Most of my “newborns” have been in the 40 to 90 pound range. It helps one’s mental health to think of it this way, since the newly-adopted international child is often at this diminished emotional or psychological level. If you consider the child simply to be needy, demanding, uncooperative, etc., etc., it will wear you down. You believe she’s acting this way to spite you. Instead, she knows of no other way. She’s a baby.

The older child adoptee, whether 5 or 15, is like a newborn or toddler, at best, needing constant care and supervision. And your life as you know it, will probably end, for at least the first year, because the baby has needs. You will have to juggle feelings of resentment in yourself, as well as jealousy rising up in the family, since the new child will require you 24/7. If there are other children, or a spouse, good luck with that. Pretend like you’re auditioning as a master juggler for the Big Apple Circus.

It can be done, it just takes lots of thought, as well as understanding (or resignation, lol) that the first year will probably be more intense than you ever could have predicted. Imagine everyone in the house suffering with PMS ‘round the clock while reciting the alphabet backwards, chanting alternating math facts from the times tables, while conducting a fire drill, and teaching the children under 7 to drive. That gives you half the picture of the possible pandemonium of the first year with your “newborn”, be they large or small.

I get a lot of e-mails from people in various phases of the adoption process, from contemplation, to finalization, to assimilation. I try to fill them in on the basics—what to expect, how to prepare, what they might encounter. But, the fact is, you never know until you do it, like with anything else.

May you be pleasantly surprised! We were. (Well, in at least one out of four Russian adoptions, but who’s counting, right?)

Before adoption, let’s face it, it’s all shadow and mirrors. The child usually won’t flip out in the orphanage in front of so many onlookers. It’s only when you get him to your hotel, or the airport, or some other place where you’re all on your own that you learn: he’s a runner, she’s a screamer, this one refuses to listen, and that one will not stop crying. The 12-year-old often acts like a 2-year-old (with some 20-year-old ideas thrown in for good measure).

Fun.

It all gets better, it does. Just brace yourself for the initial adjustments. The child will need you. Maybe you discover that you can’t easily run out for a quick Starbucks, or spend one-on-one time with the kids or spouse. The bio daughter was used to being the only girl in the house. Who among us likes to be slowly sidelined, edged out of existence, even if for a good cause?

Everything changes. Nothing is seamless or smooth.

But isn’t that true with any “newborn”? The baby will cry, and poop, and spit-up. We don’t resent them for it. It comes with the territory.

Your older child may challenge your authority, and huff and puff and threaten to blow the house down. She might not understand how to make friends, how to occupy herself (read, “Entertain me!”), and how to make pleasant dinnertime conversation. Horoshoh, okay, with a toddler you’re happy if even part of the food stays on the highchair tray. “Lower the expectations” is the mantra of the day.

The older child faces a world that has literally changed for them overnight. Rumpelstiltskin is not a fairy tale, he has come to life in our sons and daughters, awaking from a long slumber in the orphanage, and stepping into a new life. The culture is different, the language is different, the parental expectations are unknown and inconceivable. The kids have no frame of reference. And, if we’re honest, that can make us angry at times, too.

In a perfect world, we would all be well-rested, and well-read, and well-advised when facing the first-year transitions. How many times does that happen with a newborn? You’re sleep-deprived, and receiving advice from absolute strangers, in addition to well-meaning relatives (we’re giving them the benefit of the doubt here), all trying to second-guess your decisions. On the other hand, after adoption, you’re pretty much on your own, jet-lagged and hyper-vigilant, winging it as best as possible, with a big bruiser of a preteen baby-! The agency disappears into the woodwork until your first post-placement report is due.

The best thing is to talk with other adoptive parents. They know the real score, which is a score you should avoid keeping in terms of winning or losing. It’s a game where each side scores a few points here and there, and where you’d actually be happy for the other side to score occasionally. Keep in mind that the playing field will not be even for years to come, and that’s alright, too.

