Picky eater? I don’t think so!

So, after the first week or so of attending school, Rebecca was issued a student ID card. The ID’s are used in the cafeteria to speed up the purchasing of lunches and they make life easier for parents because you don’t have to find $1.80 every day. You can write a check to put money on your child’s account and they just whittle it away… a debit card. Even though I knew it would make my life easier, I was a little hesitant to “load” Rebecca’s account. She’s never had the experience of carrying and spending money herself, so I looked at buying lunch as a learning experience. I also realize, from knowing people who worked in school food service, that elementary school students are not the most efficient at checking out and paying for their lunches, so it is a time saving effort for the cafeteria staff. (I later learned that even if the kids take their money each day they don’t actually pay for lunch when they go to the cafeteria. It is collected by their teacher and processed before they arrive.) To make what’s becoming a long story short, I sent in a check. Rebecca and I go through the school lunch menu at the beginning of each month and we talk about what is being served. Then she decides if she wants to buy or pack her lunch for each day and we write it on her personal calendar. I counted out all the days she was buying lunch and calculated that if we paid for 20 lunches it would take her through the end of March with one to spare. Perfect!

It turns out it wasn’t exactly perfect. Earlier this week Rebecca started telling me she needed money. The conversation went something like this…

Rebecca: Mama, need money.
Me: Why do you need money, Rebecca?
Rebecca: Ummm, Mrs. Schad.
Me: Why does Mrs. Schad need money?
Rebecca: Buy ice cream.
Me: Mrs. Schad wants to buy ice cream?
Rebecca: Da.
Me: Are you sure?
Rebecca: Buy lunch
Me: You want to buy lunch for Mrs. Schad?
Rebecca: No, Mama. Buy lunch.
Me: You want to buy lunch for you?
Rebecca: Yes!
Me: You have plenty of lunch money.
Rebecca: Mrs. Schad… ummm, letter.
Me: Mrs. Schad gave you a letter?
Rebecca: Da

Well, when we went through her backpack that night, there was no letter from Mrs. Schad. I had Rebecca bring me her personal calendar and I double checked the date I had written the check against how many days she had bought her lunch. I even counted it twice! Nope, we’re still good… shouldn’t’ need lunch money till after spring break. Just to be certain I sent her teacher a note and asked about it. Well, after a few days of checking, Mrs. Schad has solved the lunch money mystery. It seems that even on the days that Rebecca takes her lunch, she ALSO goes through the cafeteria line. Some days she gets a side dish, some days an extra entrée, etc. Mrs. Schad asked the girl who sits next to Rebecca at lunch if Rebecca eats all the food and she said, “yes.” Wow!

I guess the good news is Rebecca definitely likes American food. But, now what do we do about lunch? I certainly don’t want her to be hungry and she’s in NO danger of being overweight, but she also has to understand the food is not free and limitless. (I have visions of future credit card debt swirling in my head!) Oh yes, and Rebecca has a negative balance on her lunch account right now…

Happy Birthday, Rebecca!

Rebecca Valentina Myers was born on Valentine's Day 1999 and this year we finally get to celebrate together. Happy Valentine's Day, everyone, and a very happy, welcome to America, birthday, Rebecca. Oh yes, I almost forgot, she received her official certificate of citizenship today... what a great present.

One month home

It's hard to believe we have been home for a month. It is soooo good to be home, even though home is undergoing some reorganizing. All of Dan's office contents (now Rebecca's room) are in boxes in our bedroom and everything from my desk is in our dining room while we install cabinetry and desks for a "family computer room." We can access our computers and the internet while in limbo, but don't expect any scanning or printing.

Okay, back to being home for a month...

