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Monday, May 30, 2011

Workin’ and a charmin’ and a curlin’ and a playin’ and a checkin’ and a beachin’.

Workin’-
One of the things that I learned in the all the research I did about adopting was that most of these kids are “out of sync”. There are other senses in our bodies besides the five we learned about in kindergarten. Three more are inside our bodies and one of them is called Proprioseptic. Basically it has to do with the muscles and, I guess, energy moving through them. So, jumping on a trampoline, pulling or pushing a heavy object or walking strongly sends signals through the muscles that some kids just need more than others. Anya has found a way to calm herself propriosepticly. She swings a weeding tool to pull out weeds from the roots on our hill! She LOVES it.  As I am typing, Dave just brought home a mini trampoline and she is doing all kinds of dancing type jumping on it, while being delighted at the same time.


Charmin’-
Anya has been using English very specifically lately. Last week she told me a bottle was squished and that she turned something upside down. Now, if she could only remember the difference between he and she. Anya also loves my flash drive (the electronic/media obsession).

She just told me, “I want ask you something.” She laid on chest, faced me and smiled. “I love you. And you are beautiful. And you take a care of me. You so nice. You say ‘I love you Anya’. Mama, may I please have you flash drive?” She smiled even bigger. Anya gets so much free stuff and things given to her that every once in awhile, I decide she needs to learn to earn something. I had already told her no about 7 times in the last 12 minutes. I explained she could take her money and buy one for less than $10. But no, she WANTS one. I am just now telling her to take it out of her pocket as she tells me, “Mama, I’ll be right back. I’m just gonna show you something (with the drive in her pocket).” She left the the drive in my chest and left the room and I hid it on top of the lamp. She already somehow got my Mickey key chain with my name on it, after I said no many, many, many times. I’m standing ground on this silly little flash drive. An example of being given things and advantages happened later in the day. I took her to Trader Joes where she was in the cart and insisted that she hand the groceries to the clerk. Well, with the first item, she reached in front of the scanner to scan it. The clerk let her scan the whole order!! And to top off her charmin’ ability, the lady that got in line behind us happily moved to another lane since it was taking so long.



Curlin’-
I curled my hair and Anya wanted in on the deal. The rod to my curling iron is 1.5” in diameter and Anya’s hair didn’t even wrap around the barrel! I bought a little one and she let me curl her whole head of hair. She loved it. She’ll ask me to curl it as we are getting ready to leave with about two minutes to spare. Just gotta work on the thinking through it earlier and we’re good.

Playin’-
The girl who never played with dolls or any toy for any length of time with us will now sit for an hours and play with dolls. She dresses them, takes them for a walk in the stroller, gives them bottles and tells them “we are goin’ a Texas”. We actually have toy messes in the living room and her bedroom now. Something has relaxed in Anya allowing her to be a child. It is common for institutionalized kids to be on high alert, always ready to have to defend themselves and she is letting go of that. Awe Some!


Checkin’-
You may remember that our psychologist suggested using check marks in the airplane for Anya to remember and try to behave. I brought the idea home and used three check marks in three boxes followed by losing a privilege to help her see that she really doesn’t listen as much as she thinks she does. You can hear her say to herself on occasion, “I doughn wanna check in a box. I will listen a Mama.” The other morning she drew three boxes and gave Dave two checks. He took the pad of paper, said oh yeah and added nine more boxes. She took it back and checked all of them. He was banned to his room for five days.

Beachin’-
Last week Dave and I took Anya to the beach for the first time. A friend lent us her convertible and we headed to Ventura. We went in the water, built a sand castle, played on the swings, ate lunch on the pier and walked the pier. She was in heaven and asked if we could come back.

When we got to the sand, Dave took off Anya’s sandals and she was a bit worried to stand on the sand. Then you could see her process much as the sand changed texture and color as we got closer to the water.

