Magazine Article

Each month a free magazine comes out in the Little Rock area called Little Rock Family Magazine. Twice a year they feature an insert called Little Rock Special Family that focuses on families who have children with special needs. Our adoption story was featured this month! Take a look:

http://www.inarkansas.com/article/family/25419/welcome-home-loraine-family-tells-their-story-of-special-needs-adoption

Oh, and regarding that other child. We prayed....God answered....more to come.

A quick update

Oksana has been back to her old self for a couple of days now. Everyone is settling in well and loving our new house. As for that other child, we are praying. We've contacted the powers that be at Reece's Rainbow to ask some questions. We'll let you know what God says!

What are the Chances?

Less than 24 hours after writing my last blog I get online and find a newly listed child that would be a PERFECT fit for our family in a country with short travel. Still not sure we can do this but praying. Our only saving grace would be that this country isn't as fast as Ukraine so it would be quite awhile before we traveled. Not sure what to do.

Bonding

I posted twice today so make sure you scroll down and see the other post too. Now onto this one….When Oksana first came home we struggled to bond with her. In all of the books you read while preparing to adopt a child they will tell you over and over again that your child might have trouble bonding, but there are few places where you will learn that the parents sometimes have trouble too. Looking back I’m not surprised. Her behaviors were not conducive to making someone fall in love with her, that’s for sure! Over time though we all started to settle in and things got better and better until we could honestly say that we had most definitely bonded with her.

I remember sharing this with someone who said “Bonding is something that is ongoing. It is measured in years not months.” I thought to myself “Well she doesn’t know us. We are definitely bonded.” Because I’m an expert on bonding, right?! HA! This week I have learned something. Bonding is ongoing and it is fragile, it is measured in years and not months. Let me explain. I think that we definitely fell in love and bonded with Oksana. After the horrible first few months we had we were almost euphoric in our feelings for her. She actually became our easiest child. We’ve truly enjoyed her.....and then we moved.

Oh goodness it has been an interesting week. Oksana has been whining, clingy, overly dramatic, and just pushing every button she can find on us in general. Seriously, we understand all of the psychology behind this. I’m sure it is stressful for her to move twice in a year when she had hardly ever even left the same room her whole life. I’m sure she was making sure we weren’t leaving her. I’m sure she realizes that we have been so incredibly busy unpacking and doing all of the other things that need to be done to a new house that we have not hardly had any time to give her the attention she is accustomed to. Knowing all of that doesn’t make the day to day dealing with it any easier.

I feel a rift in what I stupidly thought was a rock solid bond. I am realizing how fragile that bond is and that it will take YEARS to form the bond that I thought we had. It’s making me seriously reconsider some things for our future. First of all, we definitely want to adopt again, there is no question about that, but the when and the how are WAY up in the air right now. Our intention was to bring our kids with us overseas. I see now that change of that sort would not be at all good for Oksana or our relationship with her. Leaving her with someone else will not be an option. Again, the bond thing, the last thing we need to do is leave her to bond with someone else. We were so sure we would be going overseas again, and maybe we will in the future but no way right now. So basically we are waiting to see what God does. If he drops a domestic opportunity, or any other sort of opportunity that doesn’t involve travel, in our laps we will certainly take it. If not we will wait for His green light to go but the light is not green now as we expected it to be. So much for the best laid plans!

Moving and Meeting Day

Well the move is over! We are settled into our new home and I think at this point anything that is still in boxes will just stay that way! There really isn't much though. We absolutely love our house. The only room that was hard to unpack was the kitchen. Our kitchen in Little Rock had MUCH more storage so we had to box up the stuff you only bring out once a year, like a punch bowl, and send it downstairs. Other than that we love it here. Our neighbors seem really nice. We just met one lady a couple of doors down. She is living with her daugher, son in law, and grandkids. I had to laugh because she told us about all of the neighbors based on their issues...."Now the guy in that house, he has MS. And the lady down there is nice but she is going through a bad divorce"! Remind me not to tell her anything about us! I had to laugh though because she said "Oh and you homeschool" before I even had a chance to tell her that which means she already got her information on us from someone! Cracked me up! We tend to like to keep to ourselves so we are trying to be really proactive about getting to know our neighbors here. It makes me terribly uncomfortable even typing that but we truly want to be people who serve our neighbors not who hide from them. Over the next few days I will blog about Oksana's adjustment to the move as well as signing her up for school but for now there are bigger things to share....

One year ago today we met Oksana for the first time! You can read about it here. To celebrate we went to Zachary's Park which is an inclusive park nearby that was built with children with disabilities in mind. It was INCREDIBLE! Here are some pictures:

The Gummy Bear Video

If you follow Erin Johnson's blog you would have already seen this but I had to post it here too because this has quickly become a favorite song in our house. Everyone in our house can be found walking around singing "Ya Mishka Gummy Bear" at any given time. Oksana LOVES it because the bear bounces on a big ball. She screams everytime the video gets to that part. We much prefer the Russian version but the English at least gives you an idea what they are saying:
Russian

English

Honestly, it's so bad that I was singing this song in my head during the sermon in church today. I think I need help and it's all your fault, Erin!

Lasts

With one week left until we move we are doing a lot of "lasts"....

Last day of therapy at Easter Seals:
Oksana with her OT.....

her PT....

and her speech therapist.

Last haircut before we move:
She got bangs! I was so incredibly sick of her hair always being in her face!

I think it looks adorable!

Last outings with friends:
We have a lot of friends who we are trying to see one last time before we move. Today we had our last outing with my friend Hadeel to celebrate her daughter's second birthday. We chose Chick Fil A to have our celebration.
The birthday girl!

Oksana's first time in the play place. She did a great job getting around and only needed a little bit of help.

Hadeel and Lamar...we will miss them!

The best part of Chick Fil A is you always leave with a balloon!


Last illness...yep I have had 2 sick boys this week (hence the lack of pictures of them). Last day of work...Larry has a week off now before we move to work on packing. Last day at church...this Sunday and we will miss it terribly but are also excited to go back to our church in St. Peters.

When we're not busy with "lasts" you will find us doing a lot of this: