Merry 1st Christmas!

This morning at 5:58 a.m. I was woken up by Marina ready to wake everyone else up to open gifts! James was crabbing that it wasn't even day-break and that she should go back to bed, but by that time she had already woken up the girls and things were on their way. Then we had an issue of not being able to find a blank video tape to record the first Christmas, but eventually we got it all together and had a good time opening presents. Marina was so thrilled with everything and kept saying how much she liked everything. I think it was a good first Christmas!

Right now she is on the phone with her best friend Julia who was adopted two weeks before we adopted Marina and she is in Italy. We are trying to exchange email addresses, but trying to speak English to her father who speaks Italian and a little English, is not so easy to do. However, I do have their mailing address that the counselor at the orphanage gave me, so we will mail them our information so that the girls can continue corresponding even though they are miles apart. I still email and mail a friend of mine in England who I haven't seen since pre-school when we lived in Belgium! We have been pen pals all these years and I hope Marina and Julia can do the same.

Later this morning we will go to my brother Pete's house to have Christmas with the rest of my family and then on Friday we will head to So. IL to have Christmas with James side of the family. Marina just thinks this whole idea of multiple Christmases is the BEST!!!

Last night my sister and her family came over and brought our traditional Christmas Eve dinner of cheese fondue and raclettes for dinner. We all ate until we were totally stuffed and it was delicious!! I look forward to that meal every year. We first ate fondue and raclettes when we lived in Europe and our entire family loves it. I think the we ate raclettes in Switzerland and I'm not sure where we tried the cheese fondue the first time, but it is very good. We get the cheese at The Cheese Place in St. Louis, but there are other stores that carry it too. If you have never tried Raclettes, you can rent a raclette oven or grill at The Cheese Place as well as buy the cheese there. We have two raclette ovens that my sister bought in France last time she was there, because you can't buy them here, or at least we couldn't at the time - you can now.
http://www.jill.net/recipes/recipes/raclette.html or http://www.raclette-suisse.ch/home.html?l=en

This past weekend we went over to see some friends of ours who had never met Dillon or Marina and I have been friends with them since I was 15 years old. Anyway, they enjoyed meeting all 4 kids and then we went to Columbia IL to a Christmas party in honor of the 4 girls who just came over for a hosting program during the Christmas break. Marina is friends with one of the girls, Natasha, who we spent every day with while we were in Ukraine. The other girls she does not know, but we enjoyed seeing them all and talking with other families who either have already adopted or who are interested in doing so. Everyone was so amazed at how well Marina speaks English already.

After that, we went to Bellville IL to Our lady of the Snows to see The Way of Lights, which is a Christmas lights display that you drive through. There was also camel and donkey rides, a petting zoo, food to buy, a puppet show and Christmas tree display from around the world. We didn't see it all, but the kids did ride camels and enjoyed that. Hannah and Marina rode one camel and Dillon and Jordan rode another. I wish we had remembered our camera so that we would have a picture of it! They also saw the animals in the petting zoo - all of which were animals that may have been in the manger where Christ was born. The girls hung out the window of the car to see the lights - all 3 of them crammed out one window. Dillon was then complaining that he couldn't see out that window and I let him know that there was a HUGE long window right next to him in the 3rd seat of the car as well as ALL the windows on the other side of the car to look out of. Why they all thought they needed to look out one little window is beyond me??!! Crazy kids.

Anyway, Merry Christmas to all and Happy New Year too!

Looking Brighter

Okay, I think we are headed in the right direction. We are seeing improvement now with the way things are going at home, and are beginning to loosen the reigns some. She now knows I mean what I say and that if she doesn't listen up and DO what she needs to do, there will be a consequence that is less than favorable. Hallelujah!!! Anyway, she has improved her behavior and I am so thankful for that. The key words now are, "Your not listening to me" and then she snaps into shape :) Today I am taking her to spend the day with her new friend Piper while I go take the little girls to a class at our science center and go some other places as well. She'll get to spend a nice long day with her and I hope they form a wonderful friendship. Both girls are homeschooled, both are from Ukraine, they are 12 and 13 years old, and I think this could be a really good thing for her. It will help her to feel less homesick and more comfortable here.

I have contacted an international adoption clinic here in St. Louis out of Children's Hospital and we will probably set up an appointment to meet with them in January. What they offer is a host of professionals (doctors and social workers, counselors, etc) who specialize in dealing with kids adopted internationally and their families. What my hope is, is to be able to meet with a psychologist when needed to discuss her feelings and her actions, and to be able to better understand what she is going through and have another PROFESSIONAL opinion of how to best deal with her actions. However, I do believe we are on course now and things are improving. It's just nice to have a support system of people who "have been here and done this" before.

This is our last week of school now until January 7, when we will start back into things. I am ready for the break as I am sure the girls are too. Yesterday Marina was doing her math work and on the LAST problem she had a complete meltdown and couldn't finish. She was three steps away from being done and gave up all hope, started crying and couldn't pull it together. So, I told her that was fine and suggested she take a nap and rest and try to finish it later in the day. So, around 4pm she came back to it and finished her work without anymore problems. It's not that the work is too hard . . . she can do it, maybe it's just more than she was used to before, I don't know. I only gave her one worksheet to work on and it only had maybe 8 - 10 equations on it . . . not a lot at all. Anyway, I was glad to see her come back to it and finish. I just have to learn how to "deal" with these breakdowns the best I can. I think being sympathetic AND still requiring her to finish her work is the best thing I can do. I can remember getting very frustrated while doing schoolwork in certain subjects and so I can empathize with her. But, I don't want my little ones to see this either and decide, "Oh, if I cry and say I can't, I won't have to do my work" because then we'll never get anything accomplished. I hope Marina doesn't have many of these meltdowns. I have seen 4 or 5 of them thus far.

Well, everyone is waking up and I can hear their feet above me so they will be coming downstairs any minute. That is my cue to wrap this up for now.

Honeymoon Is Over

Well, the time has come that the blissful honeymoon stage is over and now we have to get down to business. There has been a great testing of the waters and now we have reached our limit and feel that the time has come to draw a line in the sand and get things straightened out a bit. There are no huge problems to report, but the constant testing and bending of the rules for her and not the other children needs to end. I now realize we gave too much too soon. Somehow she thinks the rules in our house do not FULLY apply to her. Every rule we have established is challenged on a daily basis and it becomes maddening. The bad part is, I don't feel like I have the energy at this point to be as consistent and strong as I need to be. I know this is what is needed, I just wish we didn't have to go down this road. What we are seeing is a 12 year old who acts like a 3 year old much of the time and yet thinks she should be treated as if she is 12. She is very bull-headed and so, we are in a place of taking away all privileges and when she earns them back one by one with obedience and respectful behavior, our hope is to have smooth waters most of the time. She still exhibits no respect for James in that she doesn't seem to think she needs to listen to him or even talk to him kindly. Most of the time she shrugs him off like a pest of some kind and he has been so patient with her. I need to talk with some other souls who have trotted down this path before and can help with suggestions and support. I need someone to say, "Your doing the right thing".