Initially she was concerned that fish would bite her toes and pull her out to sea. Once we got close and she got her toes in the water, all inhibitions left her. She was amazed at how the water knocks you off balance as is rolls back to sea. On the video you can see her thinking though and processing all this new information as she experiences the water for the first time. It was so cool to be with someone who has never been in the ocean and really has no reference point for it either. Dave and I had a memorable time taking Anya to the beach. I loved this part of parenting again. I thought I’d love getting to decorate and do all the traditions for the holidays again too. But no, I am just too old and tired to want to drag all that stuff out and make sure I do this thing by that time on the special day. Oh well, what I do end up doing is all new to Anya and she loves it.

Anya's first time in the ocean.  (click to see video)








~Monica

Monday, May 16, 2011

So, who's idea was this anyway?

It was 90 degrees outside the day before we were to leave for Texas to join Dave on part of a business trip. He was to be gone 11 days and I didn't want to stay home with Anya for that long without him, so we'd join him for 5 of the days. On this hot day we decided to take a swim at home with Anya. I put on an extra one piece bathing suit since my other two suits and the swim shorts I wear at the public pool were already packed for the trip. As I walked out the back door, I felt a tugging on the bottom of the back of my suit. Anya was pulling it down. “Anya, what are doing?”

“Don’t showa the bottom.” Was she serious? Nothing was showing. Then I heard, in reference to the scoop back of my suit. “I don’t want this one.”

“Like mine? Why?”

“I don’t want people see my back.”

Man, she is modest and/or she thinks the entire world is always looking at her. Probably both.

The morning of our trip, I got up at 5:30 am to be ready to leave at 6:30am. I was very careful to be quiet as I prepared for the trip. Five minutes later, I heard a door open quite loudly and wondered why Dave would be so loud and possibly wake up Anya. I looked down the hall and there was Anya, with crazy tossled hair and a big smile on her face, standing between her doorway and the hall. “I am goin’ to Texas today!”

Knowing Anya was very anxious about leaving our house, flying on an airplane and staying away from home, we talked with her psychologist, who is working on helping heal the trauma in her life, and came up with an idea so Anya could succeed at behaving well on the airplane.

I downloaded a timer app for my iTouch (which I bought before Anya came because my old iPod broke and figured she would be able to play with all the iTouch apps as we traveled and visited doctors’ offices and such and I am too cheap to pay for the monthly iPhone fee) and went to the bank to get $25 in one dollar bills.

Anya doesn’t put any stock in candy or any other food for that matter, especially as a reward. When we got to Moscow with her, one of days we went to Red Square and the largest mall in Moscow called Gume. As we passed store window after store window, there was only one thing that caught Anya’s eye. 

An iPod.

She didn’t care for candy, food, toys, DVDs or clothes. Only electronics. She also doesn’t think of coins as money. A $100 bill and a $1 bill have the same value to her at this point. Doesn’t matter how many times we show her or tell her, it’s all about the volume of the bills.

So back to the plan. The psychologist suggested we set the timer for 15 minutes and for every 15 minutes Anya could follow the rules we made up, she would get a reward. Now you can see why I knew only a dollar would work. A quarter? Why that's trash! Once she received the first dollar she really caught on to the plan. And now, she is $23 richer. This is also very helpful since she is saving money to get a phone some day. Yeah, like, really-far-away someday.


The trip was really hard on her. It was just different than home with lots of transitions and that mix upsets kids from hard places. I planned on having plenty of time to work on projects, do my hair and make-up and just relax. What a stupid woman I can be! This was like boot camp!! Monica-time was not on the list of approved activities. Now that it is over I can say, "Oh well, it’s all for the best.” But during the ordeal I wasn’t happy. Especially since the only alone time I got were the three showers I took-in a five day period. It’s like having a newborn sometimes.

