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