I wish every single person who ever met Vladik at Romaniv could see him now.  You would not know this child.

Jed is back in Ukraine right now and has been sending me tons of pics of my babies there.  When I see those pictures and then stop and think about Vladik living there I almost can’t even imagine it.  The boy I know now is so much different than the boy I knew there.  He’s a new creation.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Vladik is a miracle.  How could a child raised there be this joyful, this full of life, this loving, this generous?  Only God could do something like that.

General Transition: He’s a rockstar. Vladik is growing in his development in leaps and bounds.  His language is growing as well, both Ukrainian and English.  He’ll often ask us what certain words are in English, and if we tell him once he usually remembers.  So, now Vladik speaks a mixture of Russian, Ukrainian, English, and “Vladik speak”.  Everyone in our family understands about 99% of what he says, but it’s another story with the rest of the world.  Slowly and surely he is becoming more understandable.  He desires to communicate and his social skills have vastly improved, so we are not worried.

Vladik came to us with many institutional behaviors.  He didn’t know how to behave in most any environment and had a lot of nervous twitches- like sticking his tongue in and out really quickly, licking his hands, and putting his elbows up to his ears, almost like he was blocking his ears.  He would also make tons of inappropriately loud sounds at inappropriate times.  Like if there was quiet he just had to fill it!  If we were in a store or the library and it was quiet you could guarantee Vladik would start filling up the space “BEEP BEEEEEEP!  BEEP BEEEEEEP!”  Oy. We’ve come a long way baby. Now if he beeps we just remind him that he’s not a car and he instantly stops.  🙂 He is sensitive to environments and if all is quiet he is usually good about being quiet.  The only real nervous behavior he still holds on to is the elbows up at the ears, but that one is more and more rare.  He usually only does that if he knows he’s done something wrong, or if someone else is in trouble.  It’s wonderful to take a moment to think back at how far he’s come. Praise God!

Family: We’ve hit a point where it feels like he’s just always been here.  I no longer have that feeling like I’m the babysitter of a child who just always stays (that is a normal feeling in adoption, FYI). He is our son and it feels natural.  I couldn’t have said that even one month ago.  He still loves his Seth and I think when he had his surgery it bonded him more to the other kids as well.  They were all so concerned for him and that empathy really helped with relationship building.  He really is just one of the gang.  I’m so thankful for that.

  
School: Vladik started school a few weeks ago and is doing amazingly well!  In January he started seeing a tutor for a half hour a day while the school district found a classroom placement for him.  Then in the last week of March, he became a freshman at South Salem High.  Ha!  He’s in a self-contained classroom and we are so blessed by teachers and assistants who love him and treasure him.  Vladik LOVES school.  We started him going half a day at first, but now he is going full day.  Most of the fun, more active learning happens in the afternoon, so we knew he would really enjoy that.  Like every day his class gathers recycling from all the classrooms and they sort and shred it.  Vladik is kinda obsessed with the shredder. 🙂 Today he goes on his first field trip to a recycling center!  He could hardly sleep last night he was so excited to ride the school bus. I am so happy for him that he has this opportunity.  Sweet boy deserves every bit of joy and life that we can offer him.

Medical: Vladik had sleep apnea, so we had his tonsils and adenoids taken out on March 30th.  He also had the back of his throat expanded to make his airway larger.  He did great and has fully recovered.  We had a few scary hours in the recovery room after learning that his body is extremely sensitive to narcotics, but we learned our lesson on that one!  I’m excited to repeat the sleep study, but I can already tell you that the surgery made a big difference.  You know how when you have a newborn and they’re sleeping so still and silently that you have to go super close to make sure they’re still breathing?  Yeah, I had to do that the other night with Vladik.  🙂 I’m used to being able to hear Vladik sleeping from every other room in the house, but that’s not the case now!  He sleeps absolutely SILENTLY.  I’m so so so happy for him!!!!!!  His body used to have to work so stinkin’ hard just to get air.  He had to sleep with his head back and his back arched just to keep his airway open.  The ENT told us that Vladik probably had many very dangerous nights as a small child because his airways were so small.  Thank you God for protecting our baby!  Now I pray that he will start to gain weight since he won’t be working so hard just to sleep.
The next surgery for Vladik is on his right hand.  A plastic surgeon will be giving him a thumb sometime in May.  WOOHOO!  That is the surgery Vladik is so excited about.  We were hoping to do surgery on his feet first, but we won’t be able to.  The foot surgeon will be out of the country for the months of May and June and we will simply run out of time.  We need to be back in Ukraine as a family in August, so we have to let the feet go for now.  Most likely Vladik and I will return for that surgery sometime at the beginning of next year.  So now we just eagerly await insurance approval so we can schedule hand surgery!

Otherwise, I guess I can just say that Vladik is our joy and we love him more every day.  A couple months ago we started teaching him how to hug.  Vladik is very protective of his body and would barely receive a hug.  He would kind of back his shoulder into you and that was as good as it got.  He would often come and kiss my shoulder, but he was too embarrassed or nervous to hug.  We taught him that you give friends high fives, but with family, you need to wrap your arms around them and that is a hug. Now if I say “I need love” (in Ukrainian) he will wrap his arms around me and hug me tight.  And yesterday, for the first time, he initiated.  I was in the kitchen and he came in and said “LOVE!!!” And gave me the hugest hug! Melt.my.heart.

He’s just awesome and we are so thankful that we get to have him in our lives.  Precious, precious boy.

