Bedtime Stories

Life in our household is never dull, that’s for sure. Today is usually the day that Weston goes to his Aldo Leopold nature class to hang with his peers and I brought Natasha with as well. The plan was to go to the class, get some shopping done, come home, eat some sushi and have an uneventful, peaceful evening.

Hah.

For those who have been reading along with us on our journey, you’re aware of the issues Natasha’s Ukrainian version of Facebook has been causing. Although who am I kidding. Social media for teens in general, regardless of nationality, is the devil.

While we were at Aldo, I took Natasha’s phone to hook her up to the wifi there and immediately noticed that the internet restriction had been disabled. I’m assuming her eagle eyes were able to spot our passcodes entered every time we used our own phones. So, I ended up having to re-entering a new passcode, much to Natasha’s displeasure. Initially, she was trying to do a cute protest but when she realized I was serious, the storm clouds rolled in again.

Natasha definitely was unhappy and spent the time sulking.  That wasn't too much of a problem though since I had a conference call to be on anyway at the time.  We made the ride to Willy St (grocery store) and I was expecting a continued dark cloud but once more, the resilient, strong side of her came out again. At the store, she turned her mood around and started talking to me about trying to make a dinner for us and what type of ingredients to get. Everything seemed fine. Did I mention that she’s thirteen years old?

Once we got home she learned that Hailey had decided to limit Natasha's use of Hailey's makeup (Hailey had been generously sharing, but decided some boundaries needed to be made). Natasha was generally argumentative about everything after that point.  Eventually she called the Ukrainian chaperone and decided to sit outside in the cold to talk on the phone. We figured that she needed some time away from us so that was definitely fine. 

It was a continued up & down mood and I think there were a lot more issues than internet restrictions.  She's only here for another 10 days and this is about the point that reality sets in and kids start getting stressed.  Ultimately, Natasha skipped dinner with the family and had some fruit instead. Hailey informed us that Natasha was on a diet, but one that consisted of avoiding all meat and snacking on Hailey’s chocolates!

Tomorrow, Natasha gets to accompany Hailey to her school but we needed to make sure that Natasha wore clothes appropriate for an American high school, and not something that’s accepted in European circles so that resulted in continued debate.  Again, I don't think the clothes were the issue.  She's just having a tough time with everything.  

Eventually, I called a different translator who is a bit more of  a mother figure.  They had a long conversation and the translator told us that Natasha really wants to have a close conversation with us but using a translation app on her phone doesn't really allow for that.  She's worried and struggling with a lot of things back home.  We decided to set a Skype appointment with the translator for tomorrow night to have a good conversation.  After that, Natasha really turned it around once more. She actually ended the night by coming into our bedroom for our nightly storybook reading to the boys. We also have a video to share of her reading Llama Llama Red Pajama to us! It was admittedly very adorable.

Updates tomorrow regarding her trip to Hailey’s school!