What’s in the Attic?
Posted in: Home & Family Life, House Renovation, Russian Adoption | Comments (0)
The first time this house was infested, there was a horrific smell. Awful. As though someone or something had died.
“What IS that?!” I pressed Benedetto.
“Most likely a dead animal outside, nearby….”
“Outside? I don’t think so.”
We were preparing to bring home our first son from Russia. He was already school-aged, although he had never been to school. No doubt his olfactory senses would be keen enough to whiff the Stink of the Century.
To further exacerbate matters, my husband was now on crutches. We had gone out for a celebratory lunch before flying out the week of our court date-to-be in Russia. There was a patch of black ice, he slipped, broke his ankle in three places, and court was delayed by six weeks.
So here we were, holed up in Stinky Hollow, still traveling non-stop, but with great difficulty on his part, and great difficulty on my part when we’d get home.
“Pee-yew!” The smell was getting stronger.
The smell was also getting stronger as my beloved insisted that I was not doing the grocery shopping as well as he could. I would not debate this matter, but neither would I make a federal case out of my buying vanilla yogurt instead of plain yogurt. He came to prefer vanilla…. This was repeated with dozens of issues, dozens of times a day, involving food or non-food items. But with an Italian husband, it usually involved food. On one of my multiple grocery runs, an elderly woman in a powder blue Cadillac backed into my already-backed-up car in the supermarket parking lot. Now our back bumper was crunched, on top of everything else.
It was currently our one-week countdown to depart for our new court date. I had been shuttling Benedetto here, there, and everywhere, waiting on him hand and especially foot. With his right ankle broken, and two crutches necessary, he could not drive, he could not carry a cup of tea, he could not wear anything but zip track pants. Trendsetter that he was, he looked fine in tweed jackets, sweaters, and the track pants, with a special black sock to cover his toes. This would be interesting to see how he would navigate in the snows and ice of Russia, my one-legged man. I wondered if we would find vanilla yogurt there.
But for now, I scheduled faithful friends to be his drivers, and food shoppers, and right-hand assistants. As for me, I was off to Scotland for several days of speaking engagements, overlooking the Firth of Forth and eating roast chicken with the most proper mustard that knocks the wind out of the diner. Strolling the village of Carnoustie, enjoying the rough of the golf course, or the brisk breeze by seaside cottages envigorated me. I needed a break, not that this was any break except from being a 24/7 nursemaid. In another few days we would be in Russia, becoming parents to a 7-1/2-year-old boy. Before acquiring him, we had to divest ourselves of The Big Stink. And it was not going to be the Big Easy.
While I was in Scotland, Benedetto, as only a husband who is pushed by his wife beyond his comfort zone can do, called over his posse: a friend and another guy with some background in animal control. They opened the hatch and up into the attic they crept and crawled. Sure enough, they spotted a possum waddling back and forth, and the “expert” decided it would be best to shoot him with a .44 magnum. We had ended up with the Gomer Pyle of gopher control.
“Hellooooo, guys—you know, that’s my ROOF up there,” Benedetto called upstairs, supervising on crutches from below. “We don’t need any big holes on top. Can you flush him out and shoot him outside?”
“Sorry, sir, I only have a gun permit to shoot inside the house….” came the voice from above.
What???!!!
The expert didn’t want to get anywhere near a wild possum, but finally decided to lasso it. They found the dubious source of his entrance to be a vent where the animal had ripped the cover off. That was easy enough to seal. But now to get Fat Boy outta there….
The expert came at it with his pole-and-a-noose, not to mention his steel-toed boots. The men ran back and forth in the attic, chasing it this way and that, all the while not trying to rile him up. I wondered whether a Possum Whisperer existed and what you could say to such a funny-looking creature. At last they got him. Mr. Possum was sent back to the wild, the hole was patched, and I was regaled by the tall tales half a world away.
So here we were again, six years later, currently with four children, two dogs… and something upstairs scratching with claws along the floor.
“It’s a squirrel,” my husband declared. Had to be benign and cute, no doubt.
“A flying squirrel, probably with access into your home,” wrote one of our faithful blog readers. She relayed how a neighbor discovered flying squirrels by seeing their footprints on top of a china cabinet as she was dusting. Additional excellent reason not to dust.
However, the animal did sound as though he were in the house. Lying in bed, I heard an extraordinary ruckus in a spare closet. I dared not open the door. He was probably trying on different outfits, coordinating heels and bags for each, or rubbing his flea-infested body with my lavender sachets. Going in for my morning shower, the vent above would shake, rattle, and roll as Fat Boy tried to jump in with me. Needless to say, I was not one for group showers. I thought he might see things that would scar him for life.
My own guesstimate was another possum. I heard him on the move, lumbering here and there every morning at 6:30 and every evening at 6:30. At least he kept to a schedule. I had no idea if he was coming or going at these hours, but I often heard him flop down right above our bedroom. It was not a delicate flop, but more like a WHUMP! He had to be about the size of one of our Scotties, maybe 20 pounds or so.
This time, we called a national company. We needed an expert. A day later, he came to inspect the attic.
“How will the man know what kind of animal it is, if he returned to the outdoors?” Petya wondered.
“I’ll let you in on a secret,” I whispered. “The man is a poop expert. He looks at the size and shape of whatever he finds up there. Elementary, my dear Watson.” Petya’s eyes widened to imagine that we were smack dab in the middle of our own mystery, while he was immersed in reading “The Hound of the Baskervilles”.
The expert emerged and climbed back down the ladder from the attic. This was no Gomer or Goober, this was Sheriff Andy Taylor, himself.
“Just tell me: it’s not a squirrel, right?” I looked up from my computer.
“Most likely a raccoon,” he acknowleged. “The droppings were large, with some old possum droppings here and there.”
“That’s why we hired you—to catch him…and to vacuum,” I smiled, having made sure that this was indeed included in the price. “Did you see him?”
“No, and I didn’t want to poke around and get him upset, either. He has a nest toward the front of the home where he sleeps, then his urinal is above your bedroom….”
Well, that did it. I was not going to be nominating Mr. Raccoon for a guest appearance on the Wonder Pets anytime soon. A urinal? He would dare to tinkle above my head each night? I sincerely doubted it, in that location, unless the big guy flopped down right after doing his business. I daydreamed of him snoozing right above us upstairs, feeling close to his human family downstairs.
Mr. Animal Control’s plan was to set a trap outdoors with peanut butter, and if that failed, set one in the attic. It made me nervous for certain geriatric neighborhood cats and dogs that toodled into our territory on a regular basis. Could they climb into the cage and become stuck?
“Possible…” the workman said. “But I’ll be back every couple of days, and the cage simply contains the animal, it doesn’t harm him.”
Oh well, we’d have to live dangerously, then..
A few days later, on an early morning, an adolescent raccoon stared at us from inside the outdoor cage. He washed his paws and face and enjoyed the peanut butter. Without a phone, room service had to wait.
Benedetto and I were both right: he was big, but he was cute. The worker came and got him and we haven’t heard anything since from either the former nor the latter. Of course, the hole is still not patched and Mr. Animal Control hasn’t been back, yet, to vacuum, but we’re hopeful that he will complete the job and the adventure will be over.
At these prices, maybe our expert will vacuum downstairs, put in a urinal upstairs, and make all of us peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
admin @ February 4, 2010
A Mouse in the House
Posted in: House Renovation | Comments (0)
Like Charlie Brown’s football being whisked out from under him at the last possible moment before the punt, there are few things that conjure up thoughts of “What’s the use?” as much as home renovations.
We all know that any good rehab will inevitably be double the time and double the cost, since contractors subsist on overtime and overruns. The classic 1986 film, “The Money Pit”, barely scratched the top of the hardwood floors when it came to extreme problems lurking just below the veneer of any “diamond in the rough” home. But apart from shady contractors on the make, even in the case of handy do-it-yourselfers, some disaster is bound to happen.