There have been many, many firsts for Rebecca and for our family. Uncle Dale has had to avoid sidewalk chalk and a scooter (from a visiting friend) in the driveway and Dan finds he has much less time to sit down. Actually, that part goes for me, too. Last Friday, on a day off from school, Rebecca enjoyed her first trip to Disney World. We would have preferred to wait awhile, but my niece and her boyfriend were in town and were anxious to share the experience. Rebecca could best be described as awestruck - she loved every minute of the day! We started the day slowly in Fantasy Land with Small World, Dumbo, the Carousel, etc. and then moved on to the Haunted Mansion, Thunder Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean and Space Mountain. She liked the kiddie rides, but LOVED the roller coasters. Tim and I were both very pleased to see just how much she enjoyed the coasters and early in the afternoon we took the monorails to EPCOT so she could try out his favorite ride - Test Track. At the end of the day, she told us her favorites were the onstage princess show, the parade, and Test Track.

School still seems to be going well and Rebecca loves going each day. She received a "Principal's Award" this week and is doing very well with her phonics. She's working on reading beginner books and has even read a story or two to Timothy. The two of them are starting to interact more and are figuring each other out. They had a sweet portrait taken together Saturday night and have been holding hands, kissing each other on the cheek, etc. (Special thanks to Peggy for scanning it and emailing it back to me so I could post it for you.)

We continue to be amazed at how well Rebecca is adapting to her new world and she told us today that she likes it better here than at the internat. She is making new friends and enjoys going to kids' church with some of them. There are still times of adjustment and communication gaps, but we are working on them. I'm trying to get Rebecca to tell us when she doesn't understand something. We find that she listens attentively, says "da" and acts like she understands what you said, but based on her actions we find that she hasn't. (Nothing terrible, just things like "hang that dress in your closet" and we find it in the laundry basket and the like.) Next week we'll attend a meeting at Rebecca's school for the ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) program. I think she'll qualify. ;-)

Thanks so much for all your continued prayers and messages of support. We realize we're living in what's referred to as the honeymoon stage, but are trying to make the most of it and develop good habits. I'll keep praying, too - maybe the honeymoon can last forever? Yeah, I know, 10 year olds someday become teenagers...

Happy February!
Kathi, Dan, Tim, Rebecca, Carey… and Uncle Dale, too

Finally - some pictures!

Immediately after court in Ukraine










On the train from Donetsk to Kiev




























Our first family picture...











Rebecca modeling some new "koshka" (cat) pj's & slippers

Settled in and starting school

Sorry, blog friends... I wrote an update last week, but apparently never posted it. I'll combine it with the one we wrote last night.

January 4, 2010
We are settled in at home! Hooray! Here are the answers to our FAQ's:

Jet lag: Thankfully, we have not had a problem. I think sleeping for four hours a day for 2 days in a row and then being awake for almost 22 consecutive hours on the third day of travel eliminated any sleep patterns. Our bodies were so happy to find beds that third night we didn’t even hear our neighbors’ fireworks. (Those of you who know our neighbors know that is significant!)

Rebecca and Timothy were both very happy to finally meet each other on New Year’s Day. She is enjoying having her own room and bed and exploring all the new things in our home… like water from the front of the fridge, ceiling fans, and showers more often than just on Monday and Friday. Tim is enjoying watching Rebecca play with Carey. (Some of Rebecca’s first English words have been, “Carey, sit!” and “Come here.”) Carey, however, isn’t used to a little person who has seemingly endless energy and is missing out on her morning and afternoon naps. All in all, everyone seems to be adjusting pretty well. Rebecca met our pediatrician for her first visit on Saturday and did very well. She drew extensively for the doctor when asked and accepted her two immunizations like a champ. She’ll need to follow up with a pediatric ophthalmologist (we have one Tim’s seen before), but we are not overly concerned.

A few people have asked about Rebecca’s size… she is pretty tiny. Some of my generous friends stocked her closet before we arrived. Her face was priceless when she saw she had choices of things to wear. The clothes that fit right now are typically size 7, but even a few of those are big and proper fitting shoes are size 3. (There was some confusion about the shoes because we were originally basing our estimates on shoes she wore at the orphanage. Their definition of “fits” seemed to be if your foot fit inside the shoe. We believe that shoes CAN be too big.) Based on reports from others who have adopted, we are expecting to see a growth spurt in the next few months, so we’re trying to shop and plan accordingly. Besides, this week’s weather is NOT normal for Orlando!

Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Honestly, I didn’t really think I’d still be writing now that we're home, but apparently Rebecca is quite a popular girl and has developed a following. She spent last week “home” with me and did not go to school. We ran errands, went to doctor’s appointments, visited the downtown public library and just generally got her more used to living here. She is doing very well and seems to be enjoying her new life. We celebrated Christmas on Saturday and exchanged gifts with both sets of grandparents. (Side note: Thanks for all your prayers for my dad. He got a “day pass” from the rehab center to come to Orlando for our celebration on Saturday and is going to be discharged this Thursday. PTL!) It took Rebecca a minute to catch on to the process of everyone opening gifts, but once she did she loved it. She even practiced her budding English skills by reading the gift tags and distributing them accordingly. Once all the presents had been opened, she quickly took her new things to her room and organized them thoroughly. Later in the day she got to meet her only local aunt and uncle – my brother, Bobby, and his wife, Angie, as well as Angie’s daughter, Melissa. We all enjoyed visiting and, of course, played a few rounds of Uno.

Monday was a big day at our house. Rebecca started school in the morning and received her new eyeglasses in the afternoon. (Yup, glasses. Thankfully, all the ophthalmologist found last week is that one eye is very, very nearsighted. She was nervous about wearing the glasses at school, but does like being able to see. She wore them today and I don’t think there were any issues.) I took her to Durrance Elementary yesterday (Monday) expecting that we would do all the registration paperwork and then start school today (Tuesday). When her teacher came to the office to meet her, she asked if Rebecca was ready to start. I asked Rebecca what her preference was and she said today. (Actually, she said “sivodnya.”) We got a quick tour of the classroom and then it was “bye bye” to Mama and hello to her new classmates. (I have got to say she is a brave, brave girl. I don’t know that I would have made the same choice knowing that NO ONE spoke a word of my language.) Rebecca’s teacher is Mrs. Schad and she seems wonderful. She paired Rebecca up with two girls in the class as buddies and has already downloaded an app for herself that she is using to learn a bit of Russian and Rebecca can use it in class as a translator. We’re settling in to a routine here at home… Each afternoon, when we get home from school, she has a snack and we work on her homework activities together. (Tim thinks that’s fine. He likes to have some time to himself to stretch out and listen to music after a long day at school and time in his wheelchair.) We also check the school menu and decide if she wants to buy or pack her lunch for the next day, then pick out her clothes so they’re all ready to go in the morning. So far, so good. It’s only been two days, but I’m trying to start good habits instead of changing bad ones later. :0)

Weather note – it’s been at or below freezing almost every night since we came home from Ukraine. This does NOT happen in Orlando. This has never happened in the over 30 years I have lived in Orlando. If it came on the plane with us, I am truly sorry. If anyone would like to take it back, feel free, I can give you the name of a great translator. I, however, am planning to do my very best to avoid airplanes for a while – especially to places that might have snow. Rebecca is actually enjoying the weather. She thinks this is warm and asks every other day if she can go swimming. Just wait until Saturday when it’s supposed to be in the 70’s… she may not believe our answers of “it’s too cold.”

Tim and Carey are still enjoying their new playmate and Dan and I are adjusting as well. We’re taking a bit of time off from our official Saturday date nights for more family time, but celebrated the first day of school together yesterday with lunch at our favorite restaurant. I’m pleased to say that they haven’t closed in our six week absence and the food was still excellent.

We hope you are enjoying the new year and I have started posting some of our pictures from the trip on Facebook. If we’re not already connected on Facebook, please feel free to friend me. I’ll also try to send a link to everyone when I finish the upload process… I’ve gotten to Christmas Eve.

Thanks so much for all your prayers and support!

