First Dance

Dave sez, I guess I didn't have to worry after all. Justin is enjoying Friends. With no side effects. He thinks Ross is pretty whiney and Joey is pretty dumb. I guess, when he gets older, he'll appreciate it differently than he does now... Cathy and I are watching it a little slower than he is. We just finished the episode where Phoebe's brother is in love with his teacher, which is a little on the creepy side. Cathy and I agree that we're not fans of Giovanni Ribisi. We've seen him in James Cameron's Avatar and as Nicholas Cage's younger brother in Gone in 60 Seconds. As much as I liked the old The Mod Squad, I couldn't bring myself to see it because he was in it. We haven't seen him in a role that he had any redeeming or likeable qualities as a character. Hopefully, you won't think less of me for not liking him as Phoebe's brother and not liking his whole storyline. The real-life stories like that don't have punch lines, laugh tracks or happy endings. Not everybody grows up like Rachel, or Monica and Ross. Some people grow up like Chandler and Phoebe. Ribisi's storyline as Frank, Jr. is just bizarre. Even more bizarre is that it's played for laughs.

 
Two months ago, there was a "bend in the road". Bella's First Christmas and First New Year's was quieter and more low key than Ethan's and Justin's were. So was First Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

I had the day off yesterday, and the phone rang. We missed answering it. A couple minutes later, my cell phone rang. It was Bella. From school. At first, I was worried that she had missed the bus. She was excited on the phone. She was asking if she could go to a dance at school last night. Once I figured that out, I handed the phone to Cathy. I grabbed a paper bag to breathe into.

Last night was First Dance.

I think I've done pretty well up until now. Justin has had his "brushes" with girls. He talks to Mom, because Mom "understands girls". That's because she are one. Ethan is all about video games right now.

Bella was very excited about her First School Dance. She doted over her make-up and what she was going to wear. I chewed on my finger nails. The car ride over to school, I told her to have fun...but if anything happened - any thing at all - I told her to be sure to tell an adult. I reminded her that she could call Mom and me at any time, and I would come get her. I even asked her if she knew how to dial 9-1-1.

When I picked her up from school, I asked her if she had fun.

"No!" she told me. I had mixed feelings about hearing that. On the one hand, deep down inside I was cheering, "Yes!" I told her out loud that I was sorry to hear that. I asked her why. She said there was this one boy. Oh, there you go, it usually starts with one boy. He kept looking over at her, but he never came over to talk to her. My princess daughter told me that she thought this boy was too nervous. I told her that boys usually are pretty nervous about making a good impression - or, the right impression. Bella told me that she and her girlfriend spent most of their time at the dance together and all she had to eat there was chips. And she was starving! So, while she and Mom talked about what happened at First Dance, I threw a pizza on the Pizza Pizazz.

I love the personalities I see coming out in my three children. I love their senses of humor. Bella is usually pretty quiet. The boys are usually pretty loud and bombastic. There are moments, though, when Bella's eyes bug out and sparkle and she gets pretty animated and she makes jokes that make Cathy and I both laugh. She's a budding Tina Fey. She's witty and sarcastic and funny. She's funny in a dry, British sort of way.

Someday, Cathy and I are going to "adopt" a young man as her Prince Charming.

I'm probably going to have to invest in a lot of paper bags.           

The One About Being There For You

 

Dave sez,

Here's what I know: in any relationship, you pick the battles you know you can win. You don't start a fight you think you might lose. Compromise is never a sign of weakness if done correctly. And by "correctly", I mean, every one gets something close to what they wanted in the first place. Life is what happens after you make plans.

Cathy and I are navigating the mine field of electronics.

You might remember when we were all kids, we had one form of entertaining ourselves: outside. Then, the first electronic device was invented; it was called the television. I remember growing up as The Human Remote. The only "control" I had was in changing the channel to what other people wanted to watch. I think it was when I finally moved out, and Cathy and I got married that I learned to enjoy the shows she liked to watch. It's really kind of fun to heckle home improvement shows, y'know like Mystery Science Theater 3000, where they sit and heckle old, bad movies? Yeah, like that.

Navigating the mine field of electronics means we are learning about our kids' tastes. Bella like young adult romances like Twilight. She's not a big Harry Potter fan, like the boys are. I took all the Harry Potter films with when Cathy and I went to bring Bella home last Spring. Yeah, they pretty much sat, lonely and unwatched. Bella was gifted with a tablet while in the orphanage. She used the internet connection in the apartment to watch YouTube videos of programs in Ukrainian. She does like Big Time Rush and Drake and Josh, just like the boys, though.

She's pretty easy that way.

The boys are a little bit more of a challenge. Ethan likes WWE and combat. Cathy's not much for blood and guts. I realize that even though we own Saving Private Ryan, I've never actually seen it. We have Black Hawk Down, I've watched it once or twice. I'm shocked - shocked, I tells ya! - that we do not have Patton in our DVD collection. That's like the Blazing Saddles of war  movies. Ethan keeps asking to watch "fight" or "battle" movies, and we keep deflecting, mainly because it easier for all of us to watch a family movie than clear the room so he and I can watch a war movie.

Cathy and I have been watching Friends on Netflix. Maybe you are, too. That's kind of been a big deal that the show is streaming on Netflix now. Not that I'm trying to promote the show or the streaming or the Netflix; but Justin has discovered Friends and is watching it with us. He's even getting better at the clapping. He's clapping at the right time and on beat, but we have to work on the only clapping the once and then moving on.