When we were once young and optimistic about such “opportunities of a lifetime”, we invested in a large, urban brownstone. In some ways, we should have been smart enough to see the handwriting on the wall: “Enter at Your Own Risk”. It was there, alright, blaring out its message loud and clear as we unscrewed the wood covering over the nonexistant glass insert halfway down the front door. Benedetto and Alexandra, in our Innocents Abroad personas, stepped delicately into the big, old, shack-of-a-mansion, while the realtor looked this way and that on the street and said, “At least there’s plenty of running room”, in the not-so-slim-chance that we were pursued by gangs of thugs.
After a quick walk-through, the two of us determined that the house had good bone structure, along with lots of cosmetic needs. Well, that was an understatement. This was a project that no Maybelline, Cover Girl, nor Sepphora could solve. The brownstone needed more than Bobbi Brown less-is-more. We were talking full face lift, tummy tuck, lipo, and new dentures.
We were cheered by our steal-deal of the century when the banker tried to deny our loan. An investor of sorts himself, he could not believe the lower-than-low price for one good hunk of a house.
“No can do,” he reported over the phone.
“What’s the problem?” my husband asked.
“Not enough entrances.”
We had a feeling that he hoped to scoop up our little jewel for himself.
“Not enough entrances? How can that be?” Benedetto pressed him, not willing to take “no” for an answer. “There are three doors, and all have been there for over 100 years.”
Getting the loan officer’s supervisors involved made the moonlight mystery disappear under the harsh light of day.
The house was ours.
When we moved in, I came to the realization that there was no kitchen. At all. Kinda slipped my mind to check. We would put one in eventually, but in the here and now, Benedetto built a kitchen sink. It was truly a marvel the meals that one could whip up with a sink, a microwave, and a mini-fridge.
I preferred to make the place visually attractive. I was a visionary and saw real potential in this place. Never mind that we lived smack in the middle of a “developing neighborhood”, i.e., GHETTO, presently, bigger issues loomed. There was brown paint slopped on every wooden window frame, pocket door, and hardwood floor throughout. The dark color had to come off, along with repainting the walls that were institutional, seafoam green.
The bathrooms rated as rudimentary at best: a clawfoot tub here and there, sometimes the water worked, sometimes it didn’t. We rigged up a circular shower curtain which, due to its flimsy properties, as soon as it became damp, would wrap around one’s body like shrink wrap. Soap and shampoo only served to make it adhere more enthusiastically, creating a fight to the finish to extricate oneself from the bath.
Naturally, we took possession in the summer and there was only hot water (when there was water, that is), along with no airconditioning. It was a long, hot summer. Benedetto installed a small window unit, which blew the singed circuits every time, as did my hairdryer. We lived a lot by candlelight in those days and I wore a ponytail with pizazz.
Dining was problematic—preparing the meals in the English basement and carrying them up a flight of steps to the pseudo-dining room. We could have eaten, seated before the soapstone fireplace in the front parlor of the basement, but, either some dampness, or the burying of the family jewels, had caused a coffin-sized hump in the middle of that floor. None too anxious to remove any floorboards and peer beneath, we called the hump “Aunt Bertha”, just in case it was an antecedent’s final resting-place.
So there, on paper plates in the main floor dining room, surrounded by our draped and sheeted antiques, we dined. It was then that I heard scratching, only the kind of noises made by urban vermin. They were coming from a tiny, 18-inch-wide closet of yesteryear.
“Ignore it,” suggested my husband, as I moved slowly in the opposite direction.
“Open the door!” I shouted, anxious to catch the cacophonous varmints.
“YOU open the door!” he laughed in disbelief. “Whatever’s in there, will be out HERE, if we open the door.”
Later on, when he decided that our furry friends were no longer home, Benedetto gave a look. Sure enough, a hole in the closet, leading out to the back alley. Grabbing our stash of joint compound, he spackled a generous supply to fill it in. THAT should teach them a lesson!
Until the next week, eating again in our makeshift dining room, when such a ruckus of scratching and wrestling and banging arose until three mice tumbled out from under the gap at the bottom of the door. Somersaulting and scrambling past our chicken dinner, they were as surprised to see us as we were to see them. They tore back into the closet and into their newly-reopened hole. Maybe they were doing renovations, themselves….
“I don’t believe it,” my husband shook his head. “They gnawed on the joint compound and spit it back into a pile on the floor. These are street-smart mice! They won’t even eat it and die.”
“We have to do SOMETHING. I can’t live like this, rehab or no rehab,” I let him know in no uncertain terms.
“Don’t worry—this time we’ll use steel wool inside the joint compound. They’ll break their tiny teeth on that….”
Now, I must say, my husband is an extraordinary person. People from near and far come to him for advice. He was on one of these life-altering telephone conversations late one night in the bedroom, as I was reading nearby. Deciding to go to the bathroom, I put on my stretchy sock-slippers and headed into the darkened hallway.
“Eeeekkkk!” screamed a corndog-sized creature upon which I had just stepped. I felt his tiny bones shifting and squishing as I inadvertently put the fulness of my weight upon his furry body.
“Eeeekkkk!” came my echo shriek as Benedetto hurriedly covered the phone’s mouthpiece and glared at me, before turning back to the conversation.
“Excuse me, and you were saying…?”
Meanwhile, his wife (that would be moi) was back on the bed, fanning herself, and wondering if a heart attack made your heart stop altogether, or made it beat so rapid-fire that it finally exploded. I knew I should have bought that fainting couch at the antique store.
Late that night, we had The Conversation.
“Listen, I always said I’d get you a fur coat. I figure we’re a couple of pelts closer to our goal…” he teased.
I was in no mood.
“DO something,” I told him. “I’m serious. Get a glue trap or something.”
“Glue traps are not humane. The mouse gets stuck and finally starves to death. And I’M not touching the trap if he’s still alive,” he shook his head.
“So what do you propose?”
“A regular mouse trap that snaps and kills the mouse on contact.”
“Great.”
“Hey, if it works….”
We needed to try something. They were not in the closet any longer, but had moved their place of residence to Anywhere and Everywhere. This old house was riddled with holes, like Swiss cheese. I wanted to talk tin ceilings, and new cupboards, and matching mantels, but instead, all we had in this rehab was mice.
And so it was that, a couple of nights in a row, I heard traps snapping. However, they never caught anything.
“He must have been running by and the pitter-patter vibrations set it off…” my mate mused.
Then, one autumn day, early in the morning, I heard a trap crash loudly a floor or two beneath us.
“Snap!” went the mouse trap.
“Eeeeiiyhhh!” screamed the mouse over and over in his high-pitched voice.
“Benedetto…!”
“Don’t listen…” he put the pillow over his head.
“Don’t listen-?!”
The little guy wailed in pain for the next couple of hours until Benedetto went to investigate around 6:00 am.
“Stupid mouse—he got caught on his side in the trap,” he reported.
“And…?”
“Well, he’s dead now, probably from the shock.”
I was the type of person that didn’t even like roughing it in a camping setting, and here I was, living smack in the middle of Rat World. The conditions were Third World, if not Fourth. I was ready to rig up the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria, and get out of town fast, heading for any kind of New World available.
“Never again,” I announced.
He thought I was referring to the mouse traps. But we went on to do several more renovations, each time pushing my sense and sensibilities to the limit, each house fraught with its own challenges. In one of our current homes, modern and beautiful, I was recently awakened in the early morning to hear scratching in the attic….
Something is up there. Where’s my joint compound?
admin @ January 25, 2010
A Child’s Looks: Let’s Be Honest Here
Posted in: Russian Adoption | Comments (0)
Our first son’s referral photo was so cute. He stood tall and straight like a little soldier. Just before we traveled to meet him, more photos came to us. These were disturbing.
The bright smile was still there, but now his back appeared misshapen, and his head spread wide and flat. Could it be the same child? Were these the foibles of Photoshop? Petya was also dressed in an odd New Year’s costume, making him look buffoonish. The photos would not have been out of place if they had hailed from an insane asylum….
“I don’t know—“ I started to waffle. This, from the one who had BEEN SO SURE in the beginning.
Many are the parents suffering nightmares, wondering what their referred child will look like. I recall hearing from one adoptive mom as she waited for her Chinese referral. She thrashed in bed, awaking with a start, drenched and delusional: she and her husband had been referred a 30-year-old Chinese man-! In the nightmare, he quietly got into the taxi and they took him home. They had no other choice.
Russian adoption referral photos might be helpful or harmful. Numeous children have been overlooked or bypassed because the person snapping their photo was less than an Annie Liebowitz. Frequently, even with the best photographer, it was hard to touch-up a chop-job haircut, helter-skelter clothes, and green or purple medicinal blotches on the face. Why they didn’t tell the kids to smile I found out one day at the dyetsky dom.
“Smile!” I encouraged some kids gathered with their teachers, as I took their picture for posterity.
“We don’t smile,” said Galina Andre’evna. “We are Russians. Russians have bad teeth.”
I found out just how bad when my kids came home and our millions were used on their dental decay issues….
“Horoshoh’…” I changed tactics, “Ras, dvah, tree: don’t smile!”
In our daughters’ case, I never saw their official referral photos, which is just as well. Imagine concentration camp inmate meets furious federal prisoner. The shaved heads and foul looks on their faces said it all. They had just been forcibly taken into custody, disoriented and angry, suffering from lice and other maladies. They would have to go to school for the first time in their lives and they were not at all pleased. No one would want these two preteen terrors.
Yet, instead of presenting such a disturbing scenario, the adoption agency showed me an unofficial photo that one of their reps had snapped of semi-smiling girls in bright clothing about a year later when they both had hair again. The older girl actually sported bleached blond locks which I didn’t know for some time to come.
In the case of older children, packaging was everything. This agency worked hard to seal the deal. We were not even looking for girls, but their constant e-mails pushed us in the right direction.
Younger kids were different. A baby is a baby and in high demand. Hard to tell what they would look like when they got older. Agencies often used that to their advantage, some refusing to give out any information whatsoever.
See, agencies want you to travel to Russia. Agencies need you to travel, since this is a lucrative business for their drivers, interpreters and facilitators over there. If nobody travels, there’s no work for them. Agencies will try to make PAPs feel shallow and inferior if the prospective adoptive parents ask for a photo. They will say that you need to travel “blind”—no info, no photo, no idea if you’ve just delivered boy, girl, kitty cat, or chimpanzee.
Nonsense. Why travel halfway around the world to meet a child you would never accept into your family? Cross-eyed, cleft palate, and club foot can all be altered through surgery, but not everyone has the time, private funds, nor health insurance to undertake such interventions. Other unalterable conditions, such as Downs, or FAS, can be seen in certain children’s facial features. Doesn’t a parent deserve to know this before travel? I think so.
Look through the Russian orphan database at www.usynovite.com and observe how many of the kids do not look normal. At all. There are parents making more than one referral trip to Russia these days, because the first child visited had no chance of ever living a productive life. Forget Russia’s oil and diamond reserves, it’s adoptive parents that are keeping things economically afloat over there as four or five trips are no longer unheard-of to complete one adoption. Folks just pray for a healthy referral, even if it’s a baby that’s blue with yellow polka dots. Appearance means nothing to them.
And then there are those who would turn down a referred child based on looks alone.
I don’t know. But if you feel this way, you need to acknowlege those feelings, and wait for a child meeting your criteria. To “force” yourself to accept a little light-skinned child, or a deliciously-dark beauty WHEN THEY REPULSE YOU, is a recipe for disaster, sooner or later. To thine own self be true. You’re the one who’s going to be living with the child.
Why do you want to adopt children? To help a child with no prospects for his future, to have an attractive “accessory” in life, or to mold a mini-me? For some, it’s all about the child, for others, it’s all about the parents and what the child says about them.
Why would a family care so much about a child’s looks? Maybe the parents work in a very public setting and don’t want constant comments about their mismatched children. Maybe the family just wants to relax and not always be the spokespersons for international adoption. Maybe they want the child to feel more attached and not that he’s sticking out like a sore thumb.
There could be a difference between the wishes of those who have bio children of their own prior to adoption, and those who have been waiting a lifetime for children. As the years pass, subconsciously, the bar may be raised… or lowered….
Not to be uncharitable, but I’ve heard it postulated that maybe attractive parents desire attractive children. Maybe less attractive parents claim it doesn’t matter. Having seen a whole lot of photos over the years, I’m not 100% sure this theory works each time, every time. Or maybe nobody’s told you: you’re not as cute as you think you are!
I remember when we were much younger, being in India, or the Philippines, or Hong Kong, or Uganda. Many were the sweet orphan faces. It was not a far stretch to dream of bringing one or two home. Color and race meant nothing, but then I don’t live in a small town nor among rabid rednecks. Our friends are international and rainbow necks, you might say.
Another consideration might be those who may not appreciate their different-appearing children to be the constant source of comments and speculation. This I can understand. Some agencies actually ask for preferences in appearance. Our first agency, which we had to fire before we ever got to Petya, asked for us to list race, hair color, and eye color of a potential child.
So I did.
“Why did you fill out that section of the form?!” they screamed at me over the phone.
“Um, because it was there?”
No one had given us the secret decoder ring to figure out agency double-speak, nor told us that certain sections of the application had no purpose in being there. Ah, well.
Being blond over blue myself, our first son Petya looked nothing like me. This was brought to my attention at, of all places, a felafel stand in Jerusalem. I had just scooped some extra-hot zhoug into my pita—the green kind which is a step beyond the red hot sauce. Not a time to be trifling with me. I was already hot under the collar. A Joe-Cool guy sidled up to the two of us.
“Is he your son?” asked the leather jacket.
“Yes….”
“He doesn’t at all look like you,” he observed.
There are few times in life that I am speechless. The term “chutzpah” sprang to mind. Some other more ugly things were percolating under the surface, as well. Though not flesh of my flesh, I could not be any more connected to this child, this son, this dear one whose personality mirrored mine step for step, and who was now being maligned in front of my face.
“Imagine that: a DNA expert at the local felafel stand…” I murmured in Hebrew, thankful that Petya knew nothing of the language at that time. He was safe in his Russian cocoon as I shepherded him out into the street, pickles dropping in our wake. I felt like telling Joe Cool that he was one big kosher dill himself.
I can remember staring for hours at each of our children’s referral photos. With older children it was not so much that they had been chosen for us by the Ministry of Education, but we had chosen them. Long story. But I had as many trepidations as those who traveled blindly. Numerous were the nights that I talked with the photos, their grainy images mute to my multiplied questions: “Are you my child? Do you want to live with us? Will you like it here?” Years ago, when adoptive parents received brief video clips of their intended children, scores admitted to watching the two-minute footage so much that they wore out the tape.
All of us created cute bedrooms, and bought attractive clothes, all the while insisting that looks didn’t matter….
Funny thing is, if it’s important to you, kids can be improved. (I aim to improve myself every day, as well. Some days, it actually works.) A new haircut, decent clothes, better posture, and a happy smile will lead to a mini-makeover for anyone.
Children can also be presented to look like they “fit”. Petya has more of Benedetto’s coloring, brown over hazel, even if their facial characteristics are not all that matchy-matchy. But put them both in white polo – white polo, or blue shirt, red tie – blue shirt, red tie, and the comments come pouring in, “Well, if he isn’t a chip off the old block!” “No question about whose son he is!” “Like father, like son!”
So is it shallow, is it vain, is it ridiculous to want a child who resembles you? Maybe, maybe not. I believe that most parents care how their children appear. I at least like mine neat, with well-combed hair, brushed teeth, and clean clothes. Do the best with what you have. Is that a crime?
My second son and two girls tend to resemble me. Whenever I’m somewhere with my daughters, chattering away in Russian, we get a kick out of anyone trying to interfere, trying to figure us out, trying to put all of the pieces together. Simple minds, simple fixes….
“Where are you from?” comes the inevitable question.
“Raseeeyah!” they reply.
“Oh, your mother speaks English so well….”
Genius. It runs in the family, even if the looks don’t.
admin @ January 19, 2010
Scotties Who Sabotage
Posted in: Dogs, Home & Family Life | Comments (0)
Have you ever had a dog that takes umbrage at the fact that you have a life of your own? For Misha and Grisha, our Scottish terriers, all must revolve around them… or it must cease to exist. They wish to sabotage my every effort to work, to sleep, to eat, and to exercise. This is their job… and they are very good at it.
