On 21 October -- a week from today -- Vika and Diana will have been living with us for 3 months. What a wild ride it has been so far!
I don't remember the last time I had time and brain enough together to write a note. This business of having children is time-consuming and tiring ... and I think having older children who don't speak English (yet) adds to the fatigue.
At first the children and I spoke only Russian together, and my brain got so tired that I started making stupid mistakes. It is a stage that I have watched exchange students endure, the period in their exchange year when they make mistakes they would never have made before coming here and they know their comprehension has improved dramatically -- and they are confused and discouraged by the mistakes. In their case, increasing competency eventually overwhelms fatigue and their English gets better. My Russian has stayed rather sickly, I'm afraid.
On the good side, going to school has given the kids a very good comprehension of normal exchanges in English. Now they even speak a kind of pigeon-Russian where the occasional English word pops into Russian sentences.
I think both kids like school. School is easier for Diana than for Vika, because she is precisely where she should be both by age and by academic attainment: 1st grade. She is an indefatigable little bouncy trooper, or bumblebee, as we often call her. Cheerful most of the time, bopping around, doing whatever comes to hand.
Vika has a much greater challenge. In 12 days she will celebrate her 11th birthday. She has had one year of formal schooling, so logically should be in 2nd grade, but the gap between 7 - 8 and 10 - 11 is so great that the school chose to place her in 4th grade. She is doing well with her English language learning, and her teachers assure me that kids catch up, but I cannot assure her of that. There are many situations in which my Russian is inadequate, and this is one of them.
Right now, as I type, Chuck and the kids and maybe some dogs are out in the driveway, practicing riding 2-wheeled bikes. I think he is going to have Vika graduate from a very small bike with no pedals to a properly sized (for her) bike with pedals. She has mastered balance and steering, so now she can add pedaling. Diana is relatively fearless in this way, and probably is ready to start pedaling too.
The school system here is incredibly good and the teachers and special instructors are kind, competent and very supportive. Even the two people on the school bus, Bill (the driver) and Judy (the aide) spend a lot of time talking with and teaching Vika and Diana.
Over the weekend, we drove down to Lakewood to visit Chuck's mother and to have her meet the children. They were somewhat uneasy about meeting an amputee -- I decided I'd better explain that to them before they saw her -- but they did very well. We camped in her backyard and the kids did kid-things, playing with the dogs in the yard, drawing and coloring.
They have no concept of distance, really. Any trip that takes longer than 10 minutes might as well be a trip to the moon. "Are we there yet?" is a perennial question in Russian as well as English, it seems. And no answer makes sense to them.
I find that is a general problem for me. They ask me questions that I cannot answer, often for 1 to 3 of the following reasons.
.....1) There is no answer. ("Mama, why is Papa's car blue?" "Because that is the color he chose." "But, Mama, why?")
2) I don't have enough Russian. I have no idea how a Russian would express the idea that putting crayons back in their box will extend the useful life of the crayons. I could dance around it -- maybe -- but I cannot say it straight out, and if I say it, I have no conviction that the message I send will be the message they get.
.....3) They have no context for the answer. "Why do windmills make electricity?" Well, to understand that answer, you need to know all sorts of things that the average American child would have encountered but which these kids have not. They have never had a battery-operated car, they have never seen turbines in action at the Science Museum, they have never seen windings on a motor... and on and on. For them, electricity and magic have a lot in common.
Emotionally they are all over the map. In any one encounter, either of them can be 6 months old emotionally -- or slightly older than their biological ages. When you consider life experiences like playing, travel, imagination, reading, they are much delayed due to their background. They seem, however, to have formed reasonably strong attachments to us and to the dogs. Thank God, Tango is a lover-dog. They drape over him, he drapes over them, they roll and tussle together with only an occasional complaint that he used a bit too much tooth in the interaction. ("Mama, Tango gnawed on me!!!")
We have gone through several rounds of "You're not my Mama; he's not my Papa." Also a round or two of "She's not my sister." and one scene in which Diana said were were all bad, and then proceeded to name each of us in the house. I relaxed when she included the two fish, who clearly are not intrusively evil!
