it is good to look back

I was looking back at what I posted a year ago at this time.  It seems that I was (again) sending a round of documents to Russia to be presented to the Judge. 

We had been told if we were able to get these last few documents, the Judge would accept our case and offer a court date to bring Anya home.  I remember thinking "ya right, I'll believe that when I see it". 

I can't believe THIS WEEK a year ago was the LAST TIME I jumped through crazy, unbelievable document hoops for the courts in Irkutsk.

Anya - aka Petunia

 

I love this picture.  It was taken at a political rally over the summer.  I just wanted to share...

Ahhhh memories

Our friend who is in Irkutsk was able to pick up her son from the orphanage today.  I think for the rest of my life, when I hear of someone bringing their child home from the orphanage - I will be flooded with memories.

3-2-1-0 (or March 2, 2010)...it was a big day. 

Like so much with the final stages of the adoption process, I didn't know what to expect - and what actually happened wasn't what I expected. I blogged about that day HERE.  Anya was so ready to leave the orphanage, we were expecting her to be a little hesitant; to be sad or hug her friends and caregivers goodbye.  I remember walking to the top of the stairs where her room was, and seeing her waiting at the door.  When she saw us, she got a huge smile on her face, and ran into her room to start to put her coat on.  We showed her that we brought a new coat for her to put on, well she just thought that was the greatest thing ever.

She sat in the car clutching Daddy's hand, very interested in everything outside, very quiet.  Wow, has THAT changed!

Those first few days I remember being in a fog.  So much of it felt like a dream...if I am honest, sometimes it was a good dream, and other times it felt like a bad dream. 

I remember one first walk to the grocery store together.  Anya was proclaiming "MAGAZINE" at every turn.  We could not understand why she was looking for magazines...there are news stands on corners, but when we would pass one, she would not be that interested in those kiosks.  We soon realized that the word 'magazine' in Russian means 'store'! 

Another funny language thing was the word 'spot'.  In Russian, that means sleep...well, don't say to your 7 year old at noon "sit on this spot please".  What your Russian speaking child will hear is "go to sleep"...and you will quickly see a very sad faced 7 year old!

I'm sure over the next few days I will be flooded with memories as our friend Lisa goes through her set of "firsts" with her son SV.

Mayberry + Halloween = costume parade

We're fortunate in that we live so close to a decent size city, but are in a very small town school district. The town where Anya goes to school is known because of the large Amish / Mennonite community. This makes for a very nice dynamic in the schools, and a very conservative environment in the town.

So when Halloween came around, I wondered what we would do, where we would go, if we would participate. When I heard about how our little town handles Halloween, I loved it - and we decided that was how we wanted Anya to be a part of Halloween!

There are a lot of schools of thought out there about this "holiday". To us, it isn't a holiday, we aren't celebrating anything. We simply are engaging in a seasonal tradition by carving pumpkins and allowing Anya to dress up in a costume. For us, it isn't anything scary, satanic or spooky...it is simply a little girl dressing up as Ice Cream and running from house to house with her friends. And that is how our little town thinks about it too - a celebration of the children.

Since the majority of the area is made up of farms and rural homes, everyone comes into town and collects treats (for please and thank-yous) up and down Main Street. There are several churches along the route, and they open their doors to the community by welcoming people and passing out candy to the kids. One church also offers a meal, free of charge, to anyone who wants it - don't you love that? Rather than condemning they have decided to embrace and take advantage of those who might be looking for a church, or seeking an answer. I actually saw one Pastor praying (off to the side of the line of kiddos in costumes) with one of the parents.

After an hour or so of getting to as many homes as possible, all the kids meet near the center of town, the street is closed and the parade starts. All of the kids march around and the town council (or maybe town Marshall...not sure) offer prizes for the best costumes. We saw a jelly fish, 3 little pigs, lots of princesses and Supermen, so many cats and dogs I lost count...but what I noticed was the absence of Snookie, Lady Gaga or anything scary.

For Anya, a child who complains about new things (until she does them of course) and is easily scared - this was the perfect way for her to start to learn about this American tradition.

The best part of our Halloween / Parade / Costume Festival were the lessons learned. We went around with 2 other families - between us we had 3 kids. At one house, one of the girls didn't get a piece of candy (for what ever reason). So Anya gave her one out of her bag.

Anya got 33 pieces of candy (don't you LOVE that? Not an overload of candy that you have to say "no" to a thousand times a day). When we got home, she was very excited to spread out the loot to see what she got. She divided up all the candy into 3 piles, and gave one to me, one to Marty and kept one for herself. She said, "not fair that Mommy and Daddy don't get candy too".

Now what kid do you know that does that?