For the New Year, I have certain goals and objectives. When I start to work, frequently from my home office, the moans and loud yawns commence.
“Misha, hush up! Can’t you yawn quietly?” I reprimand him when taking an international phone call.
This is followed by Grisha stretching like a yogic pilates professor, another protracted groan emanating with front paws outstretched, concave back, and bottom stretching upward to the sky. You would think that the weight of the world was upon them. Instead, their sole responsibilites are something along the lines of: get up, yawn, groan, stretch; go outside, bark at every rabbit, squirrel, bird and waving branch, do their business; come inside and get a reward, lick their private parts; dance for their breakfast, wolf it down in 30 seconds flat; lay down for a brief nap full of leg jitters, muffled yelps, and eye twitches, until they need to go out again. Repeat the process several times a day.
I sit at my computer and the boys hop up on a chair, facing me eye to pleading eye: they want a massage. Used to the finer things in life, Misha and Grisha feel that we run The Scottie Spa. Tickle their tummy and rub down their back, to the manor born. With their Russian names, soon they’ll be demanding a steam bath in the banya and being beaten with birch branches. At least mud masks are out of the question with their long, black beards, and cucumber slices on the eyes also a no-go, hindering their spying capabilities. The two dogs are now at the expert level of surveillance and sabotage.
When I eat, I must sneak my food. They know the hand that feeds them. The rest of the family can eat normally at the table and we refuse to feed them any scrap at that time. But when I carry my plate to the sink, they follow hot on my tail, nudging my leg repeatedly like sharks. It has happened where they will lay crosswise in the doorway from the dining room to the kitchen, blocking my movements unless they get a handout. It’s the same, first thing in the morning, when I emerge from a shower in the bathroom, and again, they lie in wait for their morning victuals.
This lying in wait has been taken to the extreme recently. There is a couch outside of my bedroom door. It is long and black, just like little Grisha who blends in all too well. While Misha stretches out on the floor, back against the couch, Grisha assumes a Cheshire cat pose, reclining on the couch’s high, narrow back. I pass by him a couple of times before my morning coffee takes effect, not even seeing him, as he observes me with his ever-moving eyes. It’s only when the tail starts its metronome-like rhythm that I glimpse him.
“Grisha!” My pats and kisses only serve to speed up the thumping tempo.
The two of them get plenty of exercise on our daily constitutionals, or when we let them tear out the back door of one house where the backyard is fenced. They dart this way and that, making a full circumnavigation of territories new and old, checking and rechecking for any perceived intruders. But should I pop in an exercise DVD for myself, look out, world! The dogs much prefer that I be a big, old, lazy couch potato like them.
As I step in time to the music, Misha begins to cry and whine. He jumps and prances, but can’t quite get the steps right. He knows that this is a play time, yet is unsure of who does what. At a key moment, he leaps in front of me and I lightly kick him square in the smacker.
“Misha! I’m sorry!” I hold his face, dropping to my knees. If I try to put them outside the room during my exercise, they howl and scratch at the door. The only thing I can do is take to my bathroom and pop the DVD into a computer there.
“Step, two, three, four!” I march and lift and twist on the sly.
The bathroom has become my bunker of choice. Much as in Soviet days when every hotel room light fixture held a listening device, I have swept the master bath and found it to be bug-free. I am safe from the Scotties’ ever-attentive probing gazes, and sabotaging efforts, though I have come to the conclusion that my little guys most likely work for the KGB, now known as the FSB.
My saboteurs willl not find me here. This is the one place where they give me a break… or I give them a bath! They provide me a wide berth in the bathroom, but it’s only a matter of time before they invade this last vestige of tranquility. And so I’ve taken to eating, or exercising, or working there upon occasion. Soon I’ll need to move in a desk. It’s the only place where I can get a minute of peace and quiet, and pursue my own life.
I imagine myself to have outsmarted the little whipper-snappers, but for all I know, they’re out raiding the refrigerator or watching international dog shows on TV, or doing Special Ops training exercises sliding on their bellies under the furniture or parachuting into the family room, rather than sprawled across the doorway, tails wagging, waiting for my exit. They have me just where they want me… especially at night.
Sleeping is almost impossible. For me, not for them. Both dogs insist on sleeping inbetween my legs. Listen, I grew up with a dog who loved to be behind the curve of the legs, but these Scotties could have a career in law enforcement: “Spread ‘em!” Then they circle round and round and plunk down for a long winter’s nap. I never thought I had arthritis or other aches and pains, but currently, every morning, I’m starting to wonder as I must lie immobile for the entire night. Grisha will sometimes move to Benedetto’s head, climbing on top of the pillow, and doubling as a warm winter’s bedcap.
Difficult as it is with these little double-crossers who demand my undivided attention, whenever they reach out to nudge and kiss me, I am theirs. Mission accomplished.
admin @ January 11, 2010
A Stitch in Time
Posted in: Home & Family Life, Russian Adoption, Spirituality | Comments (0)
Cross-stitching has become a craze of sorts among our children. First it was the girls, then the boys. Cross-stitching is a craft woven deep within their Russian souls, helping us to teach life lessons along the way.
Sashenka got her cat kit when she turned nine in October. Then Pasha oohed and aahed over hers until he was granted one on his thirteenth birthday in November. We sit cross-legged on my big bed, the three of us unravelling the embroidery threads and figuring out how many ply are needed for each stitch. Pasha catches on and sails through his frog in no time, while Sashenka is unable to do much at all on her own.
As December approaches, Mashenka wants her own kit for the holidays, a wish that is granted. The genie then concludes that she must have been in an altered state to acquiesce to such a request. The kits cause more and more headaches for yours truly.
“Can’t do it,” concludes 11-1/2 year old Mashenka, insisting that I do her project for her. An unwilling surrogate, I repeatedly review the basics with her. Teach a man to fish….
“If you begin with Cinderella’s hair, you need to count how many stitches are in each row,” I point out. “See, there are five here, and three and a half here….”
She refuses to listen, making x’s one after another. Cinderella eventually has a blond brick on top of her head.
“Etah nee pra’velnah,” (It’s not correct) I try again. “Why is her hair in a square?”
“She is a couch,” Mashenka declares.
“A couch?”
“Koro’vah,” she clarifies in Russian.
“A cow?”
“Her hair is square, like a cow!” she laments, wanting me to make it all better.
I decide that it’s time to stop rescuing her and start enabling her to stitch her own life story.
“Is it Cinderella’s fault? She’s looking to you to make her beautiful. You need to count the stitches.”
At the same time, little Sashenka, the embroidery beggar, shuttles between myself and Pasha, pleading with us to give her a handout of one or two paltry stitches. Petya, our oldest son, whom we believed to be too old and masculine for such pursuits, also asks for an embroidery set of his own. We pick up some post-holiday deals and he follows Pasha as a close second in skill.
Now mind you, the girls were the ones who claimed to be cross-stitch experts. They demonstrate that they know nothing of the most basic stiches: cross-stitch, lazy-daisy, back-stitch, satin-stitch, and French knot. I show them over and over, but they return five minutes later, asking me to complete the row, while they have no interest in lifting a finger.
Pasha, the stitchery savant, has his own stumblingblocks. Finding it difficult to read in English, he looks at the picture and tries to take it from there.
“Let’s separate the threads first. How many ply are in one thread?” I quiz him.
“Six.”
“So if we want to have three threads, we divide it into how many groups?”
“Two,” he sighs, much preferring to fly by the seat of his pants.
I remind him that if he uses up all of his embroidery thread at once, there will be none left to complete the project, since some stiches use 1, 2, or 3-ply. It helps to tell him that he’s been referring to the Spanish section of instructions—Ola! No wonder he’s having problems. At the same time, Petya has so many languages on his instruction sheet, we’re surprised to find Russian, naturally available for the one child who has no problem with English at this point. Preparation, planning ahead, patience: these were the unavoidable life lessons that are woven into our sewing circle.
