I was at a bit of a loss as to how to name this post.

Some contenders: “A Tale of (a lot more than) 2 COVID Tests”, “An Absurd Tale of COVID Testing in Oregon”, “What I Gotta Do to Get on an Airplane??”, “COVID Testing Before Travel: A Tale of Woe”, “How to Unsuccessfully Exit the USA”…and so on and so on. You get the idea.

We made it home to Ukraine, but the events leading up to our departure were anything but straightforward. They were more poke-your-eye-out type events that involved me crying on the phone to Walgreens pharmacist on more than one occasion. Face palm. Not my finest hour.

A couple weeks before we were scheduled to fly from Oregon to Ukraine we got an email from our airline that stated the Netherlands was requiring COVID testing in order to transit through their airport. Me, being naive about COVID testing in Oregon thought “Hey, no big deal. We’ll figure that out the week we leave.”

The week of our departure arrived and I started looking around for where we could get tested to fulfill Amsterdam’s requirements. They required the test be a PCR test, conducted within 72 hours of arrival in Amsterdam, and the results in hard copy had to be presented before boarding at your initial departure point. Welp, after much digging, and doing rapid testing that was the wrong test altogether (BTW, try doing 8 self-administered tests in a 15 passenger van at a Walgreens Drive-Thru. I dare you. It’s like a fun exercise in team work….or something like that), we came to realize that Amsterdam’s requirements were basically impossible for us to fulfill. No one anywhere could guarantee that quick of a turnaround for PCR testing. We are a family of 9- we couldn’t risk failure. We had to know that we were going to be allowed to board and not be turned away.

So, we had to contact the airline and ask them to reroute us through a different country with more lenient COVID requirements. They rebooked us to fly through France the next week. France accepted rapid tests and they only had to be conducted within 72 hours of departure. That we could do. Although, I think France has now changed their requirements and are now more strict. We got out right in time!

We were scheduled to fly on a Friday morning. I had done my research and found an acceptable rapid testing site in a nearby town and booked us some appointments for Thursday morning. We arrived at the clinic to do the tests, got all the paperwork filled out, and then they dropped the bomb that unfortunately they would not be able to test us that day because our insurance didn’t cover the rapid test. “Oh, that’s okay” I said, “We’ll pay out of pocket. We have to have these tests done since we leave TOMORROW, so we don’t really have a choice. If we have to pay, we have to pay.”

They then proceeded to tell us they couldn’t accept cash from us since we were insured. What??? I’m offering you cash. Please just take it and stick a swab up my nose. Nope. They wouldn’t do it. No way were they going to test us. We were going to have to find somewhere else. Well, I hate to break it to you, but finding another place that would do 7 rapid tests that same day was an impossible task.

Jed and I sat on the phone for hours calling every single clinic we could find and no one would test us. We drove all around town to different clinics and begged in person. We called clinics 3 hours away! We were desperate. I was crying. Kids were crying. At one point Hava blurted out “I just want to go home and eat some borscht!!” It was ugly. It’s not that we were so desperate to leave our family and friends, it’s just that we’d been living out of suitcases for weeks and we had already delayed our return home by a week and we were just done. The stress of saying goodbye to family and friends is hard enough. It’s worse when it drags on and on and on. Plus, we knew Max and Morgan, the new house parents for the duplex, were arriving in Ukraine soon and we didn’t want them to arrive without us there to greet them. Ugh. It was such an emotion fest! The last week of our time in the US is always a little ugly anyway. This just took it to a whole new level. 🙂

Finally, after a couple hours of sitting in parking lots making unsuccessful phone calls, Jed called it quits. There was nothing more we could do. We were just going to have to rebook our flights again. My face hurt from crying and the kids were all hungry, bordering on hangry. We decided to head back to the grandparents’ house to regroup and figure out a new plan.

Then our miracle came. I pulled up to my parents’ driveway and my dad met us there. He had made a ton of phone calls and was able to track down a nurse practitioner friend who works at an urgent care clinic. In fact, that day was her first day working at the urgent care clinic where he found her. She spoke with her office manager and they told us if we could get there in an hour, they could test us. All of us. You better believe we were back on the road within minutes. It was an absolute miracle! I can’t even tell you the relief we felt. We were going home!

The biggest bonus to all of that craziness, was that Max and Morgan ended up flying home to Ukraine with us. They had also been scheduled to fly through Amsterdam, but realized they weren’t able to fulfill the requirements. So, we met up at LAX and flew the rest of the way home to Ukraine together. It was just perfect.

Traveling internationally during this crazy time in history is not for the faint of heart. I think I’m content to just stay home in my little village for a while. The days of COVID test acronyms, insurance policy numbers, health declaration forms, and googling “COVID testing near me” are behind us. We’ll just sit tight in the middle of nowhere Ukraine, thank you very much. 🙂

Having flown across the sea a number of times with any number of children, I’d like to think of myself as a veteran child/luggage/passport wrangler. I’m not easily phased by the prospect of 24 hours of travel with multiple dependents. At this point in life, traveling with less than 4 children is basically like flying solo, in my book. And if Jed is with me and we can tag-team? Oh baby, Amazing Race has nothing on us. We are unstoppable.

Now, flying during a pandemic with this many dependents, two of whom (I’m looking at you Bmo and Evie) will keep masks on for approximately 3 seconds before sending them shooting across the room, is pushing our skills to the next level. If it wasn’t for the fact that we haven’t been back to the US as a family for 2.5 years, and have in-person-Wide-Awake-business that needs to be done, I’m not sure we would attempt it. Am I nervous? Maybe a little. But, you see, our whole married life has been preparing us for this. When we were newlyweds we were taking teams of teenagers on short-term trips to work with Jed’s parents in Kosova. Flying with 15 teens and a 3 month old Addy during our second year of marriage was good prep for our current situation. 😉

You’d think with all my gloating confidence I would be uber-prepared with laminated checklists and labeled passports…but, I have to confess that that is not the case. Jed and I are more “fly by the seat of our pants and pray everything gets done in time” type people. Somehow we manage to check everything off the lists (which we scribble on the back of receipts and lose 5 times before we actually check everything off), but I’m not sure our method is for everyone.

One week Till Go-Time

• Decide to host a Thanksgiving feast for 25 people. Be sure to include everything on the menu and don’t cut any corners! Erect a tent outside to keep the feast pandemic-friendly. Make everything from scratch, as all the conveniences can’t be found in your host country. Spend 2 days in your kitchen totally destroying the deep-cleaning you did the week before while you were thinking you were “ahead of the game”.
• Contact your brother to ask to borrow his van while in the US. You know, since you’ll be in the US for almost two months, it might be good to have a vehicle to drive…(face palm).
• Check travel requirements and the lockdown situation in the states you are headed to. Search the internet for COVID testing sites that don’t require a physicians order. Make sure Boris can still enter the US on his visa and keep your fingers crossed that the world stays intact for just a few more days till you all cross the border together.

5 Days Till Go-Time

• Stress about how you’ll keep a mask on Bmo and Evie for 20 hours. Lay awake at all hours of the night thinking about that instead of sleeping. You wouldn’t want to go into the travels too rested! Also, don’t forget to worry about Anton and Ruslan and if they’ll understand that you’re coming back. Sleep is for the weak.
• Stock up on groceries for the next several days so you won’t be running to the store constantly and can focus on preparing for the trip. Make sure to forget TP and milk and at least three other items, just to insure you do have to, in fact, run to the store constantly.

4 Days Till Go-Time

• Get all the suitcases out of the old house on the property where they’ve been stored for the past couple of years. Make sure to open them outside, as last time you opened one inside the house a mouse ran out and emotionally scarred you for life. You’ll never trust a suitcase again. Also, they’re covered in dust and nastiness. Employ teenage sons to give them a thorough cleaning. Argue with Jed about how many suitcases you will actually require for a family of 9 to spend 7 weeks away from home. Jed argues you can get by with just a couple of carry-ons- or maybe just a backpack for each? You argue that you would like to be able to change your clothes more than once during the 7 weeks and ask for checked bags. Jed considers…you drop it for the time being. (But you know you’ll win…hehe)
• Check travel requirements and the lockdown situation in the states you are headed to, again. Double check that Bmo will still be able to enter the country (assuming he’ll wear a mask long enough to be allowed on the plane…)

3 Days Till Go-Time

• You have your team over for the day to work and plan for your absence. You drink a lot of coffee and make another batch of homemade egg nog…because this day is a wash anyway. Nothing is getting done. The day might as well be tasty if it’s not going to be productive.