The newborn needs so much done for her. My youngest, who is almost 10, recently said she would pack her own bag. Sashenka should be an expert at packing, since we do it every week, twice a week. Usually, I lay out the clothes for the kids, according to our planned activities, and then they pack it. But this time, she wanted to gather the clothes from the closet, herself.

Sounded reasonable enough. (That should have been the first red flag.)

I reviewed a list with her. Most of the outfits I got out myself, leaving only a few items for her to collect: one, two, three. It was too much. We arrived in Location B and she put on some sort of get-up the next day.

“Where are your black pants?” I asked. “Didn’t we talk about black pants?”

She had packed some odd color of blue and I’m not even sure where she found them, or what size they were. Maybe they were meant to be capris…? Maybe she was meant to be a clown…. Maybe I was not meant to be a mother…. Maybe this was Early Immigrant Mix-and-Match Chic….

I had to remember: she was a baby, a newborn, incapable of the simplest tasks without constant supervision. Why hadn’t I checked up on her?

Probably because I was exhausted, myself, helloooo!, and hoping for once that she could do something right. Her little foray into independence had wreaked havoc with my schedule, because now we had to scramble to find something else for her to wear in the public eye. (Parents, make a note of this: live your first year or two on a farm, or somewhere else sequestered away-!)

Every once in a while, I forget: these are not homegrown kids with extensive experience under their belts. Their resumes were lacking, while I treated them like corporate recruits, and they were already stretching enough to reach for the role of stockroom clerk.

What was my big hurry? What was so wrong with being a baby, if you’ve never been allowed to enjoy a real childhood? Burdened by adult responsibilities and worries, these kids needed to regress and kick-back. Meanwhile, their Type-A mother struggled with her own thoughts of being laid-back, not in her normal vocabulary. As I mentally calculated that the kids had to complete at least three or four grade levels per year in order to finish high school before they turned 40, I wondered how necessary it was that they do well, RIGHT NOW, in readin’, writin’, and ‘rithmetic. Perhaps we should smile and be satisfied with a goofy grin, a hand slipped into ours, the calling out of “Mama” or “Papa”.

Lowered expectations were so counterintuitive to everything I stood for, fell for, or hoped for. “Let it go….”

Why obsess over where they should be in their schooling, or why they don’t understand the same word we’ve reviewed 100x, or how the grabbing and gobbling of food was so deeply ingrained that it might overshadow every mealtime from here to eternity? We would gently remind, and coddle, and cajole, and accentuate the positive—an easy idea to expound upon in a motivational meeting, harder to hash out in everyday life.

They were babies, pure and simple. For now, we needed to enjoy them, interact with them, and love them. We would spend time playing on the floor, cuddling on the couch, and singing in the car.

(Benedetto’s insertion: “Would you be referring to yourself, or to me?” Alexandra has always been one unafraid of using the royal “we”. Playing on the floor, indeed.)

Eventually, our older child adoptees would grow up. All babies do.

(Even me!–Alexandra’s note to Benedetto)

The Russians were coming and our family grew excited at the prospect. They wanted to interview us and show the world a “happy adoption story”, an elusive idea that was rumored to exist.

We could only imagine the questions.

“Have you killed any of your Russian children?”

“Let me see… 1, 2, 3, 4… nope, all present and accounted for.”

“Are you holding any in a closet, starving them to death?”

“No room—too many other skeletons there.”

“Do you impart Russian culture and customs to them?”

“Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday,” I would declare with uplifted sworn-statement hand, upon which we all might swing into a rousing rendition of “Kalinka”.

You think I’m kidding.

Partly. We actually did sing “Kalinka”.

Interestingly, we got a hip, young journalist whom all the kids really liked. She no doubt gave us a fake name, so we turned the tables and gave our real names for once. I could see her press pass dangling from her neck as she manipulated her microphone this way and that, speaking in rapid Russian, her mp3 recorder taping more than five hours of both amazing insights and inane chatter.