Remembering my own childhood, I can’t recall any specific projects that I completed. I must have been all of six or seven when I sat with my mom, happily sewing loop after loop of the lazy-daisy petals, finishing off with a few French knots in the middle of the flower. Before we proceeded with any major project, practice was needed, a unique concept in this day and age. If memory serves me correctly (and that’s a big stretch for anyone who has four kids), I believe my mother was working on embroidered pillow-cases. Why she didn’t just go out and buy 100% Egyptian cotton, 200 thread count Frette linens is beyond me. At the same time, she would keep me occupied with iron-on patterns of flowers and other simple outlines. I was totally satisfied for the immediate gratification of a finished petite fleur. I learned to work quietly and methodically, deep snows falling outside and chai simmering inside. Oh, to develop care, and concentration, and creativity in those coming after me.
Yet, even without metaphors or life lessons, the cross-stitches proved challenging enough. Today, I struggled with a nine-year-old who could not master the simple back-stitch.
“Okay,” I counsel her, “look: we come up at one, go in at two, underneath to four, and back to three….”
“Mama, can I do my turdle?” she wheedles, side-stepping any issue of learning, wanting to head straight for the proverbial, imagined greener pastures.
“Until we finish the kitty-cat, there’s really no sense in moving on to the turtle, right? Let’s learn these simple stitches and how to count each square, and then we can go to the next project….” I hold the carrot out, forgetting that carrots hold little appeal in a fast-food society.
These projects were nothing like the red and black cross-stitch of my grandmother’s generation, intricate and elaborate designs found on dresser top scarves and side table doilies. These true works of art could still be found in higher-end, exclusive Russian folk art stores.
As they gained experience, maybe the kids might gravitate toward sewing up a few of the the traditional “rush’niki”. No one with any tangential Slavic ancestry could avoid the long, white linen towels striped with red patterns near the ends and associated with every event from cradling at birth, to weddings, to welcoming guests with bread and salt, to death. As a matter of fact, the more I considered it, my children were perfectly suited for embroidery, which technically means “to embellish”. One could not find better embellishers than these four, whether placing several small junk pins on an elegant suit jacket, or the numerous and dubious details added when story-telling. Gee, I wonder who they got that from….
It was becoming evident that the pink, purple, red, yellow, green, and black threads were a metaphor for life in the adoptive family. We were being woven together with quite a bit of effort, sticking ourselves and drawing figurative blood upon occasion, experiencing no little frustration at times, and often not understanding the big picture. The popular saying, “A stitch in time, saves nine” might have referred to fixing a rip before it became any worse, but it could also refer to much of the everyday-life background that our children lacked. The building blocks of knowledge, and common sense, and civility, were sorely lacking in the beginning. It was like skipping every other stitch where the blah, blank, beige canvas showed through the otherwise beautiful pattern. Many stitches had not yet been sewn on the material of their lives, and other stitches were there that needed to be ripped out. Where the stitches of family life, and education, and compassion had been neglected, we had nine times the work facing us now.
Maybe it was more of a lesson for me, than for them: Follow the Master plan and the picture will become clear.
Happy New Year.
admin @ January 4, 2010
Teaching My Russian Kids… Russian!
Posted in: Home & Family Life, Russian Adoption | Comments (0)
Do you think your Russian kids speak real Russian? Unless they’re teenagers, think again. Our kids were adopted over the years from the ages of 7.5 to 11.75. Except for the oldest, all speak a substandard form of Russian.
Only a fluent, native-born Russian would detect this. Not that I’m in that category, butchering and making up words at will. But I have enough friends and family willing to tell me-! Which is why I, in some ways “least likely to succeed”, will be teaching them Russian.
Don’t get me wrong. We have a bonafide tutor for the oldest boys. She makes them speak, and read, and answer questions about famous Russian plays by Marshak. My concern centers around the basic, everyday, shoot-the-breeze-with-your-friends-in-the-ploschad type of Russian. I am focusing on conversational Russian, polite Russian, and written Russian.
I have my work cut out for me.
“Where is your rucksack?” I ask one day.
“Toot’ah,” replies one.
“What?”
“Tahm’ah,” she thinks she’s answered incorrectly.
“‘Toot’ah’? ‘Tahm’ah?’ No such thing in Russian. It’s either ‘toot’ or ‘tahm’.”
I make my plans to gather the troops and run them through the paces. It’s one thing to have Russian natives comment about the cute American kids who speak such good Russian, it’s another thing to have the cute Russian kids speak awful Russian. We convene at the long, lacquered, kitchen farmhouse table, hanging halogen lights doubling as interrogation spotlights.
“Dokumenti!” I bark out, play-acting a Customs Official at an unnamed Russian airport.
“Mama, you need to say ‘please’”, protests my youngest in Russian, so sweet.
“When I hear it at the airport, I’ll say it,” I play-snarl back.
My eyes narrow as I peer at my older daughter. I find a ruler to smack on my hand’s open palm, pacing back and forth, soldier-style.
“Kak vas zavoot?”
“Uhh… Mashenka?” she starts tentatively, exactly the goldfish in the shark pool that Customs Officials are trained to spot.
“Famil’yah –- eem’yah –- oh’chestvah,” I remind. Last name, first name, patronymic. For this exercise, we have ditched our multi-syllabic Italian last name for “Smirnov”.
“Uh… Smirnov….”
“Ehhhhh!” goes my pretend, game-show buzzer. “Wrong! How do we make a female last name? What do you need to add to Smirnov?”
“Smirnovna…?” she attempts, confused.
These are my Russian children. They have no clue. They have never lived in the real world where they would have the need to address anyone by their last name.
“Ehhhhh!” goes the make-believe buzzer again. “-Ovna is the ending for the patronymic.”
“Ooh-ooh-ooh!” Petya our oldest son raises his hand excitedly.
“Dah, gaspahdyin’?” I give him my wary gaze.
“Smirnov’a!”
“Prah’velnah, ten points for you,” I congratulate.
“Eem’yah,” I turn back to the girls. “I don’t have time for this. Speshee!” The more pressure I put on them, the more giggly and happy to learn they are. They think it’s a game.
“Mashenka!” says one.
“Sashenka!” exclaims the next.
“What, you think I want to be your friend? Is that what your passport reads? You need your legal name!” I protest, still in the Customs Agent role.
This is a good way to get rid of parental frustration and angst, I’m finding. I would recommend commandant role-playing to any parent needing to keep the troops in line.
At several points, I send one or more to “prison” for not giving me their place and date of birth in a rapid-fire manner. The power that I wield….
And thus we start our hour-long lesson, quizzing backwards, forwards.
“Ivan, the son of Ivan,” I toss out to the boys, like a dry piece of bread to a couple of hungry goosie waddling down a muddy village lane.
“Ivan’ Ivan’ich!” shouts Pasha, who still retains the most correct Russian out of the four of them, though he’s been home now a full year and a half.
“Ahtlitch’nah!” Excellent, I applaud him.
“But why not ‘Ivan’ Ivan’ovich?’” questions Petya.
“Good question, you’re both right. One is how you pronounce it, one is how you write it.”
Our writing exercises could be termed an exercise in futility. The kids insist they are brain surgeons and above something so elementary as handwriting or vocabulary practice. But we all know about doctors’ handwriting-! Bring it on.
“Horoshoh’, exa’men!” I announce.
“Nyetttt!!!” they shrink back in horror.
“Dahhhh!!!” my gold teeth gleam in the sunlight.
“Nomer ahdyin: ‘Zdrast’vweetyeh! Davai’tyeh pahznakomeemsyah!’ Nomer dvah….”
“Mama, slow down!”
Afterward, as I check over their eight or so test phrases, some of the kids don’t captalize anything; one writes entire sentences as a whole, bolshoi, run-on mega-word, totally connected at every hook and loop; another substitutes the occasional English letter for the Russian sound. It’s enough to make the most hardened of teacher/tutors give up, but, glutton for punishment that I am, I trudge forward.
We try to finish on a high note for the day, a free word-association exercise involving Russian formal names and nicknames.
“Yevgeny….” “Zhenya!”
“Nikolai….” “Kolya!”
“Maria….” “Masha!”
“Yekaterina….” “Katya!”
“Aleksandr….” “Sasha!”
