Home: Week one

We promised to update the blog after we got home, but we distinctly didn’t promise exactly when we would update. We’ll try to do Sunday updates
When we were reading adoption blogs before our trip, we always thought it was a shame that people immediately stopped updating when they got home. “Gee, can’t you just spare a few minutes to let us know how it’s going?” To all those people, I apologize. Real life in the US doesn’t stop while you are away for 6 weeks, it just stacks up in an enormous pile awaiting your return. I opened mail for four days, and filled one huge trash bag with junk mail.

We’re miles away from a routine, but we are making some progress toward “normal”. Jack and Julia are taking in their new home and life in Colorado in with remarkable composure. The first trip to the grocery store and Wal-Mart had them a little wide eyed at the beginning, but they seemed to quickly accept them as the way things are.
The best thing about the US is that they have parents here.

They were pretty impressed with Home Depot because it had so much stuff and a self- checkout. We went again today and I let them scan the items we bought. They had seen me do it a few days earlier, but I had to explain that the bar code was crucial to this bit of magic, and if it wasn’t pointed toward the laser, it wasn’t going to work. It’s been fun figuring out what they do and don’t know. We reasonably expect kids who grow up in the US to experience the same things that we do and in a somewhat linear order. The combination of growing up in Kazakhstan and growing up in an orphanage has left some gaps in their experience that makes every day an adventure. They’ve had to learn how to open aluminum pop cans and use a straw in a Mcdonalds drink cup—they had never seen either one before. We have been very impressed that they are very quick learners and don’t make the same mistake twice.

Kids must have an “electronics gene” no matter where they are from. Jack and Julia figured out Gameboys almost instantly in Taraz, and the Gamecube took about 20 minutes. When we got home they were struggling with the computer mouse on the desktop system. I thought it was kind of odd, because they did pretty well with my laptop in Taraz. Then I realized…. that they are both left handed and we’ve got everything set up for righties.

We’re really glad we didn’t get rid of our old educational computer games, because Jumpstart Kindergarten Reading is coming in real handy. Most basic phonics programs rely pretty heavily on the kids already having a full oral vocabulary, but they’re picking up the words as we go along. Julia may not know what the word “fog” means but she knows how to read, pronounce and spell it. Since we’re in Colorado, we may have to show her pictures of fog on the internet.

Communication is odd at this point, but surprisingly effective. We speak English, they speak Russian and we understand each other pretty well. We’ll ask them questions in English, they’ll reply in Russian and everything makes sense. I’ve started asking for responses that I understand in “English, please”. If I understand that ice cream is “marozhinay”, they understand that “marozhinay” is ice cream. They are in that gap between understanding a word and actually having the confidence to try to use it in a sentence. We’re going to start emphasizing usage right away.

Meals are a learning experience for everyone. We may have to resort to an Excel spreadsheet for ranking food tastes and who likes what dish. Jack and Julia’s tastes tend to run toward non-spicy stuff. Part of the problem may be dental problems—Jack winces every time he eats anything cold, so he’s either got really sensitive teeth or some cavities. The report from the orphanage dentist said he had a “tooth stone” in a few molars. We don’t know if tooth stones are cavities or fillings, and no one could tell us what that meant. We should have them on our health plan this coming week, so we’ll try to get them to the dentist and see what’s up.