Every change, every new thing (even good things) throws them off balance. Diana, who is usually quite assertive, disappears and becomes quite giggly and limp when she meets new people. A couple of weeks ago, some friends threw us a shower. Hard as it has been to explain to everyone, most of the presents we received are still in our closet because the kids can only absorb a limited amount of new stuff at a time.
There is still a large group of people who have not had even a glimpse of the children. That will continue for a while. I've been thinking about what it will take for meeting people to be tolerable for the kids and us, and have concluded that they probably can bear two meetings with new people each week, but the meeting time must be before dinner. Meeting new people generally gets them pretty wound up (hyper) and we have trouble getting them enough sleep without adding in a delayed bedtime due to over-excitement. So, if you want to stop by to meet them, give me some warning and try to plan to be here for an hour between 4:30 and 6 PM. I'm sorry to be so limiting in this, but our survival at school depends upon it!
There is a place in The Sound of Music where Maria consults the Abbess about making big decision, and the Abbess tells her to find "a dream that will take all the love you can give, every day of your life, for as long as you live." Well, here, in our house, the dream has taken flesh and resides in the growing bond between two very cute little girls, two rather older beginning parents and two lovely Standard Poodles.
We haven't posted many pictures, fatigue and lack of time being what they are, but there are some photos here:
...THE GREAT ROOM PAINTING (Prep for kids): http://yoj.smugmug.com/gallery/4926182_GQPJw#294340039_pp2eR
...KIDS: http://yoj.smugmug.com/gallery/5579344_c7yaK#342142472_gDpV7
...RUSSIA TRIP 2 (one picture of kids): http://yoj.smugmug.com/gallery/5579309_V92oZ#342140053_jY5mH
...STAVROPOL (some photos of kids): http://yoj.smugmug.com/gallery/5604396_KPbPN#342141196_Vg5gP
...NOVGOROD 2008 (exchange students, families, not our kids): http://yoj.smugmug.com/gallery/5604404_DtyjL#342163331_rH56Z
...OKULOVKA 2008 with the Sobolev clan (the last vacation before the storm): http://yoj.smugmug.com/gallery/5607171_BTVK8#344195550_q6Us9
...SUMMER 2008 (Kids): http://yoj.smugmug.com/gallery/5159304_MgknF#372742697_PZaQK
...FALL 2008 (Kids): http://yoj.smugmug.com/gallery/6030956_RDZpT#377507960_3Tn7o
So, greetings from your very tired but happy and satisfied friends who live in the Ark on the Ridge!
I don't remember the last time I had time and brain enough together to write a note. This business of having children is time-consuming and tiring ... and I think having older children who don't speak English (yet) adds to the fatigue.
At first the children and I spoke only Russian together, and my brain got so tired that I started making stupid mistakes. It is a stage that I have watched exchange students endure, the period in their exchange year when they make mistakes they would never have made before coming here and they know their comprehension has improved dramatically -- and they are confused and discouraged by the mistakes. In their case, increasing competency eventually overwhelms fatigue and their English gets better. My Russian has stayed rather sickly, I'm afraid.
On the good side, going to school has given the kids a very good comprehension of normal exchanges in English. Now they even speak a kind of pigeon-Russian where the occasional English word pops into Russian sentences.
I think both kids like school. School is easier for Diana than for Vika, because she is precisely where she should be both by age and by academic attainment: 1st grade. She is an indefatigable little bouncy trooper, or bumblebee, as we often call her. Cheerful most of the time, bopping around, doing whatever comes to hand.
Vika has a much greater challenge. In 12 days she will celebrate her 11th birthday. She has had one year of formal schooling, so logically should be in 2nd grade, but the gap between 7 - 8 and 10 - 11 is so great that the school chose to place her in 4th grade. She is doing well with her English language learning, and her teachers assure me that kids catch up, but I cannot assure her of that. There are many situations in which my Russian is inadequate, and this is one of them.
Right now, as I type, Chuck and the kids and maybe some dogs are out in the driveway, practicing riding 2-wheeled bikes. I think he is going to have Vika graduate from a very small bike with no pedals to a properly sized (for her) bike with pedals. She has mastered balance and steering, so now she can add pedaling. Diana is relatively fearless in this way, and probably is ready to start pedaling too.