“Boris….” “Borya!”
“Anna….” “Anya!”
“Dmitri….” “Dima!”
“Anything else? Just Dima? How about ‘Mitya’?”
They shrug, unimpressed. “Dima” does it just fine for them.
I wrap up the lesson, summarizing the high points.
“On a female last name, what letter do we add?” I coach.
“-Ovna!” one shouts.
“No!” I put my head in my hands. “One letter—ahdnah’ book’vah!”
“Aaaa!” shouts another.
“There is no long ‘aaaa’ in Russian…” I moan.
“Ah! Book’vah ‘ah’,” they all scream, our grand prize winners for the day. At last.
Next class, maybe I’ll try to focus on the Russian vocabulary needed to decipher Rohrshach ink blots, or how to conduct a business presentation, argue a legal case in court, or defend a Ph.D. dissertation. Anything’s got to be easier than saying hello and figuring out their name in Russian….
admin @ December 28, 2009
A Virgin Birth and an Adoptive Family
Posted in: Home & Family Life, Russian Adoption, Spirituality | Comments (0)
God can do anything. Of this I am firmly convinced. How He forms families is beyond me, simultaneously both wild and wonderful.
I have family members to whom I do not feel particularly related, and non-blood relatives to whom I would give my last drop of blood. My husband and I share no genetic connection (and that’s more than some of you can say!), other than forefathers who had large noses and foremothers who had moustaches (his side, of course). But we are strongly related, even if not by blood.
For us, Hanukkah and Christmas are totally normal, not a stretch of the imagination by any means. The fact that Hanukkah (the Feast of Dedication), a Jewish holiday, is mentioned only in the New Testament (John 10), and that Christmas celebrates a virgin birth with God coming to dwell among us, does not require me to suspend any rational powers of reason. But then I don’t believe in Santa Claus, so maybe I’m not mainstream these days.
I look at 324 Messianic prophecies written in the Hebrew Bible, hundreds and thousands of years before, telling when, where, and what the Messiah would do. Mathematicians say that if only one person fulfilled 48 prophecies (not 324), the odds of that would be one to 1… followed by 157 zeros! But one person fulfilled all 324 and His name is Jesus.
I’ve heard all of the other arguments: that Israel is the “suffering servant” of Isaiah 53, etc. For many years, it was thought that dishonest Christians, monks hidden away in some monasteries, had pencilled in this chapter that describes Yeshua to a T. But with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls only six decades ago, we see the same prophecies included in manuscripts dating 1,000 years previous to anything in existence up until that time. There goes that theory.
This brings to mind the famous short story penned by Jewish American novelist Philip Roth, “The Conversion of the Jews”. It tells the story of teenager Ozzie Freedman in post World War II America and his theological questions posed to the local rabbi. The rabbi insists that the virgin birth of Jesus is impossible, which leads to a showdown with Ozzie on the synagogue rooftop, refusing to come down until Rabbi Binder answer why, if God is all-powerful, why He could not create a Divine birth if He chose.
Winner of a 1960 National Book Award, the story raises important issues faced by many families such as ours. Not just how Jews can believe in Jesus, but for us, it goes a step farther when you add the mix of adoption.
Our children are ours through adoption, not blood. I have no problem with this. We chose this route. I see it as Divine dealings in the affairs of man, the children being rescued from pain and suffering, none of it their own making. We discussed it one recent day in the car, where all good conversations take place until an ice cream shop looms on the horizon. I had just dropped the boys at one activity, and the girls were headed to their own sporting event.
“It’s only us three girls,” Sashenka giggled in the back seat. “Just like in Russia, da, Mama?”
They couldn’t get over the fact that I could drive, or take care of them, or do any of a variety of things unknown to their previous little patch of Russian countryside.
“Da…. Can you imagine, out of the all of the people in the world (and there are six billion), how we ended up together? God saw you and He saw us, and He put us all together in a family,” I start.
“And Misha and Grisha,” Mashenka adds, reminding me of the dogs…as though I would forget! If ever there was a closer connection, I did not know of any. Slit our paws and mingle our blood, and you could not have a stronger bond.
I continue.
“Did you know that Mama and Papa met in Israel? We were from different places, but we ended up working there together. That’s how God can bring people together from all around the world, people who are just right for each other.”
“Wasn’t Jesus from Israel?” Sashenka wondered, her almost-nine-year-old brow furrowed in thought. The girls were similar to Ozzie Freedman, trying to make sense of it all.
“Yes, He lived in Israel.” I acknowleged, anticipating more questions about Divine plan and intent…..
“So when you were very, very young, did you see Him there?”
Talk about pause for thought-!
“Um, no, honey. He was before my time….” I say slowly.
Or was He?
Jesus the promised Messiah is for all time, and for all people. He is the creator of all individuals, and all families, coming to dwell with us, renew us, and make us whole. He is the therapist par excellence, the redeemer who will save us from our sins, and save us from ourselves.
I have a favorite song, one among many, for this time of year. Performed by the Trans Siberian Orchestra, its lyrics kept me going forward during several years of dark holidays when we felt we would never bring home Petya’s friend Pasha. Ensconsed behind the high walls of a Dickensian institution, Russian officials felt he was unadoptable, an invalid-idiot to be relegated to the margins of mania. We saw none of their diagnoses and kept believing for our own Christmas miracle and homecoming of a child in which others could not believe. For four long years, we fought for the impossible, the Divine “Da” overruling the Russian bureucratic “Nyet”. The past would be forgiven, the future be rewritten.
It is my prayer for you today: believe, and open your life to the realm of all things being possible!
Here are the words to “Anno Domine”:
“On this night of hope and salvation
One child lies embraced in a dream
Where each man regardless of station
On this night can now be redeemed
Where every man regardless of his nation
Ancestral relations
On this night the past can fly away
And that dream we’ve dreamed most
That every child is held close
On this night that dream won’t be betrayed
All as one
Raise your voices!
Raise your voices!
All as one
On this Christmas day!
All rejoice
Raise your voices!
Raise your voices!
All rejoice
Anno Domine!
On this night when no child’s forgotten
No dream sleeps where He cannot see
No man here is misbegotten
And this night’s dreams are still yet to be
Where every man regardless of his nation
Ancestral relations
On this night the past can fly away
And that dream we’ve dreamed most
That every child is held close
On this night that dream won’t be betrayed
All as one
Raise your voices!
Raise your voices!
All as one
On this Christmas day!
All rejoice
Raise your voices!
Raise your voices!
All rejoice
Anno Domine!” Play Song Here: 06-anno-domine
admin @ December 22, 2009
Kids Need Time…and You
Posted in: Home & Family Life | Comments (0)
If your family is anything like ours (and it’s probably not… and you are probably thankful for that…), there is a constant tug-of-war taking place for your time. Especially at the holidays, we have the choice to nurture home life or hoopla.
Nothing wrong with hoopla—whether parties, special events, outings to the theater or shows—maybe I get tired of this because my everyday life consists of a lot of hoopla. While it may be argued that you can be out and about “as a family”, I would argue that for most children, the event overshadows any warm and fuzzy family feeling. At the holidays, I look forward to hanging out with family—watching a DVD at home, baking or cooking together, going for a walk, and yes, even doing crafts.
I am generally not a crafty person. Martha Stewart will not be calling me for a guest appearance any time soon, that’s for sure. But Benedetto has decided that this activity is good for the soul, so our eager beavers have been painting, lacing, gluing, and stringing during the occasional odd minute here and there.
“Product testing,” he says, while they are arm-deep in sequins, “for a major corporation,” he winks while I cheer the troops… and keep walking.
“You mean to say we could be being paid for this?” I toss over my shoulder.
I have found glue in a guest bath sink, which the boys insist is not glue, but hair gel. Entirely possible. There are natural repercussions to all of the fun and games. As long as the dogs don’t choke on any small pieces. I see black paint on gold drapes.
“Um, can someone clean up the black paint on the drapes, please?” I suggest.
“It’s prupp-el, Mama, not black,” says Mashenka, giving herself away as the offender.
“The color is not so much important, as that it be cleaned up….”
Two weeks and counting, it’s still there.
Since bedtime in our house could be likened to rush hour on a commuter train platform, and Benedetto does his own rituals that, in my opinion, take far longer than necessary given the late hour and the scientifically-engineered stalling techniques, I have come up with different ways to spend time together throughout the day without losing my mind in the process. It might be an encouraging word for no specific reason, holding someone’s hand on the plane, combing hair to give it just the right flip, memorizing vocabulary or spelling words and making it into a game. Now we’ve started a new family activity that takes all of ten minutes or so.
At the close of one meal each day, I read a book in Russian to the children. You could do this in English, as well, but not all of our children are fluent enough for that, and they do lots of reading in English during school. As I read, I’ve noticed that just a few pages is all it takes to get them wrapped up in the story line, until we leave them with a cliffhanger for next time. Should I absentmindedly (okay, intentionally) forget on some days that are crammed full of activity, the book is brought and handed to me.
“Pazhal’istah, Mama….”
See, kids want you. I know that they, or you, can convince yourself that they really, really, really need the latest gadget, widget, or doo-dad that is advertised ad infinitum on the squawk box. Living in an upscale environment where kindergartners have i-Pods to entertain them while being driven a few blocks to school by the family chauffeur, second graders can read the stock pages to see how their trust fund is being managed, and fourth grade girls wear full makeup and nail polish to match their i-Phones, I get the feeling that we’re paying off our kids for our own inattention. And that’s a high price to pay.
Never mind that we can afford all of the junk that is requisite and de rigeur these days: pricey dolls, designer clothes, expensive electronics, and nurturing nannies. The kids want us. (Alright, maybe they would prefer the stuff.) Let’s put it this way: the kids need us.
Studies have been done on the rates of promiscuity, and drug use, and gang involvement among regular, middle class kids. The rates do not go down when you add wealth to the mix. But the rates plummet when you have an involved parent or two who make time for the children, whether it’s before school, on the weekend, or at night. A few minutes scattered throughout the day add up.
This holiday season, let’s put “time together” at the top of the list.
admin @ December 14, 2009
Bumps at Border Crossings
Posted in: Russian Adoption, Travel | Comments (0)
It was a normal day at Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport. Up before the crack of dawn, through ticketing, security, and customs, we presented ourselves at Passport Control.
“Dokumenti,” demanded the bored, matronly guard.
We were adopting our first son’s friend. It took us four years of official red tape, adoption agency scams, governmental denials, and regional shutdowns. In a matter of an hour or two, he would at last be exiting off of Russian soil.
Not so fast.
“Adoption decree and court papers,” the border guard insisted, eyeing our family of four, noting that only the two kids had Russian Passports.
This was a new one. Why not just the passport? I slid the packet under the plate glass window, upon which she settled down to a long morning’s read.
Ten minutes passed. Twenty minutes passed. She, no doubt, enjoyed the more sordid parts of such a horrific history, chronicled for the sake of court testimony, not the prurient interests of a bored border guard.
“Eezvehnite, pazhalista—“ I interrupted her concentration. “Yest problema?” Is there a problem?
“Nyet,” she went back to her reading.
I felt my blood boiling as the preteen boys shifted from foot to foot. Her coworker in the next booth asked her why the slow-mo treatment of the tourists. She shrugged her off, as well.
At forty minutes standing before the little glass booth, I’d had enough.
“Excuse me, please, but why are you reading his court papers?”
She looks up, obviously irritated at my interruption. The sleeping bear awakened.
“Ohn russki grahzdanen,” (He is a Russian citizen) she testily explained. “I must make sure that his documents are in order.”
So I figure if we’re ever going to get out of this holding pattern and make it to the Golden Land of Duty Free, I needed to insert my two rubles.
“Da, and here is his Russian Passport… and it’s in order.”
She goes back to reading.
I go back to talking.
“I mean, let’s think this thing through… Doomahyete,” I encourage, feeling as though I’m instructing Dorothy in her ruby slippers to concentrate. “What’s the likelihood of us finding a child on the street with the same last name, having all of the paperwork to obtain a passport, and making him agree to come to America with us???”
“We have to be sure,” she sneers, not amused, not impressed, not in a hurry.
About an hour later, she comes up for air and asks for our first son’s court papers.
“Nyetoo,” (He has none) I affirm. “He’s been our son for over five years. You already have his Russian Passport and here is his other one.” I considered calling for a supervisor, but that struck me as less than a positive Russian chess move. Might cause us more problems to make too much of a stink. If she had missed the “Service With a Smile” seminar, there was not much I could do about it now.
She glances at the dual passports, while meanwhile, I can picture Petya passing out in a cold sweat as he understands every word spoken. Perhaps one day he would come back to study in Russia, but for the present, he wanted to go home. Pasha had never been home, but even he knew that it was better than this. At last, the stern woman, who was probably younger than me, but appearing and acting much older, slowly slides the stack back to us.
“Horoshoh,” (Alright) she waves us through, an indelibly harsh reminder to our sons that you don’t mess with Mother Russia. Escaping her clutches, we make a mad dash for the plane.
Which reminds me of the time I was heading to Israel, a regular shuttle I traveled for some years. A sting operation was underway for diamond dealers.
I boarded the transatlantic flight in New York, and there on the jetway, leading to the plane, were Federal Agents stopping most every Hassidic man, right next to the stacks of Yediot Aharonot and Ma’ariv newspapers. I put mine back in the pile and reached for the Herald Tribune, instead.
“Do you have any diamonds or large sums of money to declare?” the agents inquired.
The men tried to brush by, mumbling something in Yiddish.
“Yiddish?” the agents pursued them. “No problem. Read this,” they said, presenting a printed card with all of the laws stated in their own language.
I strolled past, pockets bulging with rare stones and stacks of foreign currency.
Alright, maybe in my dreams….
But I should have known the bubble security cameras were in full operation. It wasn’t until exiting the country that they nabbed me.
Once again at Passport Control, this time in Tel Aviv, a guard examined my passport front to back, or I should say, back to front, Hebrew style. Flipping it closed, the young twentysomething female soldier met me eye to eye.
“Go to the police, please,” she said, as though this were an everyday exchange.
“Ha’mishtarah?!” (The police?!) “Why? Where? What?” I wanted to know.
“The police. In the corner room.”
And thus I made my way to the Border Police, like one of the old fashioned “Alt!” border gates had just lowered in front of me. Could family dogs visit incarcerated persons? was uppermost in my thoughts.
“Shalom,” I introduced myself to the chainsmoking blond in charge.
“Darkon, b’vahkahshah,” (Passport, please) she smiled.
Hmmm… everyone so interested in the small document stating very little and with a less than ideal photo prominently featured.
“You come and go a lot,” she noted in Hebrew.
“Ken….” (Yes….)
“And do you have an Israeli Passport?”
“No….”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes….”
She checked back in her computer and tried a different tack.
“Think back, maybe a long time ago….. Did you ever declare citizenship here?”
“No….”
“Maybe you forgot…” she tried to help, at which I burst out laughing.
“I think I’d remember something like that…. Is there a problem?”
“No, no problem.”
Gee, I’d heard that before. Maybe this was some joke being played on me by my Israeli lawyer. With my demographic, I couldn’t imagine that they’d want to draft me for the Israeli Army. I mean, they didn’t even offer high-heeled infantry boots, plus, entering the paratroopers would result in too much windblown hair during the jumps. The navy might make me seasick. They would have to make me… a border guard!
No, their interest could not be the draft. The only thing I could think of was tax evasion of some sort. I wondered if they served felafel balls in prison. I could survive.
At last, the policewoman decided to take my sweet face at face value and believe my story that I didn’t play fast and loose with my citizenship, spreading it here, there, and everywhere at will.
“Okay, look, I’ll let you go, and I’ll mark that all is okay,” she reassured me.
I assumed she was entering our Important and Enlightening Conversation into her computer. Again, I was missing out on sampling the fine eau de parfums of Duty Free.
She returned my passport, wishing me a nice trip and I hightailed it to the bank to exchange my remaining shekels.
Taking the currency and my passport, the clerk gave a small gasp and turned to look me up and down.
“What happened?” he inquired. “I’ve never seen such a thing!”