In our family, that amount of talk could be recorded at just one meal-time, and hardly did us justice. She had enough space for 37 hours—what were the other 32 hours going to be used for—the perpetrators of the “parasailing donkey incident” in Russia?

I considered which one might grab more column inches in print, and more air-time when broadcast. Well, if anyone could compete with a flying donkey, it was our laughing hyena of a family.

With professional panache, the kids rose to the occasion and gave enough significant soundbytes to springboard us to a front-page spread. The fact that they were all photogenic didn’t hurt matters, either.

What’s next? Probably a Russian reality show with our kids as comic relief, singing, shmoozing, splashing their way to prime time.

“Ah, the honeymoon phase…” other adoptive parents would smile benignly when they heard we had nary a problem with our first son from Russia. “Just wait.”

This common adoption legend persists to the present day: that children arrive after court, fresh-faced and angelic, and then a week later, or several months later, descend into the depths of whirling-dervish demon possession when the honeymoon phase is over.

Tell that to any adoptive parent whose child is screaming bloody murder in a hotel room all night long the first night, or wailing and kicking before stepping into a car for the first time, or heading out on an airplane, bound for who-knows-where with atomic diaper blow-outs. Those parents are still waiting for the honeymoon phase.

In our case with Petya, brought home at 7.5 years old, the honeymoon never ended. He was delightful and helpful, enthusiastic and energetic from Day 1. Our first morning home, he fed me the blueberries out of his yogurt, “Mama, taste this, it’s amazing!” and picked me wildflowers from our garden. I loved him unreservedly and unconditionally.

Our second son was adopted four years later at 11.75 years old, followed by our daughters arriving a year later at 8.5 and 11 years old. None of them believed in happily-ever-after honeymoons by the looks of things. Or, if this was their idea of a honeymoon, God help their future mates-!

No, they came to us pouty and problematic, and in Pasha’s and Sashenka’s cases, pretty pukey, as well. Anytime we were in a moving conveyence, the projectiles would hurl forth, which for a jet-setting family, was most of the time. There’s nothing like setting off for a new life in a new land while changing your daughter’s soaked and stinky clothes on the side of the highway in a freezing drizzle and then washing her matted hair in the airport sink… sans soap and sans paper towels.

So maybe the “honeymoon” was doomed from the start, lol. I learned to carry plastic bags in my purse at all times. With prayer, they overcame the motion-sickness, slowly but surely, along with the other pukey behaviors.

If it wasn’t coming out one end, then we had problems on the other. Some honeymoon. I broached the subject with Pasha, reported to be a bedwetter.

“Privyet, welcome to the family,” came my rehearsed speech. “Maybe you’ve never heard of it, but some children wet the bed at night. There is special underwear to put on so that the bed stays dry. Would you like some?” I asked as we entered our hotel suite.

“Nyet, spaseebah,” he replied, as though politely refusing another bit of caviar on toast points.

“Umm-hmm…” I didn’t give in so easily, for his sake, as well as mine. For some reason, I had been nominated to share the bed with him. “Maybe we should wear these ‘troosee’ at least for the first night…”

But he was adamant.

Fine. Far be it from me to embarrass the guy and treat him like a baby.

And thus, he awoke with a start in the early-morning hours as his urine saturated both himself and the hotel bedsheets.

Stripping them off immediately, I washed the sheets in the bathtub and miracle of miracles, they dried before any maids arrived.

These were the bumps in the road, the little surprises that surfaced after we were already committed for life. Benedetto and I had walked the aisle and said “I do” for these children before a Russian judge. For us, we had massive amounts of time, and money, and documents invested in these kids, whereas for them, it was a whim, another disconnected, disjointed event in their life that might turn into yet another detour. These were not kids on their “honeymoon”, on their best behavior for a week or so and headed for a specific destination in life. Instead, they continued their chaotic past into their present, letting it all hang out from the very first moment.