Have you met our newest addition?  

Meet Bluebell!

Oh you know, our life is pretty boring.  We have so much spare time on our hands…so we decided we needed a puppy. 

HA! 

I know, I know, most everyone thinks we’re crazy to have a puppy right now, but there’s a method to our madness. I promise. 🙂

You see, Vladik LOVES dogs.  He has no fear of dogs (in fact, the dogs would be wise to fear Vladik a bit) and loves to wrestle them, run with them- and just be with them.  Around Christmas time we started thinking that it would be really good for Vladik to have a dog, especially with all of his upcoming surgeries.  Also, Vladik has loads of energy.  The kid doesn’t stop.  We started thinking it would be great to have a dog, someone for him to spend some of that excess energy on.  

I put a feeler post out there into Facebook land, something along the lines of “We’re thinking of getting a dog to be a companion for Vladik. Thoughts?” And the rest was history!

Our friend Paige responded that her English Shepherd had just delivered a litter of 10 puppies and that English Shepherds are a great breed for companion and therapy dogs.  We researched the breed and we were sold.  We began planning how we could swing getting an English Shepherd for Vladik.  Not long after that, Paige told us that she and her husband had talked, and they wanted to gift us one of the puppies for Vladik!  AMAZING!

Shortly after the new year we went to visit the puppies and decide which one would come home to us.  Paige had prayed and asked the Lord for it to be made really clear, the right pup for Vladik.  The kids and I sat in a circle on Paige’s kitchen floor and she put all the available puppies, with different colored collars, in the middle of our little circle.  One puppy, the one with the blue collar, went up to Vladik immediately.  She chewed on his shoe, laid on his lap, walked circles around him and then just sat at attention right beside him.  And that was that!  Blue collar puppy had made her choice.  Paige was so happy, because that was the exact puppy that she had originally that would be best for us!  Blue Collar Girl became Bluebell, and a few weeks later she came home with us. 

Having a puppy is a ton of work, of course, and I would be lying if I said there weren’t moments when I’ve thought “We’re truly gluttons for punishment”, but we already love our Bluebell so much!  Really.  She.is.awesome. She’s smart as all get out and so stinkin’ soft.  She feels like a stuffed animal! Yes, she chews and chews and chews, but she is learning! Bluebell is just the perfect dog for our family and we are so blessed to have her.  We plan to take her back to Ukraine with us and I’m pretty sure she’ll love her life once we have our group homes on our little farm.  Think of how much joy she’ll bring to all our boys!  I can’t wait to see it! 

So, there you have it.  That’s why we have a puppy at a time when it seems like probably the worst idea ever 🙂  Call us crazy, but we’re already in love.  No turning back now!

Since the beginning of December we’ve been taking steps toward putting Vladik in school for the rest of this school year, while we’re in the US.  It’s been a decision I didn’t expect us to make, but for many reasons it just seems right.  We aren’t set on him being in a special Ed classroom all day every day, we just feel that it makes sense to take advantage of the opportunities he has here in the US to be taught by professionals- before we head back to Ukraine and it’s all up to me. [GULP] On Monday we spent about 2 hours with a school psychologist and a speech pathologist and they evaluated Vladik.  They had never seen a situation like ours before: 15 years old, no educational history AT ALL, smart, but behind in everything because he’d simply never had a chance.  ZERO life experiences until 5 months ago.  Born at age 15. 🙂

Vladik blew them away.  His zest for life, his joy, his eagerness to learn- he is truly a miracle.

There may have been some tears in the room as we talked about how far Vladik has come-  from the cowering boy in the Isolation Hall to the brave boy shooting matchbox cars across the meeting room table.

Those two ladies got it.  They really and truly “got” it.  They saw the treasure in Vladik.  They saw the untapped potential that has waited years and years and years to be discovered.  They looked past his outward appearance and his awkward speech and institutional behaviors and truly saw the person.  Those two women saw the value in my son and I will be forever grateful to them for that.  At the end of the meeting they declared “We need to get this boy in a classroom! He’s waited long enough.”

And boy did they live up to their word, because today Vladik started school.

It will take a while to figure out which school and which classroom is the best fit for our boy, but they didn’t want him to have to wait, so they arranged for Vladik to start with tutoring in the meantime.  I think that was a fantastic idea.  Tutoring is the perfect transition for Vladik.

We started today and are just doing 30 minutes per day, 5 days a week.  Vladik’s attention span is like minuscule, so 30 minutes is about his max.  Plus, this is his first activity away from Mama and Papa, so it’s a great way for him to learn that we will always come back for him and it’s a really safe place for him to learn some independence.  The teacher speaks no Ukrainian 🙂 so, Vladik will be learning some English along the way!

Oh my, I made the rookie mistake of telling Vladik last night that he would start school today.  Silly me.  I should have known that in order to avoid approximately 372 questions about when we will go to school, I should have just waited and told him in the car on the way there. [live and learn]   But I just couldn’t wait to tell him!  He was jumping and laughing and clapping with glee.  He said “Addy has a school, Ezra has a school, Hava and Seth have a school, and Vladik has a school!!”  When I came to pick him up today at the end of his lesson he said “Mama!  This is my school!”  He was so proud.

I love that boy.  I picture him wandering the halls of Romaniv and my heart breaks in two.  He had so much more in him than we ever realized.  He had an imagination and a smart brain and a sense of humor and a great capacity to love, all just sitting and waiting for a chance.  Born at age 15, now my sweet baby can fly.  The sky is the limit for our boy.