Finally Home

First things first – we are home! Our final flight landed just after 9PM last night and we finally got home just after 10:00. (That was equivalent to 5AM today “body time.”) We know our luggage made it to Chicago, but did not make it on our flight home. I’m not at all concerned… I haven’t seen it since Tuesday, anyway. Why start now? Rebecca and Dan both slept all the way to Orlando from Chicago and probably would have stayed that way had our landing not woken them up. She was excited to finally see “Rebecca’s big bed” and once tucked in went right to sleep. Dan and I, after being tackled a few times by Carey, our son’s dog, were able to go in and say hello to Timothy. He was already in bed, but trying to stay awake holding out for us. After his big smiles and good night kisses, we headed to our room. Before turning in for the night, we both showered (HELLO big shower with consistent hot water!) and brushed our teeth with our Sonicare toothbrush. (I know those probably sound like trivial details, but you’ll appreciate them more after hearing the story of our flights.)

I will not go into all the details of our flights home, but did journal our trip for myself in a notebook (just starting at the airport Tuesday morning through taking off from Chicago last night I was on page 15.) Trust me, you don’t want to relive this part of the journey with us. Okay, here we go…

 Tuesday - The longest day ever… our longest day began with Victor and the taxi driver arriving at our apartment at 4AM Tuesday. (That was 9PM EST Monday night if you want to keep track of how long it took us to get home.) It was snowing pretty heartily in Kiev, but didn’t sound like the airport would be affected. We arrived at the airport at 5AM for our 7AM flight and found an already huge crowd of people. Kiev is different from every other airport in the world. You cannot check in (like you would at the first counter in other airports) until the departure board lists a check in gate for your flight. That means that EVERYONE in the airport was waiting in an area the size of one of Orlando’s baggage claim areas. Same size, NOT same amenities. There are NO chairs. Around 8AM, we were told our flight would be delayed until 2:10PM and our check in time would be noon. Okay, that’s not so bad. We only have four hours to wait until check in time. It didn’t really seem to make sense to try to leave the airport and come back, so we went upstairs to the only restaurant to find breakfast. Good in theory, bad in practice. One restaurant, thousands of people waiting and the restaurant is the ONLY place in the airport you can smoke. A nice man from Russia who also spoke a bit of English and a bit of Spanish offered to share his table with us. Knowing there was nowhere else to sit in the airport, we stretched that meal out for hours ordering one thing at a time and eventually leaving around noon. (There were many people who’d been there longer than us who were still sitting (or sleeping) at their tables when we left. The airport did truly open at 2:00 and for the rest of the day, we watched our scheduled departure time be pushed back in two hour increments. The last posted time we saw for it was 8:20 PM and at 6:15PM we got the long-awaited “check in at counter 7” message. What’d we do for the 6+ hours in between? Sorry, this is the short version… mostly sat on the floor in a hallway or on a cold marble staircase. Dan waited in a line, I mean an unruly mob, at the ticket counter a few times for 90 minutes at a time, but was never able to make any progress. I’m going to spare you the dysfunctional check-in process sections. (I’ll tell you later if you really want to know.) We finally boarded the plane around 9:30. BTW, no jetway for that. You go down a flight of stairs and take a standing room only bus to the plane’s location on the tarmac. The bus almost got stuck in snow a few times on the way there and it was SO icy from the bus to the stairs of the plane with frigid wind gusts that Dan fell twice. (He says he’s okay… ugly bruise on his knee.) We were so excited to sit down on that plane. It was clean, had seats for each of us, friendly staff… my list could go on for pages. The pilot was quite informative and told us about delay after delay and how he would solve each issue. They even fed us a hot meal while we waited it was taking so long! The final problem that would prevent our departure was when a landing aircraft slid off the end of the runway and the airport declared all runways closed till 7AM. So, at 1AM our friendly pilot announced we would have to get off the plane and go back inside the airport. Getting out of the airport was almost worse than getting in. Same icy stairs off plane, same bus back to terminal and an almost riotous mob trying to get out of the airport. (Passport officials had to undo all the departure stamps.)

Wednesday – early morning: Our saving grace that night and into the wee hours of the morning, truly an angel sent by God, was a woman named Natalia. She let us use her phone to call our translator and even before he called back to tell us he wasn’t able to find a hotel room, she had gotten us a choice of two rooms in the hotel 500m from the airport that was telling everyone else it was fully booked. She also spoke Russian as well as English and explained everything to Rebecca for us. So, after a full 24 hours awake, we landed in our beds at the Borispol airport hotel (think 1970’s Holiday Inn for $150 a night) at 3AM. We were told we’d need to be back at the airport at 7AM the next morning and Dan got up and showered and was ready to go there with Natalia (I would stay at the hotel with sleeping Rebecca). He stopped, though, because Natalia called as he was ready to walk out the door and said, “Go back to bed. The airport is closed till 11AM.” Around 9:30AM I was finally able to get a somewhat competent human on the phone at Lufthansa’s Kiev office. (Don’t get us started… Lufthansa as a whole is great. The way they and their staff function in Kiev is… let’s just say not.) She told us we were scheduled for the same flight as the day before. It was a 2:10 flight, but would not take off until 6:00PM. We would then have to spend Wednesday night in Frankfurt and Thursday morning fly to Chicago and subsequently Orlando landing around 5PM. If we had had to spend another day in the airport, we might have… I don’t even have the words to express it. Because the hotel is so close to the airport, it shows the departure board on your in room TV. We were able to sit in our hotel room Wednesday and watch our scheduled departure time change all day, just like it had the day before, until 4:25PM when it changed to announce a check in counter. We grabbed our things (really not much because they kept our checked bags and we were trying to fly light… that means same clothes – day 2) and rushed out the front of the hotel. We hurried back down the icy sidewalk to the airport and got in line to start all over again. Natalia was not there Wednesday night, she’d managed to get on the earlier flight, but God sent us a new friend. Kat (really Kateryna) was born in Ukraine and is now a medical student in Texas. She was also fabulous with Rebecca and I enjoyed chatting with her. You have no idea what it is like to have no one to have a real conversation with for almost a month. I’m an ISTJ, but it was hard for even me! Imagine Dan’s plight… Okay, back to the story, Kat was seated across the aisle from us and this plane did actually finally take off around 8:30PM and we made it safely to Frankfurt. No more flights out of there for the night, but we were given a great ticket agent. He not only offered to put us up in a hotel, but persuaded the German border police to issue Rebecca a temporary visa (we could have left the airport with our US passports, but because hers was Ukrainian she could not), paid the charges related to her visa, and fixed our airline tickets for Thursday. Yes, fixed our tickets. One of the agents in Kiev had invalidated them! UGH! He even called the luggage department and persuaded THEM to keep our bags overnight so we wouldn’t have to check them again. Remember the terrorist attempt on Christmas? The guy started in Germany, so their security was reported to be quite heightened. We took the shuttle to the hotel and were finally in bed around midnight local time… had to be up and on the 4:45 shuttle in the morning. (Yup, same clothes, day 3.)

Thursday - Other than waiting in line for quite a while at the United ticket counter to check in, our Frankfurt check in went pretty smoothly. The heightened security measures weren’t really an issue for us. Our only glitch was we had seats 23A & 23B and one in row 33. Since it was going to be such a long flight (10hours 45minutes), I tried to negotiate a closer seat at the gate, but was told that “row 33 was the closest seat available to row 23.” Interestingly, Kat was in line behind me and had no seat assigned. In an effort to be closet to us, she asked to be “near row 23” and they gave her seat 23C. The aisle seat directly across from our other 2 seats! Another angel sent to us from God. She traded seats with us. There is no way we could have sat together or convinced anyone else to trade an aisle seat in economy plus for a center, smaller seat in economy. (Sorry, I’m supposed to be writing the short version….) We had an uneventful takeoff and flight for about 2 hours when the pilot said we had a mechanical issue and were going to London. Dan and I looked at each other and almost cried. Thankfully, it WAS fixable, and after about 2½ hours on the ground in a plane with minimal power and no AC, we were taking off again. USA here we come! We finally landed in Chicago just after 3PM (their time)… 14 hours on the same plane. Customs, passport control and immigration were uneventful and Rebecca is now a US citizen, but we couldn’t stop to celebrate because we still needed flights home. (Our connection left over 2 hours ago.) They booked us on a 5:30PM flight out of Chicago, we picked up our checked bags and rechecked them, went through security again (the most stringent since leaving home on 12/6), a nice lady kindly traded seats so we could sit together, and we all made it home safely.