2 Days Till Go-Time

• You venture, tentatively, into the pits of despair, aka dumpsters, that are your children’s bedrooms and sift through empty chip bags and wet towels and Seth “science experiments” to search for dirty clothes. I mean, if you’re going to fight with Jed over checked bags, you might need actual clothes to fill them. You then come to your senses and remember that your children are capable human beings and they, are in fact, the ones who should be sniffing through the piles of clothes on their floors. You come up out of the fog of teenage boy smells and instruct your children to do their laundry, if they intend on spending their time in the US clothed.
• After much debate, you convince your 10 year-old son that it really is better to clean up the “science experiments” before travel. Yes, it could be fun to see what grows in them over the next 7 weeks, but it would be less fun to come home to a room full of mold. You assist him in cleaning his room. You want to poke your eyes out.
• The house sitters come over for instructions. You share all the idiosyncrasies of your home and about how to care for your approx. 527 animals. When you get to the part about which drawers in the kitchen are prone to mice and which aren’t, you see their eyes grow wide and wonder if you should just stay home after all. On Instruction #182 their eyes kind of glaze over and you all just agree to text each other if questions come up. You never realized your house had so many idiosyncrasies!
• You do laundry non-stop while the toddler destroys the house.

1 Day Till Go-Time

• I guess it’s time to pack. You really do try to fit it all in the agreed amount of luggage, but there’s just so.many.people. The teenage boys fetch a couple more suitcases out of storage and Jed dies a little on the inside.
• Run to the kids’ school to sign them out for the next couple of months. Oops. You actually should have done that last week. Better late than never!
• More laundry, because it never ends.
• You remember your children still need to eat today, but you didn’t really plan for that. Hmmm…haphazardly feed your children whatever is left in the kitchen: pickles, cheese, oatmeal, eggs? Never mind. You’re on your own, kids. Mom’s up to her eyeballs in laundry. Candy for lunch? Whatevs. You’ve got bigger fish to fry.
• Clean and pack and wash and launder and pick-up and clean and pack and wash till the wee hours of the morning. At some point Jed runs to the store (again) for snacks for the plane. You heard they won’t feed you much on the plane these days, but teenagers and Bmos are hungry all the time, so you better stock up.
• Pack the passports and check them 20 times to make sure you have 9 of them. Obsessively check travel sites to make sure Bmo will still be able to enter the US. Read up on airport rules and pray everyone wakes up healthy and ready to mask up.
• Pack the suitcases in the van in the dark of night. Jed remarks more than a few times on the amount of luggage. You remind him that this isn’t a backpacking trip, and yes, you really do need more than one pair of shoes for a 7 week trip. You call truce and drink some egg nog.

Go-Time

• Wake the troops in the middle of the night and check the passports 15 more times before groggily heading out the door.
• Pat yourselves on the back for successfully exiting your life for the foreseeable future. You’re sure you forgot something, but you’re headed to the US! Anything can be replaced. -Except passports. You better check them just a couple more times…

See you on the other side! We’ll let you know how the Bmo-in-a-mask-for-20-hours goes down. If anything, it’ll make for good writing material. 🙂

Vlad talks about our upcoming trip to the US!

Hi Friends!

Summer in the USA came and went and it was a big one. I gave myself permission not to blog because I just wanted to soak up all the precious moments with family and friends and not feel like I had to write about it. Thanks for your understanding!

But now we’re back, and I need to get back into the writing habit. I even made myself a Wide Awake “Editorial Calendar” for all the Wide Awake social media. Now just to stick to it… I really do want you all to be informed and aware of what’s going on in these parts, so let’s see how I do!

By the way, if you want to find Wide Awake in other places we are on:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wide_awake_international/  and

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HeartsWideAwake/

Summer was so great. We had a wonderful time in Oregon with family and friends. It was super fun to introduce our little Evie to everyone, and to just BE with so many people we love. Vladik had his surgery on his feet and it went just as the surgeon hoped it would go. We still don’t really know how helpful it was because Vlad is still recovering, but we are hopeful that in the long run, as he grow, it will help him to have less pain in his feet. He was in a wheelchair for 6 weeks, then in walking boots for 2 weeks, but now he’s up and at ’em again. I don’t think he’s running yet, but he’s walking just fine! He’s a trooper.

The highlights of everyone’s summer had to be time with family. Jed’s family came from Montana and met us at the Oregon coast for a few days and it was soooooo nice to all be together. The weather cooperated, which was a miracle, and we got to spend a lot of time down on the beach. Yay!

Then my parents took all of us and my brothers and their families to Disneyland, and it was, of course, magical! I LOVE DISNEYLAND, FYI. We happened to be there for Vladik’s 18th birthday and my brother arranged for him to meet Lightning McQueen. Oh.my.word. It was such a wonderful memory!! We just had the best time. It was perfection.

Some of our most generous friends let us stay with them all summer and that was a great experience. They have 4 kids, we have 6…no big deal. Ha! It actually worked out better than any of us imagined. Everyone got along, the kids had tons of built-in playmates all summer, and when we left we all still loved each other- so I call that success!