March 2015 and February 2016

I dream of that same future for the rest of our friends who sit and wait at Romaniv.  I wonder what they will be on that day when their chance at freedom finally comes.  I wonder who will be funny and who will be super smart and who will have a knack for growing flowers and who will be great with the animals.  I do know that they will all exceed our expectations because the sky will be their limit.  And I pray that day comes soon.

Jed is working hard in Ukraine, deciding on the best property to purchase and meeting with government officials.  This God dream of ours is going to happen.  It’s really going to happen.  Doors are flying open in front of us.  People are going to see the beauty of our boys and they’re going to see their value, just like the school psychologist and speech pathologist recognized the beauty of our Vladik.  The joy of Vladik experiencing his first day of school is just a glimpse of the freedom that is to come.  We.Can’t.Wait.  When God puts a dream in motion the sky’s the limit!

I think it’s about time for an update on Vladik, don’t you?  I know many of you love him very much, and have prayed for him for many years.  It is our joy to share his journey with you.  Some things I won’t share, just to protect Vladik’s privacy, but there is a lot I will share, because Vladik’s story is a great story of redemption and we just can’t keep it to ourselves!

General Transition: Vladik is doing unbelievably well.  He is a walking miracle in every way.  He sucks the marrow out of life more than anyone I’ve ever known.  He is also still the happiest person I’ve ever known.  He almost NEVER stops smiling!  And if he does stop smiling, or if he starts to cry, you know you better pay attention.  His cry is the most pitiful thing!  Maybe it’s because it’s so rare to see him unhappy, but when he starts to cry we can’t even handle it.  So so sad!!  He generally only cries when he is in pain (shots, blood draws, IV’s…) or when he is overwhelmed.  Like yesterday, at the end of a loooooong day of doctor’s appointments, we were sitting, waiting for the nurse to come back in the room and he just leaned into me and started crying.  It was so unexpected, and so sad!  He just really wanted to go home.

Vladik loves home.  He always wants to know which direction is home and when are we going home.  He calls our house “The Red Tomato” in Ukrainian, because it’s red. 🙂  He’s always gotta check in about where The Red Tomato is, and if that’s where we’re going next.  I love that he loves home, and I also know he always checks in about it because he’s still not quite sure that he will always be with us.  That’s okay buddy, keep on checking in as long as you need to. You’re stuck with us!

We still speak only Ukrainian to Vladik and have not really taught him any English yet.  But, we just decided this week to begin speaking to Vladik in English and Ukrainian.  We don’t want him to be on the fringes of our family in any way, and not having English excludes him from many conversations unless one of us translates.  It’s time.  This should be fun!  Ha!

Family: Seth and Vladik are still best buds.  Vladik calls Seth “Seppa” and Seth calls Vladik “Vladchik”.  They play together, fight together, laugh together and cry together (well, Seth does the crying…haha).  They are always hugging each other.  It is the cutest thing.  Seth is the leader, for sure, and can kind of take advantage of it, but Vladik is learning to stand his ground a bit better too.  He actually knows how to push Seth’s buttons, so yeah, typical brother stuff going on there. 🙂  Havalah is doing great with Vladik.  They don’t play together much, since Vladik doesn’t share a common love for Barbies, but Hava is always coming up to Vladik and giving him little loves.  She really loves him.

Ez and Addy have had a bit of a harder transition, which was to be expected.  It’s difficult to know how to navigate having a new brother that is physically your same size, but developmentally like a toddler. There are some habits that a toddler might display that are cute,  but when done by a toddler in a 10 year old body…not so cute, more just annoying…and LOUD.  Ha!  We have all had to remember often that Vladik has never been parented at all.  He has never had a family to teach him what is appropriate.  He has never had good social modeling.  He has never had any healthy relationship modeling.  He likes attention and will try to get it however he can- negative or positive- he’ll take what he can get, much to Addy and Ezra’s chagrin.  BUT, I will say that they have many sweet moments and over the past few weeks the positive moments have far outweighed the annoying, make-him-be-quiet-and-stop-touching-me-moments.  Yay!  Vladik is learning better how to relate to his siblings, and his siblings are growing in their love for him.  When you love someone you can accept a lot of behaviors that would have made you crazy before.  We talk a lot about choosing love, even when you don’t necessarily feel it at the time. Also, Vladik’s sense of humor is coming out more and more and he is making us laugh more all the time!  That helps those sibling relationships for sure.

Slowly but surely, he is becoming just one of the bunch.  They have all come so far!

Vladik does great with mommy and daddy. He loves us both and seems to be attaching appropriately. He doesn’t play us against each other like he used to when he was stressed.  He listens and obeys eagerly, 90% of the time.  Usually the other 10% of the time he needs only a firm voice and a reminder that it’s important to listen and obey.  We have done a couple “time-outs” and that has been super effective.  It’s really only “Okay, you didn’t listen so now you have to sit in this chair for 3 minutes.”  But, it is enough to get him to stop and pay attention.  He generally desires to obey.  When he is stressed we have to be a bit more firm with him to draw those boundaries in nice and tight, and he responds really well.

Medical: Oh my, have we been busy in this department!  Vladik came to us as a big mystery puzzle and we are slowly fitting all the pieces together.  Vladik is miraculously healthy.  Praise God!  Let’s start with the head and move down.

