Recovering and Adjusting

I can't believe how time has been flying. It's crazy to think that I have been home for 11 days now and I haven't blogged a thing! I actually haven't sat down at a computer to do anything more than use google translate!


We are having good times and bad times here at home. It is a lot different than I had expected. I really honestly didn't know what to expect by things. I will most definitely admit that it is difficult. I think the hardest thing for me is knowing that there are so many moments that we could use to talk things through and actually get to know more about her and start addressing some of the issues we are faced with by there is a language barrier. I know that everyone out there is thinking, "I know someone who speaks Russian that can translate!" Thank you for the suggestions by the way, but there are some moments that get lost and left behind in trying to find a way to communicate. There really isn't a way to get that moment back when you get a person on the phone. It's weird. Calling someone and saying something like, "she was sad last night, can you ask her why?" She is over it and is fine by the time we can actually do anything about it. When you are trying to explain that she needs to change her socks it's much easier to just take care of it rather than find someone who wants to be the stern mother voice on the other end of a phone to say, 'Mom says you have to change your socks.' Anyway. I keep hearing that the language will come fast and I'm hopeful. I'm not going to allow myself to get too discouraged over that. I do get frustrated when I can understand exactly what she is saying in Russian and I know she knows the English but refuses to use it! It may take longer just because she is embarrassed to try and get it wrong.

We came home in the middle of Spring break for our kids at home so life was not the ordinary life we were hoping to acclimate her to. She got very comfortable spending long days in bed or in her room. The boys are very excited to have a sister and would and still do go in to be with her. I have not made any part of the house off limits to any one of the kids. We are working on knocking and I did suggest she lock the door when she showers or uses the bathroom!

We tried a few times to go and play at the park during Spring Break.

 The kids really had fun, Mason and I were freezing.

 Vika liked to play by herself.  This was still very early on and wasn't really interested in being around the boys yet!

 Ezra was adorable.  He loved the park.  I will have to go there a bunch when I get all three kids in school and have the free hands to be attentive!~

 Our Spring Break consisted of little outings and 'out to lunches.'  Figuring out what she will eat for lunch is a big challenge.  I have determined that for the first week home going out to a place where she can point is really the best way to get Vika to eat.  My other kids sure loved it too!  Ethan said to me, "Mom, this is the best Spring Break ever!  We go out to eat so much for Spring Break.  It's the best!"  Obviously we don't get out much.

This past week has been spent enrolling Victoria in High School and getting her a physical and immunizations up to date. Just say it, you're jealous of all the fun! We finally have a schedule and she will start on Monday. She is not excited. She's so funny, when I ask her if she's OK, or if she's nervous she tells me she's fine. When we were at school yesterday and had an interpreter walking around with us showing her the school and her classrooms and her teachers she kept telling him that she doesn't want to go to school. But if I ask her she does! I'll believe what she says right to me on this one!

I'm hoping that she is starting to warm up to the boys. Ethan and Ezra especially adore her. They are her shadows. She is beginning to smile when Ezra comes in to find her and is starting to play with Ethan and laugh at his silliness. He asks her how to say all sorts of things in Russian and she loves it when he tries to say them. He actually has the best pronunciation of all of us.

My family and friends put a fabulous shower together for Victoria this week. Thank you to all of you who came to meet her and support our efforts in getting her outfitted! We were given clothes, hair products and accessories, and wonderful gift cards for when she decides that shopping isn't really that bad! We actually went and used some of them to get a few items we registered for from Target and Kohls to expand her wardrobe. The other great thing we have been receiving are hand-me-downs! I love them. We have had a lot of success finding things from neighbors, cousins, and friends who have brought things over for her. Thank you so much for thinking of us! Now if I can just get her to be brave enough to wear something different we will be making progress!

We've had water fights, Saturday chores, yard work, errands, shopping, and all sorts of regular American family things. She takes some convincing but has fun once we force her to! She and Ethan are really pushing us to get them a bunny. (Thank you so much for that one Caroline and girls!) She begs me for a bunny and I keep telling her not until she can talk to me more. I really am not a pet kind of mother. I am struggling taking care of the kids, I'm not sure adding a pet is in the cards for my sanity right now!

Spencer is definitly the 'fun' parent right now.  I get to be the one who implements all of the not-so-fun changes.  I'm OK with that for now.  He can get her laughing as well as Ethan can, almost.