“Sashenka! What’s all this trash?!” I gasped in horror as I entered our Russian apartment’s living room. She had gathered water bottles, juice bottles, and assorted debris, playing with them, and then tossing them helter-skelter on the floor, rather than placing them in the trash bin. It looked like an alcoholic’s den.

Bingo.

“Here, let me help you put these in the trash. Do you know where the trash can is?” we walked together to the kitchen.

A few minutes later, we were ready to go out on some official appointment. My eyeballs nearly popped out at the elder sister’s getup.

“Mashenka! Stop rolling down your pants. I don’t care to see your popa…. And what’s on your face? You’re so pretty you don’t need makeup,” I say for the hundredth time in Moscow within days of taking custody. I have adopted a floozy, intent on having her front and back side hanging out of her clothes, as well as wearing heavy, cruddy old makeup no doubt retrieved from some garbage bin.

“No, Mama, they’re not rolled down, I swear it,” she says so innocently with the face of a liar. “Cosmetics? What cosmetics?”

We could only go up from here.

For these last three children, our love grew over time, more of an arranged marriage, getting-to-know-you phase, instead of any happy-go-lucky, swept-away honeymoon. We saw them trying to please, trying to fit in, trying to adapt to a new family… on the even days of odd-numbered months whenever the moon was not waxing nor waning. The good times gave us hope for the grueling times.

I’ve heard that a number of married couples take no honeymoon, preferring to wait until later for any celebratory travel. In our lifestyle, we travel, and we generally celebrate every step forward, great or small. So, I guess, in essence, every day is a honeymoon at our house.

Whether sooner or later, take time for a honeymoon. Enjoy what’s right about life and what’s cause for celebration. Make the honeymoon more than a passing phase, make it a way of life for the whole family. Bon voyage!

Our older daughter, Mashenka, was turning twelve. This would be her very “first” birthday ever and I imagined that she would be on her best behavior in true orphanage wheedling style. How soon I forgot.

While the wheedling and ingratiating behavior happened on a regular basis when more computer or TV time was sought, our newer children had other issues that came to a head when it came to Major Life Events.

They were unworthy.

Try as I might with my daily motivational pep talks and filling them up with the idea that they were Somebody, when push came to shove, they would always revert back to the lowest common denominator: they were Nobody. And so it was that as Mashenka’s birthday loomed on the horizon, just a couple of weeks after mine, she tried to make everyone miserable, starting with deep-sixing my birthday and making a grand crescendo of ugliness building up to her own.

Suddenly, Baba Yaga, the wicked witch of Russian folktales, had come to roost in our abode. I was ready to chase her up the chimney and across the skies in her mortar-and-pestle-mobile. Ugly faces and even uglier attitudes were not coming to roost in our house!

It’s then that it dawned on us (again). You see, some of us adoptive parents are slow learners. We expect these kids to be excited, and happy, and thrilled with the idea of their Big Day coming up. Instead, we get Sullen, Sarcastic, and Stinky.

Why? Because they don’t think they deserve any of it. Self-sabotaging behaviors prevent them from relaxing and releasing the past. Never had a real birthday before—who says I get to deserve one now?

None of our kids was like this on a daily basis, but only when it really “counted”. When I had to give a post-placement report for Russia to the social worker, they would descend into the abyss. Someone wanted to take them out for social events like mini-golf or lunch and they would be fine… until the next day when we would all “pay” for it. Maybe it was too much stimulation or hormones kicking in, but I began reading something else into it.

A pattern was emerging. I remember our first visit out to meet the grandparents. Many plane rides later, up mountains, down mountains, sightseeing in historic environs, dining on the best homecooked Russian and Italian meals, after hugs and kisses and gifts from their elders, we spent our last couple of days decompressing and reflecting on our trip in a mountain-top lodge in a blinding snowstorm, just the six of us.

Once again, extreme ugliness surfaced from Mashenka. She simply could not handle goodness and graciousness surrounding her. Unless she had her high drama in high gear, she felt uneasy and unsettled. In order to feel good, she had to feel bad. I made sure to stay away from the edge of any mountain, lest I help her to an early demise.