Head: We just had an appointment this week with the craniofacial surgeon and the neurosurgeon to discuss the results of Vladik’s head CT.  Boy was I surprised to hear their thoughts!  They both agreed that Vladik does not need any skull surgery.  What????  I was all prepared to hear a plan and instead heard, “He’s dismissed from our service!”

I guess I’m not yet sure if we should be relieved or if we should seek a second opinion.  I have an email to an expert on Apert Syndrome and am waiting to hear his thoughts.  Right now we are choosing to trust the doctors and be thankful. 🙂  This is their rationale: the CT showed that all of his cranial sutures are already closed.  Because he is 15, his head is done growing and his brain is done growing.  His dilated eye exam showed there is no pressure on his optic nerves, and he does not show any signs or symptoms of intracranial pressure.  Because of this, there is no need to expand his skull.  They said that if he doesn’t have intracranial pressure now, there is no reason for him to develop it later because his head is done growing.  It all makes great sense.  I guess we just really want to make sure we get this one right, which is why we are considering a second opinion.  Prayer for wisdom about that would be appreciated!

We are unsure how much of Vladik’s delay in development is because of restricted brain growth in his earlier years.  If he had been born here he would have had skull expansion surgery as an infant.  The doctor said that unfortunately, because he was not treated, that damage is already done and now it is too late for treatment.  So, we are glad we don’t have to deal with skull surgery, but we also mourn a bit for what might have been if we had gotten to him earlier.

Eyes:  Vladik’s eyes have many of the typical traits of Apert Syndrome.  They are placed in a different position on his head and even the eyeballs are rotated out a bit.  He has good vision and does not need glasses…yay!  But he does not use his eyes together and they are often crossed.  He will have eye surgery this spring to adjust the muscle position a bit and help him to use his eyes together.

Teeth: Vladik’s teeth are actually not in horrible shape!  Sure they are funky, and he could really use some braces, but health-wise, they are not bad at all!  He had two old fillings with decay underneath that we have had replaced and he got two crowns.  He did amazing.  We won’t be able to tackle orthodontics until we get to Ukraine. It’s too long of a process for us to undertake here in the US.  Because of that, we can’t really do any mid-face surgeries, as those must be coupled with orthodontics.  Midface surgery, in Vladik’s case, is not a medical necessity.  It would be more cosmetic, I guess, and honestly for a child with Apert Syndrome, Vladik’s midface is actually not in a bad position!  It doesn’t seem to affect his airways at all.  Because of that, we have opted out of those surgeries.  It just isn’t possible, with our living situation, to couple anything with orthodontics.

Ear, nose, throat:  We have yet to see the ENT doctor (grrrr), but we have been pushed up in the priority list as of yesterday.  Vladik had a sleep study and it showed he has obstructive sleep apnea.  He snores and gags and chokes and coughs all night long.  The craniofacial team is recommending a modified tonsillectomy (can’t do a full one because of his cleft palate).  Hopefully taking part of the tonsils would help his apnea enough for him not to need CPAP.  All the other surgeons agree that if a tonsillectomy is going to happen, then that needs to happen before any other surgeries.  Simply because airway management during anesthesia will be much easier if his airway is more clear. So, we are looking forward to that appointment. The ENT will also order hearing testing, as recommended by the cranio docs.  Vladik’s speech is still pretty hard to understand and they want to rule out hearing loss.

Hands: Can you believe the physical issue that has caused the most angst so far has been fingernails????  OMG.  Vladik’s fingernails are so difficult to manage!! They are fused, like his fingers, and just a pain.  We have been dealing with an ingrown fingernail since November that eventually led us to the ER because everyone is afraid to touch him. We FINALLY saw a hand surgeon yesterday (as a follow-up for the nail) and he was awesome!  He would like to give Vladik a thumb!!  He is suggesting starting with a thumb and seeing how well Vladik can learn to use it before trying for anything more.  Because of his age, it looks like from the x-rays that it would be very difficult to separate the other fingers, plus, we then run the risk of him not gaining great use of them because of his age and the lateness of a surgery like this.  We agree.  Having thumbs will absolutely change his life.  We told him last night that the doctor wants to give him a thumb and he was flipping out!!  He was pounding the table and shrieking and laughing.  Ha!  It will be amazing. The doctor suggested just doing one hand at a time, so as to not incapacitate him, but honestly, he needs both hands to do everything anyway, so we are going to ask for both thumbs to happen at once.  We’ll see!

We already have been waiting for months for an appointment with the hand surgeon at Shriners and our appointment is finally coming up at the end of the month.  We’ll go and see what that surgeon has to say and then make our decision. It’s so exciting to hear that Vladik could have thumbs.  That is what we hoped for.  SO SO EXCITING!!!

Feet:  We saw a foot surgeon at Shriners in November and he saw right away that Vladik would greatly benefit from surgery on his feet. Vladik’s feet are so funky.  They are almost impossible to fit for shoes and they always look so painful.  They are very misshapen and there are sores on the bottom of his feet where all the pressure lies.  The doctor wants to basically reconstruct his feet- lengthening some bones and shortening some others. This will help him so much as he grows and (hopefully) gains some weight.  The downside is that the surgery will land him in a wheelchair for 8 weeks.  OUCH. Trying not to think about that one too hard.  Wheelchairs are very traumatizing for Vladik.  I can’t imagine how he will react to not being able to walk.  I’ll let you know when that surgery comes up so you can be praying!

