill’s turn to cry until he was too exhausted to continue.

We called Irina for help- we had no idea what to do.  Nothing was working, so Lana came and spoke to the boys-who had just calmed down about 5 minutes before she got there (calmed down out of exhaustion from screaming).  She spoke to them, and they listened, and they fell asleep right after she left.  It is clear that our biggest challenge is the language barrier.

So our prayer requests are thus (and are very urgent):

1.  We are flying to Moscow tomorrow.  Pray for patience for us, and that someone will be on the plane that will help us communicate with the boys.  And that they can deal with being strapped to a chair for 9 hours.

2.  That in Moscow we progressively get better.  Of course we know it won’t get instantly better, but we need them to get onto a schedule- and Moscow is 7 hours behind Vlad which will only hurt things.  Plus, again, absolutely everything is new to the boys.  And Mama and Papa are not on our own turf.

3.  That we have patience (yes, I said that once already).  We did not handle things all that well today.  We are exhausted having traveled, over the last 20 days, flying 30,000 miles and spending 2 nights in New York, 4 nights on an airplane, 2 nights in Moscow, 4 nights in Vladivostok and 7 nights at home.

Like I said, I didn’t sugarcoat anything.  That’s just how it has been.  We knew it would be difficult, and we knew that with two of them it would be even more so.  But it the first day was much worse than we could imagine.  Yet we know that God is in control.  Every step of this process has been difficult, and it has caused us to rely on Him more and more.  This is just another piece where He is showing us our weakness and His glory.  It can only get better!