Sue - The Visit - July 2009

Sue – The Visit - July 2009

Okay, if you read my blog about March-June, 2009, you know where we are, in June about to host a little 10 ½ year old girl, Anastasiya, in late June for three weeks. I excitedly told my family and friends about our new adventure we were about to embark on. With a great deal of surprise, I received mixed reactions, ranging from surprise and delight to downright disdain and disparagement. Luckily, the encouragement, approval, and blessings of those wonderful souls who recognized the value of what we were doing far outweighed the negativity of those who didn’t.

The “practical stuff” had to be accomplished in the couple weeks until she was going to arrive in San Francisco after traveling for more than 30 hours:
- 12 hour train ride to Kiev
- Flight form Kiev thru Germany
- Flight from JFK to SFO
As you might imagine, we expected the kids to be exhausted when they arrived in SFO at midnight.
For weeks before, I perused the shops and bought size 12 pants, dresses, blouses, socks and more. I cleaned and emptied the spare bedroom. We already had the twin bed, dresser, and nightstand, shelves, desk, plus a bunch of other “kid stuff’ that Connor had outgrown or changed, since the spare room had become both the guest room for overnight guests and the dumping ground for all those wonderful toys we never got around to donating.
Okay, so I have a hard time getting rid of “sentimental stuff”, after all, I spent quite a few weeks of my life sanding, priming and painting that headboard, footboard, and nightstand! And why CAN’T we keep that Apatosaurus – isn’t he CUTE?!?

So, luckily, we already had the bedroom set up, and simply tidied and cleaned, and set up the old 13” TV with built-in VHS video player. I also bought some GIRL things… OMG! I don’t know what to buy for a GIRL… panic…. Something pink… yes, that’s right – I’ll buy some teenage things. So in short time, her drawers and closet contained little girl clothes, books, and toys. We already had a vast Disney Video collection.

The date for the trip was postponed a week. They would be arriving July 5th – a Sunday night, 9:00pm. This threw us a little, since we had planned on taking Anastasiya to SFO airport the morning of the day were driving to Southern California for a week-long trip to Palm Springs timeshare, and a jaunt to Disneyland for Connor’s birthday, July 22nd. Since he was turning 16, we had reserved the Disney California Resort Segway 3 ½ hour Tour (before the park opens for the day). Of course, you pay for it, nonrefundable, and you HAVE to be 16 years old minimum to participate. So this was a treat for his birthday.

Well, we would have another guest with us – how is THIS going to work?

So off we go to airport, after waiting another hour or so for a delayed flight. We are expecting a rather large 10 year old, since she looked “big” from the pictures we had of her. The group came through the gateway, and we eagerly searched for OURS… where is she? Oh, they’re so SMALL! Look, that one is Misha… there’s Bogden, the smallest, where’s Anastasiya? THERE SHE IS! She is so small and frail – a mere wisp of a girl! She was holding hands with Olena, and as the organizers gathered the kids together, and guided them down the escalator, to the baggage area, we watched impatiently. We wanted to run to them and hug them, which would have totally freaked them out!

While we’ve been looking at their pictures, and thinking about them becoming part of our family, they have just been looking forward to a summer camp in America. They didn’t see any of our pictures, so they were probably thinking… which family is mine? As she and Olena were about to get on the escalator, she shyly turned her head, her eyes met mine. I smiled, and waved a little wave. She smiled back… that sweet “little girl smile” that we would later come to love so much. I turned to Jeff, tears welling in my eyes…. she’s DARLING!

When we were introduced, the translator spend many minutes speaking with her and us, translating that she’s be going home with us, and we asked what she’d like to eat, and told her we had a dog and cat – did she like dogs and cats? And on and on… the poor thing was totally exhausted from the over 30 hours of traveling they had just done. Off we went to the car, Jeff, me, Connor and Anastasiya. She settle right into our home. We had the day off on Monday to just hang out. We went to the local park, and she loved the water fountains (She could say that word right away…)

The rest of the first week the kids were here, they attended camp each day, from around 9:30 until around 3 or 4pm. I went with them the first couple days, to the park and to the hike up Rancho San Antonio, near Los Gatos. What a great bunch of kids! They are engaging and delightful. And smart. And funny.

I quickly learned that Anastasiya was stubborn and willful, energetic and active (OMG – she IS just like me!)
We saw farm animals, and took pictures. All these kids “pose” big time for their pictures. I think they have WAY too many fashion magazines out there, or something, because in almost ALL the shots they are throwing their hip out, tilting their head, pointing at the camera, or other “ham” behavior. The boys do it as well as the girls. Funny.

In our home, she was delightful as well. She was fairly adventuresome trying new food, as long as it wasn’t the “green” variety (wow – that’s different – a kid that doesn’t like vegetables?), but any meat, casserole, sandwich, or fruit she would at least try. She was very adroit at hiding broccoli under chicken bones, or putting things she didn’t want quietly on YOUR plate, then acted like she was doing YOU a favor, by indicating, “…you, yes, YOU, go ahead and eat it – it’s good for you…” – what a card! Tomatoes are her favorite vegetable – breakfast, lunch and dinner. Yet as much as she likes them, if she sees none on YOUR plate, she willingly and eagerly offers some to you.
So meals were not a struggle at all.

