A Little Bonding Time...

Dave sez,

Hi! We're Cathy and Dave. Thanks for taking the time to get to know us a little better on our adventure with our first son, Justin, and the journey we will be starting on to bring our second son, Ethan (nee Shani), home over the next few weeks. We're not sure when our invitation to travel to Kiev will come, but we do know that there will always be more to be Thankful for in November and more reason to celebrate the coming of our Savior as we start a new year.

A funny thing happened on the way to school this morning.

Justin doesn't like riding the bus to school. The bus to the newcomers program is a longer ride than the one the other kids have. This year's program is a little farther still than last year's program. Justin, Cathy and I will be so excited when he starts "normal" middle school at his regular school. It'll be closer. He'll have his choice of riding the bus, walking, negotiating for the keys to the car...But for now, I drop him off at school in the morning. Some mornings I have time to drop Cathy off at work.

So, we had a good laugh over what happened when I dropped Justin off at school. I was laughing so hard I was crying.

I have to get on the highway to get across town to drop Justin off. At the light to turn to go down the on ramp, there was a dead skunk in the middle of the road. The other side of the road. Oncoming cars had to go around or straddle it. With the windows rolled up and the air on, we could still smell it.

I thought - here's my opportunity! I can be "Dad" and educate my son. So, I say, "Look, buddy! - There's a dead skunk. Ya smell that? When a skunk feels that a bad animal or a bad person is around, they spray that stink to make them go away." I was pretty proud of myself, I tried to use language he would understand; not make it too complicated, get the basic idea across and inform and educate my son. I thought I was pretty cool.

Here's what I got back

"Augh! That smell! It's EVERY where! I smell it every WHERE! It's on me! Is it on my clothes? It's on my clothes! It's ALL OVER me! Will it EVER go away? When will it go away? If I'm smelling like skunk, then I CAN'T go to karate! How many bath am I gonna have to take to get rid of that smell? Many bath? How many days? Will it be on me forever?"

At this point, Cathy is howling, tears streaming down her face as I am repeating this story to her, in my son's voice. If you've seen Adam Sandler in Click with Kate Beckinsale and David Hasslehoff, you might have an idea why we were laughing so hard. There's a scene, that's pretty raunchy, where Sandler gets mad at his boss, pauses his life and climbs up on his boss' desk. What he does next is pretty crude and raunchy. He presses play on the remote for his life and his boss' reaction is the real punchline.

Justin kept on asking how long he was going to be stuck with the stink until we got off the highway, near where I work, and started heading toward school.

"I'm gonna smell like this forever! How do I get this smell off me?"

Not long, I told him, pretty soon he would forget all about it. Then, I told him that it might be kinda cool to tell the other kids in class that he saw a dead skunk in the road on the way to school.

He could even ask the kids sitting next to him if they smelled skunk on him.

I'm expecting a call from the school any minute...

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Dave sez,

Hi! We're Cathy and Dave - and now Justin - and soon Ethan (nee Shani)! Thanks so much for taking the time to get to know us and become more aware of the "blended family" through adoption. Since we started our journey we've seen that EVERY one is touched in some way through adoption. We hope that our adventure touches you.

A year ago, Cathy and I had finally gotten our invitation to travel to Kiev for an appointment at the SDA. It was there that we would be formally introduced to our son and ask to spend time with him and get to know him better and then select him and bring him home permanently. Except for a number of pictures, that we are still grateful for getting by e-mail from other families adopting at the orphanage, we hadn't seen him since January.

We called him every Sunday morning before church. We struggled with Google Translate. We agonized over every "baka" (goodbye). It felt like we were slitting our wrists every time we severed the phone connection over nineteen hours from our living room to the orphanage hallway where the phone hung on the wall.

There were six weeks that we didn't get to talk to him because he was on a summer trip to The Black Sea in Crimea in the south of Ukraine.

Our flight was on September 11th for a September 12th appointment.

Cathy and I stood up individually and told the judge that we could not live without this boy. He nearly fell off the courtroom bench and exploded on the floor when she and I expressed how much we wanted him.

