Little Girl Prayers

Is there anything sweeter than little girls saying their nightly prayers?

Oksana has a nightly ritual for her prayers. First, she must be tucked in a certain way. While all snuggled in tightly, with her stuffed cat Emma by her side, and her three other stuffed friends at the foot of her crib, she will smile at me, fold her hand in prayer and begin. If I begin to say them with her, she will stop me and say, "let me do it!" So I stop and let her begin again, usually joining in on the bigger words. She has learned to say most of her prayers by herself. Her favorite part is saying AMEN, to her much delight. When she is finished, she turns to me with a smile, and says "I love you mommy!" The beautiful words of my little Angel.

Old Mommy

On Wednesday we went to the Children's Hospital for an appointment for Oksana. As we were waiting in the playroom, Oksana decided to visit all of the little babies. She went to one mother and asked "how old is the baby? " The lady replied he was one.

Oksana stood there for a minute and then added. "It's my mommy's birthday. She is old. She is a four and a one!"

All of the parents within ear shot began to laugh.

I smiled and said "thanks honey for letting them know!"

Nikolai's Story

Found!

We have located the bio relatives of Nikolai. Again for my child's private information, I will not share the complete story. It has lots of loss and tragedy, and unfortunately his mother was deceased at a young age. The searcher was able to locate the Aunt of Nikolai (I was told it was very emotional for her). He has a bio grandmother, and two brothers who have been adopted in Spain.
The most informative information we learned was his ethnic background. We had wondered this for a long time!
Here is a picture
It is of his Aunt (Left) and her Sister in Law (they are smiling too :)

Here is his Aunt again



Here is the village church



Here is the village




I am so relieved we did the search. It brings closure. Now, I plan on trying to locate the brothers!

Happy Birthday Me!

Today is my birthday. I am not a big fan of turning another year older, but it is life so I will accept my fate!
I got this from my Supervisor today. It made me laugh.

If you know me, than you know I am very short!

Yesterday the kids bought me a card and some chocolates. Then Larry and Oksana baked me a cake! They are my best presents!

An Amazing Story

Today I received this:

I will let the pictures tell the story.

Here is a little girl.

She is Vitaly’s half sister Victoria (with her school teacher)
She definitely has his grin!


Here is Victoria again




She is on the top row and fourth from the left


Here is a house





It is the home of Vitaly’s Great-grandmother Maria and she is in the entrance.

Here is a close-up of Maria



She looks wonderful for 86!
I was told she has the same amber (gold/green) eyes that Vitaly
has. We have never seen anyone else with his eye color!

Here is a church

It is in the village of the Great-grandmother

Here is the village



It is named Pochapintsy



Here is a portrait

It is of his Biological Grandmother and Grandfather (Igor)

We received a whole story to go with the pictures. There are more pictures. There is history and tragedy. There is a half brother too.

There is also a Great-grandmother and half sister ecstatic to learn the fate of the little baby named Vitaly and anxiously awaiting to hear more.

The fox

On Saturday as we sat down to dinner, I looked out back and guess who was in my yard a little fox. I told the kids to be quiet as he crept around the side of the house and went to the front.

Then he jumped on the sidewalk and headed for whever a fox may go..

I love nature and wildlife so any chance to catch a glimpse brightens my day!

Another thing that brightens my day, Oksana playing soccer! The other team did not show but the polar bears (what the three year olds named themselves because they have white shirts) practiced hard anyway.

Yes it was cold and rainy

Holding her own against the boys

That was fun mommy!

Some Mothers Get Babies with Something More

Sometimes people question how I am able to mother children, that are all a little special in their own ways. Some of my children have defined special needs like cleft palate, while others may be physical or mental. It is how I became a mother, and like any mother I didn't choose to adopt the first time, a child who may later have some disabilities. I have accepted the responsibility and like I have told others, if love is all it takes then they would all be healed.

I found this and dedicate it to all of the mother's who have been there done that!

Some Mothers Get Babies With Something More

written by: Lori Bergman Columnist and Speaker

My friend is expecting her first child. People keep asking what shewants. She smiles demurely, shakes her head and gives the answermothers have given throughout the ages of time. She says it doesn'tmatter whether it's a boy or a girl. She just wants it to have ten fingers and ten toes. Of course, that's what she says. That's what mothers have always said.

Mothers lie.

Truth be told, every mother wants a whole lot more. Every mother wants a perfectly healthy baby with a round head, rosebud lips, button nose, beautiful eyes and satin skin. Every mother wants a baby so gorgeous that people will pity the Gerber baby for being flat-out ugly. Every mother wants a baby that will roll over, sit up and take those first steps right on schedule (according to the baby developmentchart on page 57, column two). Every mother wants a baby that can see, hear, run, jump and fire neurons by the billions. She wants a kid that can smack the ball out of the park and do toe points that are the envy of the entire ballet class. Call it greed if you want, but we mothers want what we want.

Some mothers get babies with something more. Some mothers get babies with conditions they can't pronounce, a spine that didn't fuse, a missing chromosome or a palette that didn't close. Most of those mothers can remember the time, the place, the shoes they were wearing and the color of the walls in the small, suffocating room where the doctor uttered the words that took their breath away. It felt like recess in the fourth grade when you didn't see the kick ball coming and it knocked the wind clean out of you. Some mothers leave the hospital with a healthy bundle, then, months, even years later, take him in for a routine visit, or schedule her for a well check, and crash head first into a brick wall as they bear the brunt of devastating news. It can't be possible!That doesn't run in our family. Can this really be happening in our lifetime?

I am a woman who watches the Olympics for the sheer thrill of seeing finely sculpted bodies. It's not a lust thing; it's a wondrous thing. The athletes appear as specimens without flaw - rippling muscles with nary an ounce of flab or fat, virtual powerhouses of strength with lungs and limbs working in perfect harmony. Then the athlete walks over to a tote bag, rustles through the contents and pulls out an inhaler.

As I've told my own kids, be it on the way to physical therapy after a third knee surgery, or on a trip home from an echo cardiogram, there's no such thing as a perfect body. Everybody will bear something at some time or another. Maybe the affliction will be apparent to curious eyes, or maybe it will be unseen, quietly treated with trips to the doctor, medication or surgery.

The health problems our children have experienced have been minimal and manageable, so I watch with keen interest and great admiration the mothers of children with serious disabilities, and wonder how they do it. Frankly, sometimes you mothers scare me. How you lift that child in and out of a wheelchair 20 times a day. How you monitor tests, track medications, regulate diet and serve as the gatekeeper to a hundred specialists yammering in your ear. I wonder how you endure the clichés and the platitudes, well-intentioned souls explaining how God is at work when you've occasionally questioned if God is on strike.

I even wonder how you endure schmaltzy pieces like this one -- saluting you, painting you as hero and saint, when you know you're ordinary. You snap, you bark, you bite. You didn't volunteer for this. You didn't jump up and down in the motherhood line yelling, "Choose me,God! Choose me! I've got what it takes." You're a woman who doesn't have time to step back and put things in perspective, so, please, let me do it for you.

From where I sit, you're way ahead of the pack. You've developed the strength of a draft horse while holding onto the delicacy of a daffodil. You have a heart that melts like chocolate in a glove box in July, carefully counter-balanced against the stubbornness of an Ozark mule. You can be warm and tender one minute, and when circumstances require intense and aggressive the next. You are themother, advocate and protector of a child with a disability. You're a neighbor, a friend, a stranger I pass at the mall. You're the woman I sit next to at church, my cousin and my sister-in-law. You're a woman who wanted ten fingers and ten toes, and got something more. You're a wonder.