The school system here is incredibly good and the teachers and special instructors are kind, competent and very supportive. Even the two people on the school bus, Bill (the driver) and Judy (the aide) spend a lot of time talking with and teaching Vika and Diana.
Over the weekend, we drove down to Lakewood to visit Chuck's mother and to have her meet the children. They were somewhat uneasy about meeting an amputee -- I decided I'd better explain that to them before they saw her -- but they did very well. We camped in her backyard and the kids did kid-things, playing with the dogs in the yard, drawing and coloring.
They have no concept of distance, really. Any trip that takes longer than 10 minutes might as well be a trip to the moon. "Are we there yet?" is a perennial question in Russian as well as English, it seems. And no answer makes sense to them.
I find that is a general problem for me. They ask me questions that I cannot answer, often for 1 to 3 of the following reasons.
.....1) There is no answer. ("Mama, why is Papa's car blue?" "Because that is the color he chose." "But, Mama, why?")
2) I don't have enough Russian. I have no idea how a Russian would express the idea that putting crayons back in their box will extend the useful life of the crayons. I could dance around it -- maybe -- but I cannot say it straight out, and if I say it, I have no conviction that the message I send will be the message they get.
.....3) They have no context for the answer. "Why do windmills make electricity?" Well, to understand that answer, you need to know all sorts of things that the average American child would have encountered but which these kids have not. They have never had a battery-operated car, they have never seen turbines in action at the Science Museum, they have never seen windings on a motor... and on and on. For them, electricity and magic have a lot in common.
Emotionally they are all over the map. In any one encounter, either of them can be 6 months old emotionally -- or slightly older than their biological ages. When you consider life experiences like playing, travel, imagination, reading, they are much delayed due to their background. They seem, however, to have formed reasonably strong attachments to us and to the dogs. Thank God, Tango is a lover-dog. They drape over him, he drapes over them, they roll and tussle together with only an occasional complaint that he used a bit too much tooth in the interaction. ("Mama, Tango gnawed on me!!!")
We have gone through several rounds of "You're not my Mama; he's not my Papa." Also a round or two of "She's not my sister." and one scene in which Diana said were were all bad, and then proceeded to name each of us in the house. I relaxed when she included the two fish, who clearly are not intrusively evil!
Every change, every new thing (even good things) throws them off balance. Diana, who is usually quite assertive, disappears and becomes quite giggly and limp when she meets new people. A couple of weeks ago, some friends threw us a shower. Hard as it has been to explain to everyone, most of the presents we received are still in our closet because the kids can only absorb a limited amount of new stuff at a time.
There is still a large group of people who have not had even a glimpse of the children. That will continue for a while. I've been thinking about what it will take for meeting people to be tolerable for the kids and us, and have concluded that they probably can bear two meetings with new people each week, but the meeting time must be before dinner. Meeting new people generally gets them pretty wound up (hyper) and we have trouble getting them enough sleep without adding in a delayed bedtime due to over-excitement. So, if you want to stop by to meet them, give me some warning and try to plan to be here for an hour between 4:30 and 6 PM. I'm sorry to be so limiting in this, but our survival at school depends upon it!
There is a place in The Sound of Music where Maria consults the Abbess about making big decision, and the Abbess tells her to find "a dream that will take all the love you can give, every day of your life, for as long as you live." Well, here, in our house, the dream has taken flesh and resides in the growing bond between two very cute little girls, two rather older beginning parents and two lovely Standard Poodles.
We haven't posted many pictures, fatigue and lack of time being what they are, but there are some photos here:
...THE GREAT ROOM PAINTING (Prep for kids): http://yoj.smugmug.com/
...KIDS: http://yoj.smugmug.com/
...RUSSIA TRIP 2 (one picture of kids): http://yoj.smugmug.com/
...STAVROPOL (some photos of kids): http://yoj.smugmug.com/
...NOVGOROD 2008 (exchange students, families, not our kids): http://yoj.smugmug.com/
...OKULOVKA 2008 with the Sobolev clan (the last vacation before the storm): http://yoj.smugmug.com/
...SUMMER 2008 (Kids): http://yoj.smugmug.com/
...FALL 2008 (Kids): http://yoj.smugmug.com/
So, greetings from your very tired but happy and satisfied friends who live in the Ark on the Ridge!