Yesterday was his FIRST day of Sixth Grade Newcomers. His third first day of school. He is excited about Math, one of his favorite subjects. He's excited about P. E.

As he fell asleep last night, he told me how frustrated he was that he wasn't learning faster. He wanted to pick things up in class (finger snap), just like that.

In the car this morning, after he said, "Let's roll, Kato!", he told me about a dream he had last night after he - finally! - fell asleep.

"I dreamed that when Shani comes home he knew English as good as I know now, yeah, Popi?"

It took me a second to get it. Yeah, I'm pretty slow. I started by telling him that nothing happens instantly, like (finger snap) that.

"But I dreamed that when Shani comes home with you, he'll know English how I know now, yeah, Popi?"

That's awesome, buddy. Both things you said.

I'm glad that he realizes now that four is better than three. He's going to have a lot more fun with a younger brother - who is taller than he is - than just by himself...with his Mom and Popi. Being an older brother comes with built-in responsibilities. But, now he seems up to the job.

Right now, we're trying to plan housing in Kiev. There's an English-speaking church we visited last year, we'll be visiting again this year. We've been in touch with them. One last thing on the to-do list to get ready to go.

We're still waiting for word on an invitation. Then, we roll.

I don't know anyone that has adopted again so soon after adopting a first time. I think our situation is unique. It's a shame that our boys have had to be separated for twelve months...but Cathy and Justin and I have needed time to adjust to one another. It's going to be interesting for Cathy and me to go man-on-man with both boys. I may need to take up karate myself!

It is amazing to see the changes in our world. How different life is now than it was. I know that Cathy and I had time before Justin...I just don't remember a whole lot of what it was like. Not that Cathy's boring, but it was only just the two of us. Now, it's a whole lot more!

Crack Me Up!

Dave sez,

Hi! We're Cathy and Dave. Thanks for taking the time to get to know us better and follow our exciting adventures with Justin as we get ready to Bring Shani Home. We hope that we have made you more aware of adoption. According to what we learned on our trip to Kiev to bring Justin home of the total number of orphans worldwide, the largest number of them - close to 150,000 - are in Ukraine.

Have we told you how funny Justin is? The boy is like an onion, really. Stinky until he takes a shower. Ba-dump-bump!

No, he has a lot of layers. He is bold when it comes to karate, sports and video games; but, he doesn't like to sleep alone in his own room yet. Whenever he gets the opportunity to sleep with Mom he jumps at it. He got up one morning and told me, "Popi! I'm not sleeping with Mommy any more! She SNORES!" And then he threw his head back, snorting loudly, so I would get the idea of just how Mommy was keeping him awake the night before with her snoring. He went on to lament in great detail how Mommy kept him up with her snoring. How he couldn't sleep and how tired he was...

We have a lot of fun on the tram-p'line together. My whole purpose in playing with him on the tram-p'line is to bounce him higher. I usually start bouncing, then jumping, in the center, like the Death Star, with Justin bouncing around me near the edge like an X-wing fighter, or the Millennium Falcon - "That's no moon." He ends up flipping and flopping around like a fish. He jumps right back up, with, "I'm okay!"

We're playing a fun tram-p'line game called, Touch The Bill of Popi's Hat. It's bounce, bounce, reach for Popi's cap bill, bounce, spin-twirl-reach again, bounce reach again. What it actually is, is bounce, bounce, smack Popi in the face, bounce, slap Popi in the face, bounce, flip, somersault, flop into the side netting, slide down, sit up quickly and proclaim - "That was AWESOME!"

He threw a kick at me today while we were tram-p'lining. I grabbed his ankle. He yelped. "Stop!" He cried, "Let go! You'll make me fart!"

Ah, sweet flatulence...

We do have Tram-p'line Confessions.

We talk about his responsibility as older brother to Ethan (nee Shani). We talk about God. Jesus. The Bad Guy. He Who Shall Not Be Named. Angels. Demons. Ghosts. Nightmares. Flatulence. Dreaming about farting.

Sometimes, he manages to show off six back flips and one somersault.