Vladik talks often about his old life.  He is faithful to tell us daily he doesn’t want to go back to his old house.  Just in case we should forget!  🙂  He talks about sad things that happen there and whenever he talks about it he uses the word “thunder” in Ukrainian. He talks about how there was a lot of thunder there and covers his ears.  These days it’s hard for us to even imagine Vladik there.  I feel like the Vladik I knew at Romaniv was a scared shadow of the Vladik I know now.  He was always scared, always in fight or flight mode, pinging from one thing to another.  He even stands differently now.  Before, he was hunched over like a cowering little boy.  Now he walks straight and tall.

He has a wonderful sense of humor and loves to make us laugh.  He is loving and kind.  He teases his sisters and is obsessed with microwaves.  He loves all things Lightening McQueen, and calls any kind of case with a handle a “businessman”.  He likes cheese and apple juice and Reeces Peanut Butter Cups.  If he doesn’t have borscht every few days he’ll let me know it’s time. He likes to do laundry and even cleans out the vent and adds a dryer sheet before starting the dryer!  He is such a special, quirky little character.  To know him is to love him.

The more we meet with doctors and tell his story, the more I am in awe of God’s protection over Vladik’s life.  That he survived living where he lived, without any surgical interventions, is unbelievable. He is so smart. He is so independent.  Everyone who meets him falls in love almost instantly.  I’m actually crying as I type this.  How did we get to be the ones to win this lottery?  I can’t even wait to see how he continues to grow and change as he gains confidence in the fact that he is loved and he will never ever go back to his old life.

Thank you Jesus for our sweet boy!

Rhythm.  Every family has it’s own rhythm, it’s own way of keeping time, moves at it’s own beat.

Our rhythm…do we even have one????  I can’t ever seem to find it.  It must sound something like an elementary band playing together for the first time.  There’s a drum there…and the instruments are playing…but the rhythm is ALL OVER THE PLACE.  Hahahaha.  It’s crazy, and wild, and just when it starts to sound and feel kinda good a squeaky clarinet pipes in and ruins everything. 😉
I long for a nice, steady beat, but I think I’ve started to slowly swallow the fact that I just ain’t gonna get it.  We are wild.  We’re all over the place.  We’re kinda scattered and wacky, but THAT is our rhythm.  And it’s beautiful, in it’s own special way.
Jed left on Sunday for Ukraine and is now back with our Boys.  I already miss him here with us, but I am so relieved that he is there with them.  My heart aches for my friends across the sea.  I think about them so many times throughout the day.  Whenever I worship or pray they come to my mind and won’t leave.  I think God is calling me to almost constant intercession on their behalf.  That’s cool and all, but my arms ache to hold them and squeeeeeeeze them.  🙂 Having Jed there just puts my heart at rest.

It’s interesting, but we both just felt like for sure Jed needed to be there now.  Our volunteers have been visiting the Boys faithfully, three times a week while we’ve been gone.  They have done an AMAZING job.  It’s not like Jed is so super special that he can love the Boys better or something (although he is pretty darn special, in my book), but we just knew he needed to get there.  So, it feels good to have him there, right where he is supposed to be. He’s hosting a team right now, then he’ll be working on some training with our new teachers, encouraging our volunteers, working on a super special secret project, and just spending loads of quality time with the Boys we love so much. It’s all good.

The kids are doing awesome at school.  They totally love it- all four of them. They have friends there, they love their teachers; school is a wonderful gift to them right now.  It feels super peaceful having them there.  I was all worried that Addy and Ez would be massively behind because of our crazy rhythm, but thankfully, they have done fabulously.  They are both a little behind on math, but are otherwise right on target!  Whew!  All those homeschool worries were for nothing.  Yeah, most of my worries end up being for nothing.  Worrying is such an awesome use of time.  Not.

Vladik is still doing fab.  He is starting to test the waters a bit these days, and that’s actually a good thing!  He feels safe here.  He’s had a few medical tests so far, just to check on his general health, and has done great with them all. This week we get to test him for parasites…stool sample anyone?  Fun times, fun times…nice timing for Jed to leave.  Vladik is a little confused now that Jed is gone, but he understands that Papa has gone to work with our friends.  I’ll blog about all that later.  We have a pretty unique experience of removing him from Romaniv, but continuing to work there…it’s a strange road to navigate, for sure.

So, that’s the rhythm we’re in now.  Daddy’s working hard across the sea, kids are rockin’ it at school, and Mommy and Vladik are learning how to listen and obey, checking out lots of different doctor’s offices, and eating lots of mashed potatoes.  Yummmmmm.

Till next time, keep on keepin’ on!

So I’m sitting here in a coffee shop ALL ALONE. I’m not sure the last time this has ever happened to me. Wait, has this ever happened to me before? It feels very strange and even a bit wrong. I feel like I’m forgetting something….or four somethings. 🙂

The Johnson kids are in school. Wow.

You know, I think I must be a slow learner, because God keeps telling us to do stuff I said we would never do. Maybe I should keep my mouth shut a little more often. Hehe. We are a homeschooling family. I love homeschool. It just works for us. It clicks with us. Why would my kids ever need to go to school when I can teach them just fine at home? Well, enter moving across the world and then one year of Ukrainian school then international adoption then temporarily relocating back to the other side of the world and a multitude of doctor’s offices and surgeries to come and you get the idea: school must happen and I’m not going to have the time to do it myself.

