Stop me if you've heard this one: y'know why there are so many songs about UN-requited love? Because, when you DO find that connection, there are better things to do than write a song about it! Am I right? Am I right? Know what I mean? Know what I mean? Say no more, say no more.
Ethan and I came home, and Cathy and I have spent the last few weeks sick. The OTHER souvenir we brought back from our trip. :)
On top of being sick, and trying to navigate our way through the holiday season, we've all been adjusting to our "new normal": having not ONE, but TWO high energy boys.
Justin is pretty intense. He's serious, except when he's not and he's playing or teasing. Over the last year, we've had our good times and bad as the three of us have adjusted to one another.
Now, Ethan is here. Cathy, Justin and I are adjusting to his quirks and eccentricities. I may have mentioned this before, but on the flight home, he spent the trip from Frankfurt back asking if we were in America. I could tell he was excited, anxious and enthusiastic. But it was pretty much EIGHT HOURS of "Are we there yet?" We were crossing over London. America? No, Ethan, not yet. Canada; America? No, Ethan, not yet. Detroit; America? No, Ethan, not yet. We were standing in the security line to get to our gate at O'Hare in Chicago and he asked where Mom and Justin were. I told him we had one more flight to get home to them. I was telling him this in English, even though he speaks and understands Russian/Ukrainian. I was slightly confused by the perplexed look he gave me and my explanation. ;)
Since he's been home, he really only has a few questions. When do we eat? Is it burgers or soup? and Tomorrow school? He's come home pretty much like Justin did, with only the clothes on his back. Justin has pretty much earned a lot of cool stuff. What we're hearing a LOT of is, is Justin saying, "He's taking my stuff without asking!"
We're learning what sibling rivalry is all about. They haven't painted a white line down the middle of their room. Yet.
We got the boys a table top Foosball table. What we've seen is an extreme level of competition. The boys NEED to win an equal number of games. The three of us tend to become VERY excited when we score a goal. Pointing and cheering and chanting, "In your face!" I've been letting the excitement of the game get the better of me. Which is probably why Cathy WON'T play with us. The boys are worse. There's the standard post-game wrestling match to determine who the REAL winner and loser is.
There's a lot of wrestling going on! I can't wait for Ethan to join Justin in Karate and for both boys to start wrestling in school to burn off some of that pent up energy.
...As a junk food junky myself, I am learning a very important lesson from Ethan about eating healthy foods. If Justin has been watching both Cathy and me over the last year and following the example we set, now we have FOUR sets of eyes watching us closely.
It will be good to see Ethan develop as he learns English, but I think we may be at a point where we all take up Russian through Rosetta Stone...
We've had our ups and downs since we've come home as we adjust to one another.
One of the scariest downs we've seen this past week is that Ukraine's eastern neighbor, Mother Russia has started a ban on adoptions with the United States. You've probably seen the story. Here is what is at the heart of the story, according to the CNN story:
"...The move is widely seen as retaliation for a law that U.S. President Barack Obama signed on December 14. That bill, called the Magnitsky Act, imposes U.S. travel and financial restrictions on human rights abusers in Russia.
The Magnitsky Act is named for Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who uncovered the largest tax fraud in the country's history in the form of rebates claimed by government officials who stole money from the state. Magnitsky died in 2009 after a year in a Moscow detention center, apparently beaten to death.
The Russian bill's implementation nullifies a recent agreement between the United States and Russia in which the countries agreed to additional safeguards to protect children and parties involved in inter-country adoptions.
Backers of the Russian bill said American adoptive parents have been abusive, citing 19 deaths of adopted Russian children since the 1990s.
The Russian public has supported the bill, with 56% of respondents in a poll conducted by the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM) saying they backed the ban, RIA Novosti reported.
In 2010, an American woman sparked outrage after she sent her adopted son back to Russia alone on a one-way flight, saying the boy, then 7, had violent episodes that made her family fear for its safety.
Konstantin Dolgov, the Russian Foreign Ministry's special representative for human rights, said Wednesday on Twitter that Russians were "well aware of, and have pointed out more than once, the inadequate protection of adopted Russian children in the U.S." He also said the United States is one of three nations that have not signed the 1989 U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child.
According to the U.N. Children's Fund, the United States is one of two nations -- the other being Somalia -- that has not ratified the convention. But the United States has signed the convention, thereby signaling its intent to ratify.
Anthony Lake, executive director of UNICEF, touted the importance of "inter-country adoption."
See the full story here, http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/28/world/europe/russia-us-adoptions/index.html
Cathy and I hope that this sentiment doesn't spread to Ukraine, where the boys are from. Our hearts ache for families that are caught in the middle of this tragic development. We've been in a number of different adoption programs, we've even faced the possibility of Ukraine stopping international adoption. I can only imagine how hard it is to develop a bond with a little boy or girl and then have that taken away.
I'm taking every opportunity to tell my boys how much I love them and hug them close and tight. I am so grateful to God that he has blessed me with them.
This week marks two years since Justin found us. Life has never been the same since.
2013 is going to be AWESOME!!!
Happy New Year!
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