 Have I mentioned how lucky I am to have 3 great boys that are so welcoming and eager to have a new sister?  They are truly amazing to watch.  Ethan treats her like she has always been here.  I love that I don't have to worry about that part of the transition.

 How great is it to see this face every day!?  I love being home.

Last night was spent coloring Easter Eggs in preparation for the big Egg Launch today. Every Easter we take our brightly colored and painted eggs to the shooting range up in the mountains and launch them off a ravine with a water balloon sling. It's a tradition we kept from Spencer's best friends'. We love it. She wasn't so sure about it, but I know she had a good time with the family. That is one thing I have to be grateful for. My family is very good with her and very sincerely wants to have her be a part of everything. She is shy and stubborn but they are great to work with her to open her up a little bit. In fact as I finally am having time to write and update my blog she is with my cute sis-in-law running errands. Again, she took some encouraging, but she's with her and I know she'll have a great time.

I'm really wishing that I had a good recipe for a cake she keeps talking about having for Easter. We found a picture of it online, but can't seem to find a recipe that will match a picture of what she is talking about. We'll have a great day I'm sure. I'm excited.

We've had our moments that have definitely made it clear that life here is different. Having parents is much different than not having them. She still isn't understanding what being a part of a family is suppose to be, but we'll get there very slowly. At dinner time we all sit around the table to eat together and even though we have some slow poke eaters we stay there together to visit and eat for at least that one meal then we all clean up together. She doesn't understand that and can't understand us. When she eats a meal she finishes and clears her plate and disappears into her bedroom. We of course have always collected her to come and help with the family dinner clean up efforts and she has gotten better about helping until we are finished. I realized that she is slowly picking things up when one night after clearing her plate she hesitated at the hallway and chose to come back and sit with us at the table. Ethan was perfect and said something like, 'Vika, you came back! We like having you with us!' I know this is a process and will be very slow, but thankfully we have moments that remind us why in the world we did this!

I was explaining it to my dad when he asked me a question like, 'are you still glad you did this? ' and 'is it a lot harder than you thought?' It's really the best explanation I have come up with so I think I will share it here.

My mother had major - really major - shoulder surgery about 12 weeks ago. The doctors warned her that it would be very painful and there would be a very long recovery. In fact, she would be next to if not completely immobile for a few weeks. She would require around the clock care and need constant supervision to help her with her pain and her day to day activities for a few weeks. After a few weeks of complete misery she would start to visit a physical therapist and he would help her regain some of her motion. Again, this would not be easy. It would be very painful to get herself completely recovered. She would never be the exact same as she was before the surgery, but after the recovery time she would feel better than she did before going into surgery. Hopefully!

On the day of her surgery my dad took my mother to the hospital, registered her and with smiles on their faces and a plan in place willingly signed the consent form to begin this long road to hopefully a better life for my mom. The surgeon did his thing and when she came out she was in more pain than she had ever been in. She had been warned, but how can you prepare yourself for something like that? You can't. You can try to understand what it would be like, but until actually doing it you have no idea what you have just gotten yourself into! Then the initial painkillers wear off and you think, 'This is much harder than I thought it would be.' But there is one catch, you can't really undo the surgery and change your mind. This is something that you will get through whether you like it or not. About five weeks after her surgery is when I left for Ukraine. She was still in a sling full time and not yet lifting much more than a very light notebook. Now at around twelve weeks she is much more improved, she is lifting more and able to push herself a little harder each day. She really did have to take things slow and easy at first, but now there seems to be hope for some kind of normalcy.

Well, I willingly went in and signed the forms and asked for this new challenge. I had been warned of the challenges that could lie ahead, but really there is no way to prepare yourself for something like this. There is no one who can tell you exactly what will happen and hopefully in time there will be a full recovery. I'm only 11 days in my recovery period, and so is she! It's still hard. It still hurts. I am still wishing that there was some sort of 'painkiller' or relief that I could get from how hard things seem to be right now. I think it's OK that it's hard. Knowing the pain and heartache of the hard will only make the happy and good of the recovery feel so much better. I know that we will get through this. I don't regret it one split second. I know that this was the step our family needed to make at this exact time and I feel at peace knowing that I did everything in my power to make it happen. It was hard. Things will never be exactly how they were before we went into this adventure, but all we can hope for is that they will feel better than they did before we started. I know they will. They always are.