Jed and Vladik are still in Ukraine waiting on documents to be able to leave the country; meanwhile the kids and I are here in Oregon getting settled and prepared for their arrival. And the kids started school on Tuesday. Eeeeeek!

We are so blessed to have an amazing Christian school in our city with teachers that know our family and have been praying for us for years. In fact, my mom, my brother, and one of my dearest friends are three of them!  The school is giving us some financial aid, so praise God for that. We still haven worked out exactly how we’re going to pay for the rest of it, but God knows and He will provide.

Jed and I felt really strongly that it wouldn’t be the best idea to put our kids straight from Ukraine into public school where we knew no one. We also knew that I won’t be able to cart them to all Vladik’s upcoming medical appointments, so this school is a huge answer to our prayers. Already, after the first week, I know it was the right choice. The kids are happy and loving it, the teachers are wonderful, and I know they are safe and loved.

Hava and Seth are both in kindergarten.

Ezra is in fourth grade and Grams is his teacher!

And Addy is doing fifth grade.

This world of American school is like another foreign country, but so far we seem to be navigating it okay (minus being late on the FIRST DAY…oops). It’s a breeze compared to navigating Ukrainian school…I mean, for starters, everyone speaks English! Ha!

So, that’s where we stand now. On another note, if you could pray for our adoption process we would super appreciate it. We are hitting delay after delay after delay and we are so tired and ready to be together as a family. Vladik and Jed still wait for documents and the kids are missing Daddy like crazy. Praise God they have done amazingly well during all this transition, but we are soooo ready to be done!!! Thanks 🙂

Where in the world is the Johnson Fam?  Are you finding it impossible to keep up with all our comings and goings and craziness?  Yeah, me too.  🙂  I did a big catch-up post here, for the curious.

I’m sitting in the Houston Airport, on my way back to Ukraine for adoption court. YES!  Jed is already back in Ukraine working away with our Boys, moving out of our house, and spending lots of quality time with our soon-to-be-son.  Our other kiddos are back in Salem at some wonderful friends’ house.  Grammy (Jed’s mommy) flew to Oregon from Montana to care for them while I’m gone for court.  So, we’re all spread out for now, but it’s all gonna be worth it, because soon our son will be OUT forever!!!  I hope and pray all goes well at court on Monday and I can do a big, fat introduction/birth announcement.

We arrived in the US as a family on August 11th and had the most wonderful 10 days together before Jed flew back to Ukraine.  It was just pure awesomeness.

We only pack the necessities

Ol’ Faithful mustache tape has served us well

At the airport in Kyiv!

You know, I had read lots of missionary/expat tips on how to re-enter the US after being away for a while, and they all recommended heading someplace that is not your home base and just being together as a family before seeing family and friends.  All the recommendations talked about how it is helpful just to decompress as a family, get over jetlag without demands on your attention and all that.  I thought it sounded like a great idea, but not great on the ol’ budget.  Well, God totally took care of that!  A wonderfully generous couple from Ventura, CA whom we had NEVER MET gave us their house for 5 days.  They left and just let us take over their beautiful home and it was the hugest blessing ever!!!  We went to the beach (where Jed and I proceeded to win the worst parents in the world award by letting our kids get completely fried…oops #babylobsters), we watched tons of movies, we oogled over Target and Trader Joes, I read and read and read some more, and the icing on the cake: Jed and I got to go see my brother star in a musical in La Jolla.  It was AWESOME.  Thank you Dan and Jeannie for blessing us so completely.

Jet lag is a beast!

I’m so proud of my brother!

After our 5 day rest, my family drove down and we all met in Anaheim for 4 days of Disney!!!  My heaven!  Haha! My parents had been saving and planning for this family trip for 2 years and it was absolutely perfection.  Seriously.  It could not have been better!

We did two days of Disneyland and two days of California Adventure and we loved every second of it.  My parents rented a house with a pool so every day we would come back in the afternoon and the kids would swim with their cousins.  Best.trip.ever.  Thank you Mom and Dad for that most wonderful, memorable gift!

Gotta represent Wide Awake! 🙂

Jed flew back to Ukraine on our last day of Disney and the kids and I flew up to Oregon.  Then it was school registration (EEK!) and school supply shopping and embassy document notarizing and health insurance document mailing and doctor’s office calling and soon-to-be-son clothes shopping and back-to-America-culture-shocking (more on that later).  I pretty much ran around like a chicken with my head cut off, so it’s lucky that Grammy arrived when she did to save my children from their crazy mommy! 😉

Seth forgot about booster seats. Ha!

My kids were FASCINATED and in awe of the cereal aisle

A once in a lifetime experience: they each got to pick out their own cereal.

We’ve been so busy we even lost a tooth!

The kids insisted we walk to the library instead of driving. “We don’t want to lose our Ukrainian legs Mom!”

We are so blessed and SO excited to be just about done with this legal stage of the adoption.  We’re ready for the family stage now. Our mommy and daddy hearts are positively busting at the seams.  We are so close!  The kids are doing amazing.  They are so flexible and adaptable and brave.  They want their brother home super bad too.

Soon, baby soon!!

I’m here!  I’m here!  Oh.My.Gooooooodness.  It’s been such a long time.