Follow up – while I was writing our luggage was delivered. Rebecca was sitting with Dan and Tim watching Superman on TV. Ahh, the world as it should be. There’s still tons to do, but we are all finally home. Thanks for all the love, support and prayers. I WILL get some pictures posted for you, but it just might take a little while.

Happy New Year!
Kathi, Dan, Timothy, Rebecca,and Carey… the happy, happy dog because we finally came home!

Have visa, will travel!

God is good – ALL THE TIME! God has truly blessed us beyond what we could ask or imagine. Rebecca had her medical exam this morning and everything went just fine. They discovered a vision issue with her right eye that had never been documented before, but it did not stop or delay our travel. We will get in touch with Tim’s pediatric optometrist and/or ophthalmologist when we get home. Our next stop was the US Embassy. We had to leave our backpack outside with Victor, our phones and camera with security and were “wanded,” but they let us in. ;-) The building was nothing at all like we expected. We were expecting some big, fancy, UN looking building and it was more like a series of portables with gargantuan steel doors. There was a short wait, but once we got to a clerk she was very friendly and helpful. She took all our papers and told us we could pay for processing down the hall – come back at 2:00 tomorrow for our interview and hopefully they would print the visa at that time. Going with our theory of “Ye have not because ye ask not,” I asked if we could come back at 2:00 today. She said she’d have to check with a supervisor and document a good reason (5AM flight on Wednesday was sufficient), but she thought so. We waited a few minutes to pay our fee and when we brought back the receipt to the first clerk she told us we were all set for the appointment at 2:00 today and could probably get the visa tomorrow morning. That was at about 11AM, so we headed out. Victor was waiting for us outside (I think you have to be a US citizen to go in) and we headed out to find lunch. It was another day for MickeyD’s. Beautiful quality about McDonald’s here, they have free wi-fi. I’m not sure if the ones at home do… I’ve never looked and rarely go anyway. We still had some extra time before we needed to be back at the Embassy and the snow flurries were starting to fall, so we wandered a mall and then walked back to the Embassy. We arrived there at 1:30. They took our passports around 1:45 and started processing our paperwork just after 2:00. The “big interview” lasted about 2 minutes. The officer asked if Dan and I swore that all the documents we turned in were true and witnessed us signing 5 or 6 forms. Okay, go sit back down we’ll work on printing her visa. While waiting, we met two really nice families from the US. One from Salt Lake City and the other from Minneapolis… we exchanged e-mail addresses and stories while we all waited. A little while later a clerk called us up to the window and asked to see the papers (Rebecca’s new birth certificate and court decree) because there was a problem. Oh no!!! He looked at them and obviously didn’t find what he wanted, so I asked what he needed. It seems the cover page of one of our immigration forms (current name, previous name, address, etc.) had been misplaced. Phew! No big deal – I have an extra blank one and will fill it out again! There was also another short form missing, but both took no more than 5 minutes to redo both for him. A little while later he called us back up to the window and said we were all set. Here’s your official immigration envelope (Don’t open it!!! Give it to customs in the US.), a form to send to Washington, DC once you’re home, and Rebecca’s visa and passport. That’s it! No more forms, no more government offices, no more hurdles! Now, I wonder if we can get home sooner?? When we bought her ticket, our 12/29 flights were sold out and we thought the visa wouldn’t come till Tuesday, which is why we had Wednesday flights. I am pleased to tell you that my wonderful husband found a wonderful Lufthansa employee who found us wonderful flights and we are leaving in the morning! Woohooo!!!! We are coming home!!!! Not only are we leaving a day earlier, but the first flight leaves 1 hour later (almost 7AM) and our total travel time is reduced from 24 hours to 20 hours.

Don’t stop praying just yet… the snow is still falling and they are predicting more overnight. We’ll be leaving our apartment mighty early in the morning, you’ll still be awake from today, so we will try to go to bed early tonight.