We launched back into life here in Ukraine a couple weeks ago and it feels like the summer was a dream…like we never actually left!  Boris did well while we were gone and Kenny and Romana did a fantastic job with him. We picked back up with him right where we left off. Boris doesn’t love transition (wink wink), but he’s doing okay, all things considered. He has his great moments and his rough moments. Don’t we all? 🙂

The kids start back to school on Monday, so this week is all about prepping for that and getting summer loose ends all tied up. Then we turn our eyes toward bringing Anton and Ruslan into our family. Jed already has guardianship of them; the documents are all completed. We just thought it was wisdom to get settled and get the kids in school again before bringing Anton and Ruslan home. That is going to be a HUGE transition for all of us. (I feel like I’m always saying that, by the way)

So that’s where things stand at the moment.

We had an awesome summer. We got our love tanks filled up and we’re ready to venture into a new season as a family of ELEVEN! Jesus take the wheel… 🙂

Tomorrow a big chunk of the Wide Awake Family heads to the US! We’re leavin’ on a jet plane… 🙂

It has been two years since our last visit, so it’s time. We try to visit Oregon every two years to see family, meet with our Board of Directors face to face, and spend time with our friends and supporters in the Pacific Northwest.

Another big purpose of this trip is to do reconstructive surgery on Vladik’s feet. We had planned to do the surgery when we were last in the US, but at that time Vladik was not ready for such a major procedure. He’ll be wheelchair-bound for 8 weeks after the surgery, and at that time he didn’t have the understanding or emotional maturity to not be devastated by that. Now he is so much more mature in every way. He is ready and wants the surgery. He is also getting taller and heavier and walking is getting more and more painful for him. We just need to bite the bullet and get ‘er done.

I (Kim) leave for the US tomorrow with 5 of the 6 kids. We’ll get Vladik’s pre-op stuff done, and Jed will follow in June. Ezra will stay in Ukraine this month with Jed to help him care for Boris. At the end of May Jed and Ezra will go to South Africa for the World Congress for Occupational Therapy. Jed and Olya, our friend and OT, will present the interns’ work at Romaniv to the Congress. More on that in a later post!

Although we successfully got Boris a visitor visa to the US, we have decided the best thing for Boris is to stay home at the Homestead. A trip of such magnitude would be very difficult for him. He thrives on routine and familiar surroundings, and there will be nothing routine or familiar about our summer in the US. It is so hard for us to leave him. I shed quite a few tears over it, knowing that he wouldn’t fully understand where we all went. 🙁 But at the same, I realize that it would not be kind to bring him along. Our hearts are officially at home in two places and there’s just nothing easy about that. Seriozha (Jed’s assistant) and his wife, Romana, will live at the Homestead with Boris for the summer so he can be in his home with all his favorite things. If you could pray for them for wisdom in caring for Boris, and also for peace in Boris’ heart while we are away, that would be so great. Thank you!

Side note: Boris’ visa is a 10-year multiple entry visa, so maybe we can bring him with us in a couple of years when we visit again!

So, that’s the Wide Awake summer plans. While we are traveling to and fro the team and interns will continue to visit the Boys at the institution regularly, just like always. The construction crew will work on developing the new land at the Homestead and preparing it for the next homes to be built, and Boris will be safe at home with people who love him. It’s awesome to know all the work will continue while we’re away. That leaves us the ability to focus on getting Vladik healthy, the opportunity to rest with family, the chance to connect with sponsors, and the time to dream and plan with our Board.

Thank you all for your incredible love and support of our family and this work. Knowing that people are praying and sharing and giving of their hearts and finances makes all of this possible.

How to begin?  We head back to Ukraine in 12 days.  What the what??????

My last blog post was June 3rd. I have known I needed to write, but it felt like there was too much in there to adequately put into words.  Also, I realized that at some point over the past couple of years I started censoring myself.  I’m not sure exactly why.  I think a big reason is because the more I grew to know and love our Ukrainian friends in Zhytomyr, and the more time we spent away from our beloved friends and family in the US, the more I have wanted to make sure nothing I say is misinterpreted by anyone on either side of the ocean. 

That’s the struggle of this cross-cultural life.  Everywhere you go you are missing one person and glad to see another. Every time you go you are sad to leave one place but excited to reach another.  

All those feelings could be taken the wrong way, misinterpreted, hurtful…if you are the one being left you may feel rejected because we are excited to see the other.  When we are excited to leave Ukraine and get to the US I’m afraid it will appear that we don’t like Ukraine.  When we are excited to leave the US to get back to our life in Ukraine I’m afraid it will appear that we don’t appreciate the US and are “above” our old life. Ugh.  The people-pleaser in me does not have a clue how to navigate that, let alone write about it.  So I go silent. Sorry for that.