I had this whole introspective, from-the-gut-post in the works, but, while trying to finish it up I realized I just don’t have the energy for that right now.  So, you get a not-from-the-gut informative post instead.  🙂

There are a whole lot of emotions goin’ on around here, that’s for sure.  We are gearing up for our first visit back to the States, as a family.  We leave on Tuesday.  WHAT????  Pure craziness I tell ya.  Our life is never boring.  All my introspective writing was on our feelings about leaving our Boys and it was UGLY. The thought of being so far away from our Boys for several months brings on an instantaneous sob-fest, so I’d rather not delve too deep into that topic.  Let’s just say that we don’t want to leave them, but we are excited to be with family and friends.  It’s confusing, and not black and white.  So, there.

  

Here’s the skinny on what is happening in our life.  Deep breath, here goes:

ADOPTION.  We are in the home stretch of the adoption process!  In fact, we were supposed to have court today, but it was rescheduled for August 31st.  There were no jurors available today and yeah, it’s frustrating, I cried a lot, but we know that God’s timing is perfect.  After court on August 31st, there will be a 10-day mandatory waiting period and then we will get to take our boy out of Romaniv forever!!!!  I can’t wait to introduce him to you!

TRAVEL TO THE US.  We had already planned, before our move to Ukraine that we would head to the US as a family for our first visit in August 2015.  Many, many months ago my parents planned that when we arrived, in August 2015, they would take all of their kids and grandkids to Disneyland.  Well, the time is upon us!  Woohoo!  The timing is a little stinky, with our adoption court rescheduling, but oh well.  We are just thanking God for this last big hurrah before we have another son and our lives change forever.   Don’t people call that like a “babymoon” or something crazy like that?  Let’s call Disneyland our “babymoon”, never mind that our baby is 15 years old.  Hehe.  (details, details)

So our family will leave Ukraine on Tuesday and fly straight to California.  We will have a few days to catch our breath before my family joins us for Disney.  Jed will leave Disney early (on the 20th) to fly back to Ukraine.  He was supposed to be picking up our son at that point, but then court was rescheduled, and yada yada yada.  We couldn’t change his ticket.  Whatevs.  The kids and I will head to Oregon after Disneyland and start to get settled a bit, get ready for school to start.  I will fly back to Ukraine for court on the 29th.  I’ll leave the kids with family and friends in Oregon.

After court, I will come back to Oregon and Jed will stay in Ukraine to finish up all the documents for our new son.  Then he and our newest Johnson will fly and meet us in Oregon.  Together at last!!!

HOUSING.  We decided right after we got home from camp that it would be best to move out of the house we rent in Ukraine and put our stuff in storage.  We really can’t afford to pay for a house that’s not being used here, and a house that we’ll be using in Oregon.  So, we’ve been busy packing up and moving out.  FUN.

While in Oregon we will be renting a house from some crazy-generous friends who are giving us a screaming deal.  Praise God!!!  Friends and family are letting us borrow stuff to set up a temporary Oregon home.  🙂  Thanks!   We don’t know where we’ll live when we come back from America, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.    I can’t think about it now or my head will explode.

SCHOOL.  Our kids (minus the new arrival) will be attending school in Oregon!  This will be a first for them.  Addy and Ez have been to school in Ukraine, but we homeschooled in the US before, so this will be a new adventure for us.  We know our new son will need a TON of medical care and there is just no way I can meet his needs and homeschool 4 kids, so this feels like the most peaceful decision.  I’m a little nervous about it though!  Eeeek!

TIMING.  We aren’t exactly sure how long we will be in the US.  The working plan is that Jed will stay for about 2 months, and then return to Ukraine.  There is a TON of work that needs to be done here (always) and he just can’t be gone for a long time.  The kids and I will stay behind in Oregon until our new son gets the medical care that he urgently needs.  We don’t know how long that will take.  We anticipate more than one major surgery with specialist surgeons.  Things like that just don’t happen fast.  I’m prepping myself to be gone from Ukraine for at least 6 months.  I can’t think about it too much though or I turn into a basket case.  Oh, my friends at Romaniv!  But, our top priority is getting our new son healthy, so we will do what it takes to make that happen.  🙂

WIDE AWAKE.  Are you signed up for our newsletters?  If you aren’t, you should. You can do it here.  I’ll confess that we have not been stellar about sending them out super regularly this year.  But it’s in our hearts to do better with that.  Anywayssss in our last newsletter we talked about Wide Awake’s partnership with a local church here in Zhytomyr.  Christian Youth Church is the church our family attends here in Z-town and we love our friends there.  The vast majority of Wide Awake’s volunteers are from Youth Church, and they are our fam here in Ukraine.

Wide Awake gave a grant to Youth Church to be used to carry on the work with our Boys while we are in the US.  The grant pays for the work of volunteer recruitment and management and will pay for the drivers and gas to get the teams to Romaniv while we are away.  Vika, our friend and volunteer, is in charge of the Romaniv work for Youth Church and she has already done an amazing job of growing the work while we were away at camp.  She has recruited many new volunteers and we have now added a Saturday team!  So now the boys get teams coming AT LEAST three days a week, and many weeks they get even more visits than that.  Praise God for Youth Church and their love for the Boys!  We are leaving the work in good hands and we know that our teams will continue to be faithful, even though we will be so far away.  What a huge relief!

That’s the skinny!  It’s a lot.  I know.  If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask.  Thanks for coming along on this wild ride.  We could never do it alone.  🙂

Last week Ezra and I were in the good old US of A! We had to go there for some document stuff and had a grand time!  It was the first time either of us had been back since we moved to Ukraine 17 months ago.  I was nervous to go, wondering if I would feel out of place, or too “changed”, but all my worries were for not.  It was a special time and our love tanks were absolutely filled to overflowing.  