The first day I needed to get some energy out of Anya and the pool water was like ice. And it was windy to boot (so much for bringing half a suitcase worth of pool toys and swim wear…). Anya looked out the window and wanted to go to the “park” across the street. Again, didn’t imagine playing in the wind, in a mowed lot, next to the freeway, for fun. Nor did I realize I would have to play basketball with the tricky stinker to wear her out, since we wouldn't be swimming much. Could hardly get the ball from her. After the second time of getting the ball from the street I remembered why I don’t like balls sports. I find the “getting” of a ball a complete waste of my precious time. Sorry jock-people, I’m just saying it how it is (at least for me). I am seriously NOT a ball player-she threw the basketball at me and I didn’t even block it. The ball bounced off my eyeball. Not the just the socket, not just the brow, but the EYEBALL. Maybe I’ll pick up a few social ball playing skills from the girl someday. I mean, anything is possible, right?
 The park.

Okay, the real park we found later.


I planned on taking her all over the area, but she stressed about going to the grocery store. Literally. Plus she got car sick every time we traveled more than 10 minutes, hence the need to go the grocery store-Dramamine. We did go to the Fort Worth Zoo on Dave’s day off, our last day, before our flight. Two adults to one kid; shouldn’t be too hard. It wasn’t. She loves the zoo. It was on Mother’s Day and was pleasant at first, but the 92 degree heat and humidity (probably wasn’t anything to someone not from So Cal) eventually wore thin on me. A bit too long of a trip at the zoo before a flight isn’t the optimal plan for happy campers on the airplane either. Overall though, she did an amazing job considering all of the different situations thrown at her. 




One of her favorite restaurants gained that status because the number for the table was a wooden spoon on a large base. She liked it because she said she could get me with it if she deemed it necessary!!
I'll get ya!

One of her complaints the first night was the noisiness of the refrigerator in the kitchenette. “Well Anya, refrigerators are noisy. But...I guess you wouldn’t know that since you don’t normally sleep in kitchens. So…um...it’ll be okay. Good night.”

Nice to be home and to have a week to recuperate and figure out how to have a vacation since getting back from my vacation.

~Monica

Monday, May 2, 2011

Science lab, senior portraits and Dallas, Texas.


Anya has been taking her karate class once a week for a couple of months now. On Mondays she takes drama and now, a science lab class. I wanted to extend her ability to be in classes this term, so she can one day integrate into an all day classroom. I figured the science lab would be fun since it was promoted as “we make this and we make that”. I didn’t realize that on the first day of class, one for 9-11 year olds, they would be given a handout of the periodic table, watch a video song of the elements and all the other kids would be reading off their favorite elements. “I love phosphorus!” 

What had I done?! This child was sitting in her chair, very attentive, but it dawned on me how much she had yet to learn and I wondered if she knows this fact. The class was asked to call out “calcium” when they heard it in the song and they did. A few minutes later Anya thought she heard “California” so she called that out!

I guess it’s all good. Any exposure to new things should come back later when she learns these things more thoroughly. She has been doing well in karate, as far as remembering what the moves and patterns are. The teacher used her as an example to show the other kids a stance last week and I was worried as he gave her other moves to make. She did pretty much all of them. I was amazed. This week they played dodge ball standing in a circle with a beach ball and Anya darted every which way and was the best at avoiding getting hit. Does that come from dodging the other children at the orphanage in Russia and having to protect herself? I don’t know, but she’s good at it. I guess it helps having brothers in their late teens and twenties and a father that tease you constantly.

We took Matt in for his senior portraits at Sun West Studios in Ventura and they suggested we bring Anya for some shots of her. The dog got to come too and we got some really good shots of them. Love the one of Matt and Anya, since they are the two who considered themselves siblings before Dave and I ever knew we’d be adopting her!







In two days Anya and I will join Dave in Texas for his flight training for five days. She is VERY excited to get on the airplane, especially since the flight isn’t 13 hours this time and she keeps pulling her suitcase around the house. She is calm about leaving Chico since Scott and Matt will faithfully take care of him. So, this Mother’s Day, I’ll be coming home from Dallas with Anya on an airplane. Hope it’s a good day!!

Just asked Anya if she wanted a neck pillow for the plane. “Look, you blow it up like this and put it her around your neck for sleeping.”

“Nope. I will sleep on your legs.” I guess she has plans of her own.

~Monica