“Mah zeh?” (What is it?) I asked.
“FREE TO DEPART BY ORDER OF THE MINISTRY OF THE INTERIOR,” he read the stamp and handwritten permission penned in Hebrew all around its edges. “Did you do something?” he laughed.
“Not that I know of!”
I took the money and ran for the plane, a recurring theme in my life. The only comfort I received in these inconvenient airport interrogations was that, while being detained, at least I was staying out of any more trouble. I didn’t need additional International Incidents. With all of our international travel, there were bound to be bumps. Yet with a fast-paced lifstyle, the small bumps could develop into major speed bumps, resulting in one big careening crash of a learning curve.
No time for that. We had places to go, things to do, people to see. Best to fly below the radar and leave the big bags of diamonds at home for now.
admin @ December 9, 2009
Placement in School for the Older IA Child
Posted in: Home & Family Life, Russian Adoption | Comments (0)
I admit I needed some outside support. For the most part, it was a totally selfish decision. We were out to prove our children to be brain-dead, pure and simple.
The three in question were the latest arrivals: those who had been here 15 months, five months, and five months. In our mini-Moscow of a home setting, these three were most resistant to learning the English language: why bother?
I’ll tell you why!
Off we go to the Office of Bilingual Education, another world in more ways than one. Located in one of our city’s worst ghettos, broken or boarded windows here and there, it is sufficiently inspiring to impress upon our kids: comply with the homeschool educational process… or end up here.
Perfect. I had hoped for a torture chamber or stretching rack, but with budgetary cuts these days….
Our oldest son went through the same testing a few months after he arrived in the US about five and a half years ago. He knew nothing at the time, having never attended school in Russia. We started with the a, b, c’s and 1, 2, 3’s and came up to grade level within three years. He was now at home studying trigonometry, while the other three follow me into the bowels of the earth.
My goal was for them to undergo testing which would reveal how abysmally academically behind they are. The girls, meanwhile, were out to prove that they are fully functional English speakers after five months under my tutelage, which, sorry to say, could not be farther from the truth. A little reality therapy would go a long way to curing any misconceptions.
We begin with the tester introducing herself to Mashenka and saying, “How are you?” to which her mouth drops open and her eyes glaze over.
Wonderful. Mashenka knew this and suddenly had “lost it”. She lost the ability to say one word, any word, any phrase in English. Right on schedule. Where was my defibrillator? I could scream, “Clear!” and apply them to her brain. Nothing like underwhelming those she needed to impress and heading straight into fight or flight mode. I ponder whether Mashenka, age 11.5, poses a flight risk as she is led away, deer in headlights.
The hours pass. Sashenka, age 9, insists on reading aloud, very loudly, and mutilating every short and long vowel this side of Vladivostok. I sense my face turning bright crimson under such scrutiny as employees walk by and security cameras no doubt record our every move. It doesn’t help that the school must be heated to 95 or 100 degrees, and the kids keep repeating, “ZHAR’kah!” even as I instructed them not to. Sashenka is taken next, with Mashenka never returning….
I ask about the older girl.
“She’s pretty much finished,” notes Rachel, the tester. “It looked like she wanted to take a few extra minutes and since it’s not timed for the English….”
“Feel free to tell her to wrap it up,” I whisper. “This is one of our issues: she thinks she can take as long as she wants for any schoolwork. I’m hoping that she’ll get the idea that school is often timed, particularly with tests. And without some urgency… we could be here all day…!”
She chuckles and nods understandingly., while another tester comes to lead Pasha away to start with the math portion. He smiles angelically, ready to charm anyone within a 2,000-mile radius.
“How old is he?” the Indian man asks, looking over the boy’s shoulder at his math problems.
“He’s 13, but he received a very substandard education in Russia. We had to start afresh one year ago….” I explain a bit.
“Okay, we give him test for 13-14-year-old. He very smart boy. He doing math now.”
Really, I had no idea. If the man looked closer, he would see that the celestial being in front of him was nowhere near his intended grade nor age level. The gentleman heard nothing I said. And I speak English. They could give him a test for a 20-year-old for all I cared, but if he tested at half of that, wouldn’t we all be wasting our time?
Another fellow approaches to discuss the Parent’s Handbook.
“If you need help with school lunches, it is the right of every student to eat lunch,” he informs me, obviously on auto-pilot.
I look around for the hidden camera crew playing a joke on me. Public assistance for free lunches? Okaaaayyy….
The girls come back one by one, Sashenka first, since she did only English testing. Mashenka at last wanders in, dazed from both math and English.
“Mama, how do you spell Papa’s name?” is her first question. I know something is amiss. I have filled out all the paperwork on parents, address, birth language, and more. She must have misunderstood.
“The lady told me to spell his name,” she insists.
“Why would they say that?” I press.
“She said to write Papa’s name-!”
Right. Probably just before the little green men said to follow them into their spaceship….
Four hours after starting, the director comes to speak with me. The other employees are scoring the tests to prove how pathetic my children are. I will do my part to confirm the same.
“Our situation is this,” I level with her, “we are not part of the normal immigrant population,” whatever that may be these days. I’m thinking if I might not be mentally-lapsed at this point, too. “English is just one of our problems. They received practically no schooling in Russia. Sashenka can’t even count from one to twenty… in Russian.”
“I understand, and although we normally place the student according to their age, we could place these children back one grade,” she offers.
I thank her and discuss why we homeschool and why setting them back by one year might still be the equivalent of placing a kindergartner in a Ph.D. program. They would be lost beyond all comprehension.
“I mean, what are our alternatives? If we put them a grade behind, how does that work? They sit in a classroom, drive the teacher nuts by their blank stares, and then an ESL teacher would pull them for an hour or two of English-?” I ask.
“You’ll basically be teaching them every night,” she agrees, noting their education’s major missing pieces, similar to a puzzle of a clown missing nose, big feet, and wild hair, “and you would be helping them to understand the homework. Whatever you do, don’t let anyone suggest that the children be put into Special Education. They’re not stupid, they simply have educational deficits.”
By agreeing to this plan, my role would morph from homeschooling mother by day to homeschooling mother by night. No doubt I would do more than help them with their homework, I would be doing 99% of their homework. Thanks, but no thanks.
The more we chat, the more the kids are ready to pass out. It’s a full 2-3 hours after their normal lunchtime. Sashenka the younger slips lower and lower in her seat, now practically prone. Mashenka the elder approximates a zombie. Pasha starts to twist in his chair, when he’s not whipping his head around every other second to see who’s walking by in the hallway, which is usually a Special Education student, causing them all to think that a similar placement is awaiting them with children who moan, groan, and shriek intermittently. I wonder if they place the Bilingual Office so close to Special Ed for a reason.
At last, we receive the test results. The percentages span from half of their target grade level to a third of their intended grade level. Not bad for starting from scratch just a few months’ previous. Not great when they still have so far to go.
“Who is Benedetto?” one Hispanic tester inquires.
“My husband….”
“Why is his name on this test?” he wonders, and sure enough, it’s Mashenka’s.
“Good question….” I resist telling him about the little green men.
“Give them time,” the director urges. “It may take them three years or so to come up to speed. And if you decide to place them in the school system, if one year behind does not suit them, I would be willing to make an exception and allow them to be placed two grades behind. This is a special case due to their previous circumstances,” she sums up.
I could kiss her. At last, someone who listens and “gets” it. A professional educator who believes that homeschooling the children, at least for the time being, is in their best interests. The testing allows me to see exactly where the gaps and deficits lie and how to craft a program even better suited to their immediate needs.
We check-out with the gun-toting security guard manning the locked front door.
“You’re still here?” she asks in amazement. “I thought you’d be gone hours before. How did it go?” she says in the kids’ direction.
“I guess not too well from that reaction…” she smiles.
They stand there in silence, still shell-shocked from the full battery of tests, of which they knew very little, while blood sugar levels plummet from a lack of food. We need our free lunch now.
“Oh, they’re okay,” I assure her. “They don’t really understand much English right now… but soon they will.”
Soon they will. But until then, our spaceship awaited to transport us safely home.
admin @ December 1, 2009