At a time when others in the family felt like hiking to an indoor, heated pool, or watching fox and elk trot past our little lodge, or painting pictures by the roaring fire, she demanded our time and attention. Her goal, at times, seemed to be sucking the very life out of us.

Mashenka needed reassurance and reaffirming that she would fit into this family, this Russian-Italian-American family in which she presently felt so foreign, for reasons not at all relating to language nor culture. It was a class war in a way, a clash of sense and sensibility. She believed that she would never measure up… and she had me pretty convinced, as well.

There were times in her school work when similar patterns emerged. Bomb out on a spelling or math test and she would comment, “I didn’t try, anyway.”

Now that was bright. After all, if she “tried”, she would prove herself to be “stupid”….

But there, in the deep snows, surrounded by towering pines, Benedetto walked with the children and explored frozen streams and horse prints, and helped with a snegovik (snowman) or two. He talked with her, not to the exclusion of the others, but reaching out to her as to a lost person who had veered from the path and needed a friendly voice and strong hand to lift her to her feet. She eventually came out of it. Not soon enough for my tastes, but maybe I was on my own Higher Education course of sorts. I was suddenly thankful for our happy-go-lucky first son, Petya, who never had an “adoptive child issue” one minute of his life.

This past week was the same, Mashenka at last deciding to do a 180 and pull herself out of her funk, bringing me kisses a dozen times a day, just as her birthday was fast upon us. How convenient, I inwardly sighed. I was too weary to respond wholeheartedly, but thankfully, she didn’t yet know the difference between Good and Bad Acting. I stirred her cake batter methodically and monotonously, trying not to dwell on the undeserving injustice of making a big fuss for Miss Ugly Face turned Well-Behaved Fairy Princess, but instead, I pondered how this poor child had had to fare for herself and even take care of her younger siblings when she was much too young for any of the above.

I had heard of other adopted children mourning birth parents around the time of their birthday or anniversary of being adopted, but my kids were old enough to know the real score, and held no tremendous illusions there. No, there was a systematic self-esteem slump, the overwhelming sense of unworthiness every time something fun or lighthearted came her way. Beyond the unworthiness factor, there was the realization, also, that other children had enjoyed birthdays, or loving relatives, or special outings all their life. Rather than relax and revel in these new experiences, Mashenka delved deep within to conjure up anger. If she made us mad enough, maybe we would cancel the birthday and she would not need to face such thoughts. All we had planned was a special family meal at home, some of her favorites, a homemade cake, and a handful of presents, which still proved too much.

Well, she was going to have her muted and subdued first birthday if it killed us, and it was going to be pleasant.

All went well, and she was suitably impressed, jumping up and down and clapping her hands like a five-year-old over every simple gift. Her velvet party dress and Venetian necklace made her look the little lady. Benedetto’s gaze met mine across the long, black lacquered table, and we smiled, genuinely happy that she was happy. She was not a monster, but a young girl moving into the teen years, trying her hardest not to be adrift, yet not totally feeling comfortable in a safe harbor. We would help her and be her anchor through the storms, whether real, or of her own making.

That night, Sashenka-the-younger came to me after bedtime, tummy ache raging.

“Too much cake, maybe?” I hugged her, giving her an antacid and tucking her in bed, yet again. In the dim darkness, her little whispered voice began her mantra, speaking on and on about the horrors of her past, her favorite bedtime talk, as I rubbed her arm and smoothed her hair. For her, the terrible talk was as reassuring as rocking. She didn’t know how to talk about the weather, nor the events of the day, no matter how many times we had play-acted Polite Conversation for Polite Society.

Even she knew how to self-sabotage a nice day, following her in sister’s footsteps.