*I was horrible about taking pictures.  My bad.*



I felt a lot of feelings throughout the trip.  Some were expected, others were not.  At church on the first Sunday I was so happy to be there I could have cried- and maybe did, just a little.  There were so many mixed emotions coming and going that my insides felt like a huge tangled up knot.  Then a wise and wonderful friend came to me and wisely advised me to stop telling myself what to feel and what not to feel.  

“If you keep telling yourself what you should and shouldn’t feel you’ll miss out on all that God has for you this trip.”  

Truth.  I decided in that moment to just let myself feel what I felt and to let go of the reigns just a bit.  I’m a control freak and I avoid vulnerability, but letting go of that control made for a much cooler trip.  





Curious things we noticed while in America:

-The streets are HUGE. Wowzers.  The lanes are so ginormously wide!!!  It felt like every street was a freeway.  

-Driving is amazing.  I forgot how freeing it is to get behind the wheel and go wherever you want to go. 

-The sidewalks are empty.  Ha!  On our first full day Ez and I walked to the DMV because I needed a replacement drivers license (my wallet was stolen last summer).  After I got my license we walked to my friend’s house who was generously loaning us a car.  As we walked along in the beautiful sunshine Ez said “Where are all the people?”  Haha.  Seriously though, walking along a sidewalk totally alone in Ukraine is a very rare thing.  

-The DMV is more efficient than I ever realized.  Don’t agree?  Just try to get a document replaced in Ukraine and you might change your tune.  🙂  

-Everyone is SO FRIENDLY and SO SMILEY!  Woah Nelly.  It felt like every barista and every gas attendant and every cashier was my new BFF!  Sooooooo not Ukrainian.  When we were going through customs in Portland, the lady who was taking the declaration sheets asked Ez “What grade are you in, buddy?  Hey, do good in school, okay bud?”  He barely nodded.  I reminded him not to be rude and he said “But, Mom, I don’t even know her!  Why was she smiling so much????”  Oy.  Ha.  Seeing all the smiles was AMAZING.  🙂 🙂 🙂 

-Everything is sparkling clean.  Serious.  You could eat off the floor of Target.  I didn’t, but, yeah the cleanliness, wow.

-People  popped out of the woodwork to tell us they pray for us every day.  I had no idea.  Blessed my socks off. 

-So many people love our Boys fiercely.  The Boys are like rockstars.  I pray God speaks to their spirits and gives them even a glimpse of how deeply they are loved by multitudes of people.  Thankful. 

I think the biggest thing I felt on the trip to America was a feeling like I was letting all my breath out.  It felt like I’d been holding my breath for the past year and a half- without even knowing it, and I finally just exhaled.  You see, in America I undestand EVERYTHING.  I understand every conversation, fully.  I understand every sign, completely.  I understand every bit of culture.  I understand the body language.  I understand cultural jokes.  I understand family norms and social norms.  I understand traffic laws.  I understand what is expected of me in just about every single situation.  In the whole two weeks I was there I never had one bit of tension  inside like “Uh oh, what am I supposed to do here….?”  

Not so in Ukraine.  I think when people think of living in a different country they mostly just think of the spoken language  issues- like vocabulary.  I know that’s all I thought of!  And yes, of course that is a HUGE HUGE HUGE learning curve and a HUGE HUGE HUGE obstacle.  But there is even so much more that has to be learned than just how to say words.  You have to learn the systems of how things work.  

How do you buy food at a store?  How do you buy food at a market?  How do you do banking?  How does the transportation work?  How do I behave when I enter this public building?  What do I do when I meet a new person?  What is expected of me?  How do I read that sign?  And if I can’t read it, who do I ask for help?  How do I send and receive mail?  How will this social gathering go, and what will be expected of me?  What if they ask me something and I don’t understand?

Sure, you can ask questions, but often you don’t even know what questions need to be asked.  There is so much that is unspoken in culture.  I can’t even tell you how much that affects daily life.  Culture is everything.  People don’t explain certain things to foreigners because it is such a cultural norm that everyone conforms without a second thought!  Everyone except us.  🙂  We don’t even know what we don’t know.  Sure we know more than we used to, but I’m still terrified of the post office.  So yeah, we’ve got a ways to go.



I realized that I have become so used to feeling unsure (about what to do, what to say, how to act), that the insecure-pit-in-the-stomach feeling I get when I go most places in Ukraine has become normal to me.  Oh guys, I feel dumb so often.  Hahaha.

BUT, in America I remembered that although I often feel dumb and unsure and not confident, that is not who I am.  I am bold.  I am strong.  Christ in me is bold.  Christ in me is strong.  He made me brave.  I’m actually a fairly smart person! 🙂  I can’t even tell you how that felt- to be able to turn off the insecurities and just BE ME.  I saw it changing Ezra too. 

We both came back to Ukraine reminded of who Christ is in us.  We came back braver and stronger.  We needed that.  

So yeah, it was awesome.  Part of me didn’t want to leave, but another part of me couldn’t wait to get back.  I have a feeling that is a tension we’ll live with as long as Ukraine is our home.

We have people who love us on both sides of the world.  We have home on both sides of the world.  I can love both places and long for both places.  I’ll just go ahead and stop telling myself what I should feel.  🙂