It’s just a fact that living between two worlds is very sticky business with no instruction manual.  

How do you leave a place and people well? 

How do re-enter a place well?

How do you leave a place where you are outgoing and confident, a fixer, and a leader and return to a place where you are a learner, an outsider, a person on the fringes of society with a first-grade handle on the language- and not crawl into a shell and hide?

How do you maintain friendships from across multiple time zones while also being fully planted and rooted where you are?

How do you invest in new friendships without feeling like you are letting your old ones slip away?  

How do you fully embrace your overseas life without feeling like you are a traitor to the ones you love across the ocean?

How do you look at pictures of your old friends and their kids all together and not feel guilt and sadness that your kids are not there to join in and grow up together?

How do you leave your mother and father and take away their grandchildren without feeling massive guilt?

How do you be fully where you are when you feel like your heart and life are split in two?

I don’t have a clue. 

One thing I know is that I failed in many of those areas last time we were in Ukraine and I am hopeful that this time will be better.  Last time I lived with A LOT of guilt. Everyday. No one put that on me; I’m awesome at doing that to myself. 🙂

I felt like I was a bad friend to my American friends, but my Ukrainian life took so much energy that I simply couldn’t be the kind of friend I wanted to be to the ones I have loved for many years.  

I allowed all my confidence to be stripped away and socially became a shell of my former self. (Lack of fluency will do that to ya) Making friends was hard for me and I’m not used to that. I ached to be understood and known. (See, just writing that makes me worried that my Ukrainian friends will think I’m saying I had no friends in Ukraine. Ugh! Ha! )

We spent those first two years just learning how to survive and didn’t really get the chance to become fully planted.  Our kids felt that.  I know that couldn’t really be helped.  We had to learn to survive and the learning curve was/is steep. Grocery shopping, banking, post-officing, cooking, schooling, transportation, church, utilities, LANGUAGE…everything was new and we were like aliens on a different planet. There was a lot of everyday living to figure out before any roots could begin to take hold. 

But this time, I think this time is going to be different. Our mindset is different.We are purchasing land and settling in for the long-haul.  We have committed our lives to these boys and once we begin to take them out everything changes. Of course we’ll still come to the US for visits, but my heart and mind need the opportunity to settle in and make a home in Ukraine. I need pictures up on the walls.  I need to know in my heart that until God says differently, Ukraine is our home. No guilt allowed. 

So, if you see us in the coming days, just know that our hearts are confused and there is no easy answer to the question “How are you?” We’re so happy and so sad.  We’re excited and dreading.  We’re confident and scared.  We’re ready and we’re not.  

I’m only resolute one thing: I know that I know that this is the life God has created us for and I WILL NOT allow guilt to rob me of the joy that comes with following Jesus and saying yes. 

So there. That’s the *pretty much* uncensored version of my heart.  If you are a person who prays we would sure appreciate your prayers over the next several weeks.  The kids are struggling with all the change and the chaos in our home is great at the moment. We need peace and knowing and joy in the journey.  

Thank you for walking with us! 

We would like to invite you to a very special event!

Thursday, June 30th at 7pm we are hosting “An Evening With Wide Awake” at the Kroc Center in Salem, Oregon.

Our family’s time here in the US is quickly winding down and we are itching for an opportunity to meet face to face with the ones who have helped to make all of this possible.  I can blog the heck outta this thing, but there is truly nothing like being in the same room and telling stories, live, in person.

If you are in, or around the Salem area we would absolutely LOVE to see you there!

We’ll share about where we’ve been, and where we hope to go in this next year: land purchase, freedom for the first four boys, interns, adoptions…and all that good stuff.

And just to sweeten the deal a bit, I’ve got to tell you that our friend and partner Denis Dmitrov will be there too- all the way from Ukraine!  Denis is our pastor in Ukraine.  The church that he pastors, Christian Youth Church, is where we, and almost 100% of our volunteers attend.  Christian Youth Church has taken on Romaniv as a ministry of the church and it is a miraculous partnership that only God could have planned.  Denis will be visiting the US for the first time ever and we are super excited for Wide Awake supporters to meet him and hear a bit about the work from his perspective.

So, please come!  Invite a friend! This is the perfect opportunity for people to be introduced to what Wide Awake is all about. I can’t wait to see you and give you a big fat hug (and I’m not even a hugger…that’s how excited I am about this).

If you have any questions about this event, please don’t hesitate to ask.  You can comment here, or email me at kjohnson@wideawakeinternational.org

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.

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!