Pain for them always conjured up the Past, as did Pleasure. Either end of the spectrum spelled a safety of sorts for our adopted children—either the familiarity of what had always been, or the sudden and unexpected love lavished upon them made them feel free to chat and unload their heaviest burdens. It was the planned and scheduled and orchestrated love fests, whether birthdays, holidays, special excursions, or family reunions, that pushed them to the breaking point. I therefore tried to limit any information about upcoming events to notifyng them the day before, otherwise the pressure was too much. That way, we would simply suffer after the fact, and not before the event-! A birthday was kind of hard to hide, though, and we had to go through the funk of unworthy feelings ahead of time.

Here I was with Sashenka, whose constant talking about her terrors did not seem to prove very cathartic, at all. The older would act out her anger, and the younger would talk out her fears. We were on a constantly-looping tape that never ended. I tried to be understanding, and direct Sashenka’s thoughts beyond the same rehashing.

“And now you’re home,” I said soothingly, trying to wrap it up. “We don’t have to worry about that, anymore.” In my mind’s eye, I envisioned myself as the director, off-camera, making a “wrap” sign with my hand.

“Da, Mama,” and then she went right back to the loop, holding on for dear life, no time for a commercial break or a word from our sponsors.

The fact that someone else had been Princess for the Day was probably hard to bear. She needed me all to herself for now, in these fleeting moments near the midnight hour where all might disappear as in a cruel dream that was never really real.

The girls’ figurative cries for help were more plaintive and pitiful than my own comfort zone, but I reminded myself that they simply wanted what we all wanted: to know that we measured up in some small way, and that others cared enough to help us cross to the other side of wherever we might be tossed in the winds and waves of life.

I had a no-nonsense type of mother who came from rugged Russian immigrant stock and worked at a university where many youth of the 70s had the luxury of “identity crises”.

“You ever want to know ‘who you are’?” she would tell me, “I’ll show you your birth certificate.”

Case closed, simple as that.

Yet, for my older children adopted from Russia, identity has many facets. The adjusted birth certificates are as plain as the long Russian nose on my face: I was in Krasny Krai twice in 1996, and in Sweaty Starii Krai in 1998 and 2000 pushing out four babies. Their birth certificates tell very little of their actual stories, their real life history that most kids are eventually hungry to hear.

There are many labels we could slap on them to make sense of a chaotic past. Like mounting butterflies, stick them through the middle and pin them to the board for all to see. Apply label, big and bold.

No, thanks. I would rather they spread their wings, show their innate grace and beauty while flying…or at least flapping for all they’re worth.

Every day, I engage in the delicate art of brainwash, a cathartic cleansing, a despicable destiny detoured by design. They were once convinced that they were unwanted, stupid, cast off, forsaken. They felt undeserving of kindness, love, and unconditional acceptance. Mix that up with a false sense of bravado, and daily drama ensues.

I match their post-traumatic hyper-vigiliance tit for tat with heightened vigilance of my own. When they huff and bluff, resorting to put-downs, comedic clowning, or the sure-fire, zombie-like shut-down, I try to curb my own anger or disappointment. Instead, I swoop in to reassure, regroup, and redirect.

“You are somebody. You’re smart. Look at you,” I encourage. “There’s a great future ahead of you. Use every minute. Years were wasted in the orphanage, but that was preparing you to be able to run today. Don’t sit still or fall back. Don’t waste time by getting upset or feeling less-than. Get going. Be your best. You don’t want to act like this. Come on, what should we do? Do you need to apologize? Do you need help with your schoolwork?”

Naturally, it helps to tag-team with Benedetto. If they have been disrespectful or uncooperative with him, I come to clean-up and deal with the situation, and vice-versa. We feel fresh, rather than furious. It allows us to clear the air.

Slowly, slowly, like waves lapping away at an immoveable shoreline, change happens. The children are reshaped and renewed. Their self-images and impressions of the world around them are transformed.

Mashenka seeks me out after a rough day.

“Mama, no one has ever treated me like you and Papa,” she hangs her head, remorseful. “Sometimes I don’t know how to act.”