I'm not sure how I feel about Justin watching Friends. I know that Ethan doesn't understand when I tell him that WWE is not entirely - *ahem* - completely (SPOILER ALERT) real. If Mom were to hit me with a folding chair or a table, or land a pile driver on me, she's probably need a pretty good reason. Oh, and I'd end up in the hospital, eating my food through a straw. I'm not exactly sure I want Justin to learn about relationships through Friends. Especially, since we've reached The One Where Ross and Rachel Take a Break. Not to mention Chandler's on again, off again relationship with Janice, and pretty much all of Joey.

Cathy and I like to watch the show, not so much for Ross and Rachel, or Joey or Phoebe, but for Chandler and Monica. We have a running conversation going, where we point out all the times before London ("London, bay-bee!"), where Chandler and Monica are sitting, if they are sitting next to one another; how they are sitting together; and, how often they confide in each other. Chandler and Monica seemed to be this great big secret that was keep for four seasons, before they started keeping the secret of being together.

Still, that's not something I think I want him to experience without supervision.

I'm nervous about it, because right now, the show we all can agree on is Castle.

It's amazing the things we become comfortable with isn't it? There's some mayhem and violence on the show, but it's not intense violence and mayhem. Castle reminds me of getting through high school watching Remington Steele. It's kind of fun bonding with the kids over what they like to watch. I remember when Big Time Rush was called The Monkees. Harry Potter was Encyclopedia Brown and he didn't have a film franchise. Harry, Hermione and Ron used to be The Mod Squad, and they looked pretty old for teenagers.

I'm just hoping that Justin makes it through Ross and Rachel's break-up okay...      

Patience and Faith

Dave sez, If our journey here to Kiev - three times - has been about any thing, it has been about developing patience and building faith. Oh, and adopting three children, two sons and now, finally, a daughter.

"...Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see...And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him." (Hebrews 11: 1, 6)

We are here in Kiev a third time. What is the difference between this third trip and the two previous trips? Not much. We see the effects months and months of protesting has had on the city. There is a side of this city that is permanently scarred from anger. But it seems like only half. The other half still functions. The two seem to co-exist side-by-side right now. It is hard to see if the wound is healing, or ever will.

 

From Independence Square, where there is still an Occupy-style encampment, across to the burned out Exchange building, we see that the angry scar has gone up the street to Parliament, and the cathedral next to it. We saw that yesterday.

 

  



Cathy and I have to compliment our facilitator Valentin. He is working very hard to make progress with our process and schedule our court date. Cathy and I would ask all of our "prayer warriors" to lift him, the SDA and the DFC up in prayer that the consent is signed as soon as possible - Monday - and that our court date is scheduled for TUESDAY. Cathy and I really need to have our court date scheduled for TUESDAY. Valentin had told us on Tuesday that consent forms had not been signed for close to three weeks. He has been working tirelessly and valiantly to move things along. He reminded them that we had been here twice before and we adopted two sons. He also reminded them that we were a Christian, God-fearing family.

Yesterday, we had just gotten to the orphanage for our visit with Masha. The phone rang. It was Valentin. He said he needed a brief description for the SDA and DFC about our church. What type of church it was that we go to and what type of church it was that Masha would be attending when she comes home. He asked if I could write something up and e-mail it to him.

"Where are you?" He asked.

I do a pretty decent impression of Nervous Ross...

I said, "Uh...uh...we're here at the orphanage, with Masha."

Perfect, he told me. I could use the computer there to write something up and send it to him. He called Igor to explain, I called Igor to explain. Igor called me back and asked where we were.

"Uh...uh...we're here at the orphanage, with Masha."

He cleared up my confusion by asking, where I actually was. He told me that he would explain everything to Neela in the office and that everything would be fine.

Valentin called me back and together we pieced a few sentences about our Faith a church. Then I handed the phone over to Neela and he dictated/translated to her. She typed it up and we signed it.

Next, we had to get this document to the SDA office before 1pm. That is when most government offices close for lunch for one hour. It was 11:30. So, we had to move.

We just made the 507 at the bus stop; which got us to Holosiivska station and back to Maidan by 12:25. That gave us a little over thirty-five minutes to make it up the hill from Independence Square and past Parliament to the SDA office. Walking up the hill we noticed that a lot of the restaurants we had frequented on the last two trips were closed and gone out of business. The Double Coffee had a "напрокат" banner in the window. There was a Russian restaurant where we had enjoyed a great dish of both Russian Salad and Chicken Kiev, that was closed now, too. The scar had climbed up the hill from the Square to the cathedral next to Parliament where there were more tents. 

We made it to the SDA by a quarter to one. We called Valentin so that he would let someone know that we were there with the document. He had been called into a court session, so we called Igor to call Valentin to call someone to let them know we were there with the document. Valentin called us back and let us know that he would be calling a woman with the SDA named Helen, who would come out and take the document from us. She did. She said, "Thank you," in English to us.

We got a call this morning from Valentin that it was possible that the consent to adopt would be signed off on Monday, and that our court date could be scheduled for either TUESDAY or Wednesday. He would keep us informed.

If our journey has been about any thing, it has been about developing patience and building faith.

"...I waited patiently for the Lord; He turned to me and heard my cry." (Ps. 40: 1)