When she first came into our home, right away she petted and hugged the dog, and picked up the cat in her arms.
It was a great relief to us that she was neither afraid nor rough with our pets. She was inquisitive, yet not intrusive in her exploration of the home. She didn’t seem interested in drawing or art projects, but was very interested in music and dance. A friend from Ukraine, who has been here for many years, brought her a CD with Ukrainian music, and she eagerly did her dance moves for us. The caregiver, traveling here with the children, told us (through a translator) that she was involved with the orphanage’s girls dance program. She had a set routine for some of the dances; it was nice to know they had some fun activities for the kids, and it was very entertaining watching her “perform” her routines.

She spoke no English (except for “Hanna Montana” – they get the Disney channel), we spoke no Russian (except for the cheater booklet they gave us with rough phonetic pronunciations we could stumble through to try and communicate basic ideas and to get through your daily stuff), yet we got along great! For most daily things, it is not that hard to communicate non-verbally. Each night, I’d sit down with her and sign onto the online IM Translator. I would type a couple sentences at a time, about what we did that day, and what we would do the next day. She patiently listened, nodded, or sometimes inquired…. “What?” and I would enter the info in a different way. Though not perfect, the IM translator was a necessity to have to relay more complex ideas to her. Unfortunately, she didn’t have the keyboarding skills strong enough to actually type thoughts back to me… and we didn’t have a Cyrillic keyboard. Unlike French, Spanish, or German, Russian has a totally different alphabet, with some symbols that look like Egyptian, and others that resemble backwards letters.
The translation was also imperfect. For instance:

“Anastasia had a great time with us. She was a welcome part of our family and we look forward to her becoming part of our forever family.”
Becomes:
Анастазия имела большое время с нами. она была долгожданной частью нашей семьи, и мы с нетерпением ждем ее части становления нашего навсегда семья.
Which translates BACK to English as:
“Анастазия had big time with us. It was a long-awaited part of our family, and we with impatience wait for its part of our becoming for ever family.”

When I tried typing “high school marching band”, there didn’t seem to be a translation in Russian… it translated as
“Strip of a campaign of high school”, so as you can see, you have to be creative and clever when trying to explain something and then look at the translation back to English. But it was still great to use.
The first Saturday was Connor Birthday party, here at the house, The theme was Rock and Roll, “come as your favorite rock star”, so she dressed a Hanna Montana, Connor was Neil Peart (Rush drummer), and I was Stevie Nicks. We had fun here at the house, with decorations, food, cake, trip to the park with firecrackers, Guitar Hero, strobe lights, silly string…okay – what DIDN’T we have? We let Anastasiya invite three of her friends from camp, and we hired a Russian-speaking babysitter to help the kids feel welcome. It was a very, very, very active and exciting night.

After the big party, the second week, while the kids were in camp, and Connor worked on his online summer program, I got ready for the week-long trip to Palm Springs and Disneyland. We were doing by car,a dn I was a little apprehensive that she would lose patience during a 10-12 hour drive, but she held up as well as any of us did.

Through the Hilton hotels, and Disneyland Resorts, I found a wonderful babysitting service, and I spoke several times to the manager of the service. We needed someone to stay in the hotel room with Anastasiya from 6:30am until we returned around 10:30am the first morning in Disneyland, while the three of us did the Segway Tour through California Resort. I guess I freaked her out about the seriousness of the situation (child is a guest from Ukraine, and doesn’t speak English, and we sure don’t want ANYTHING to go wrong, as it could create and international incident, blah, blah, blah). The actual owner/manager was the person who came out – she took the seriousness of the babysitting job to heart, and we were grateful to have the absolute best of care for our daughter-to-be. She was great, and we would certainly use her again!

So, Connor got his Segway tour, ON HIS 16th BIRTHDAY, through California Resort… cool! He also got his gift card from Disney, since we had annual passports already. What a great two days!

Luckily for us, she is also a Mickey Mouse fan!!! She bravely rode the rides, although she would emphatically decline to go again on the rowdy ones… “NYET!” (means “NO!”) We split up from Jeff and Connor so Connor could get his share of Space Mountain, California Screaming, and Tower of Terror, and I made sure she did all the ‘kiddy rides” in Fantasyland and in Bugs Land. Like every other kid on the planet, she LOVED Autotopia! She drove, I squealed every time she hit the curb, and we had a great time! I could go on and on, but I know Jeff wants to tell his story as well.

It was an absolutely wonderful three weeks! Yes, she pouts. Yes, she is a typical little girl. She is PERFECT for our family! We want to adopt her. She feels like my “Daughter by another Mother”… Anastasiya – where have you been for 10 years!?!?