“I know, Sweetie, I know.” I draw her close to me and hold her tight. The stress seeps away as she sheds her cocoon, her mask, and becomes authentic and adequate in her own right.

No one will be able to pin down these butterflies experiencing their own mighty metamorphosis. Semantics serve little purpose. Call it a Monarch, call it a Viceroy, give them every alphabet-soup diagnosis. The point is, they’re flying and free for the very first time. The struggle that brought them out of their confining cocoons gives strength to their wings to take them higher than once imagined.

My birthday’s coming up and I’m reassessing life. As the years have passed, with the arrival of every child, I’ve put on a bit of weight. Like the stock market, it goes up, it goes down. Lately, I seem to be in a rally that would make even Goldman Sachs proud. But extra weight is a normal occurrence for most women adding to their family.

It’s then that I remember: we adopted.

Somehow, I still feel that the blame is mostly theirs for this pudgy predicament. The children were not babies nor toddlers, constantly on the move, making Big Mama move with them. Instead, they were older children, driving me to distraction.

And distraction is very, very bad when it comes to eating. “Mindless eating”, experts call it, and it’s leading to our nation’s demise. In my circular sense of reasoning, I lost my mind… due to my kids… which resulted in lots of mindless eating… because of them. Got it?

But, isn’t most eating mindless? I mean, I use my mind for many things, and planning every bite of every day is not one of those things. We might be on to something here….

Anyway, it can’t be my fault that I’m expanding with every year, if not every moment. Studies show that weight gain is also usually linked to a high level of disinhibition. What are they inferring, I’m a nudist or something-?! Which would mean then that all nudists are fat… and by natural deduction… I should be thin!

I know I tend to eat on the fly and maybe that’s the problem. Bariatric doctors say it helps to sit down and savor the food—no eating over the stove, or sink, or while running to the next appointment.

Now, what fun is that? Not to mention counterintuitive. Sitting burns less calories than standing or moving. Yet, I imagine sitting there and staring at three carrot sticks would be a meaningful moment. We could call it “focused, functional eating”.

Rather boring.

I need to make time for myself. As they say, “If Mama ain’t happy….” However, with two boys, two girls, two dogs, and two adults under one roof, what time of day or night would that be???

Weight loss counselors note that the majority of overweight individuals would benefit from practicing the HALT principle: recognizing that they’re eating when Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired.

Would scoring three out of four on this test be dangerous? Listen, if we do away with emotional eating, such as during special celebrations and happy events, then we have to be left with times of turmoil and trouble, on the other hand.

Maybe I have an unresolved anger issue. Or a hunger issue if I’m not to eat whenever I’m hungry. What’s left? To eat for amusement?

It could be that I’m tired. Researchers say that skinny women are on their feet an extra 2-1/2 hours per day. I’d like to know if those skinny minnies are wearing heels. If they’re in clunky white tennis shoes, then count me out. Just forget it, I’d rather be a lounging couch lizard in heels.

Plus, sleek sistahs sleep 17 minutes more per day. Did you know that? That puts a new spin on beauty sleep. Does that mean that if I simply slept 17 minutes more per day, I would be thin? Maybe if it’s sleeping through lunch or dinner….

Another possibility is that I fear hunger. Perhaps I’ve internally absorbed my orphan children’s past and am eating to nullify and negate their once-upon-a-time starvation. You never know.

I read an article that suggested, “Act like you’re a size smaller and you’ll be a size smaller.” Well, shazam, why didn’t you say that in the first place?

I’m not sure what they mean by “act”. I can only imagine the mime Marcel Marceau silently reshaping me into a tidy, tiny package of a person. And if it means wearing smaller-sized clothing, BTDT.

They weren’t smaller-sized in the beginning. They were slightly large, actually. But now, by not caving in and buying larger clothing, all it results in is a raw, red line at the waist, and a “muffin top” popping out over the sides of the waistband. Really smart—suffer, rather than suck it up and buy some new duds for a temporary situation that others may not even notice, anyway.

Sigh. My birthday’s coming and I’m conflicted over whether I should be happy, sad, tired, angry, or hungry when that flaming torch of a cake arrives and I’m expected to eat the first bite.

Will one bite do me in?

Probably not. The cake batter and frosting will tip the scales long before that.

Shockwaves rippled across a couple of continents when seven-year-old Artyom was packed up and shipped off to Russia, all by himself. Seems that his American adoptive mother and grandmother deemed him to be a real risk to the safety of their family.

Outrage ensued, as though only materialistic Americans could view children as broken objects, able to be returned, or traded in for a better model. Yet, annually, one in three children adopted by Russians are sent back to their orphanages. That’s around 33% regularly returned, usually around the time that their governmental adoption stipend has been safely invested, with nary a blip in the news. Yet, let one American return one child… and everything breaks loose.

But, Russians are used to a certain roughness when it comes to childrearing. I remember swearing along with my husband in a Russian court of law that under no terms would we ever spank nor employ any kind of corporal punishment with our Russian children. Meanwhile, over 1200 kids wind up dead each and every year in Russian homes, not counting near-death experiences, abuse, or neglect. And where are the incensed and indignant masses?

Many of our friends and acquaintances have asked incredulously how an adoptive parent can send their child back to his native land? They look at our kids: attractive, bright, enthusiastic, loving, well-adjusted, despite horrific backgrounds. We credit our successes great and small to prayer, persistence, patience, the kids’ own resilience and efforts at recreating their future, love, humor, structure, great expectations… and Divine intervention.

So what type of heartless, self-centered and irresponsible adult could treat a helpless child in such a manner?

Probably one who is pushed beyond.

There are few facts being made available regarding this case. The mother and grandmother have disappeared, or gone into hiding/seclusion. Yet, immediately after the incident, the grandmother commented about the boy having a “hit list” of people to kill in the family, along with trying to light papers in his room in order to burn down the house.

Lovely.

Maybe this sounds far-fetched to the average observer, but to adoptive families taking in mentally-challenged or emotionally-troubled children, it’s not outside the pale of reality. Believe it or not, some of the older adoptees having severe problems were brought home as babies. It all has to do with neglect, trauma and abuse. Some children spring back, while many do not.

I personally know of adopted children who have killed the family pets, rushed the parents with dangerous, sharp objects, abused other siblings, and repeatedly tried to burn down the house. They have been detained and released by the police, put in psychiatric facilities, and committed to long-term treatment centers at outrageous costs. The family ends up going bankrupt, or divorcing, or hoping that the child runs away at the very least. In an extreme handful of cases (just 18 over almost two decades) where, say, the child smears feces all over the walls, the parent “snaps” and kills the child. Only one dead child is tragic enough, however, it’s nowhere near 1200+ per year in Russia.

All things considered, “Return to Sender” may be a compassionate and caring response under the most severe of circumstances.

Sounds too crass and commercial, you say? Unfortunately, that’s what adoption has become in many cases. American agencies, anxious to make a “sale” at any cost, frequently collude to withhold vital medical and psychological information on the referred child. Russian orphanages start the deception with doctored or deleted records. No wonder new parents feel duped when the truth comes out several months down the line.

Many have spent the equivalent of a year or two’s salary for a commodity hell-bent on their family’s destruction. Homes are trashed, cars are destroyed, other children are endangered requiring extensive therapy or hospital emergency visits, and on and on it goes. “Happily ever after” never happens. Not one agnecy that we’ve worked with over the years has ever discussed what to do should things go wrong, except to notify them. That’s some faulty follow-up.

Return to Sender. I’m surprised it hasn’t happened earlier, though I do know we were sternly warned in our last Russian adoption court appearance to never even think of returning the children. They made it perfectly clear to us: Russia doesn’t like damaged goods.

It might be time they learned. You break it, it’s yours.

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.

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.

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.