Home Stretch

Sorry for the delay in updates everyone. It’s been somewhat hectic, but that’s pretty much the norm. On to the show!

On Friday, we pushed/pulled/dragged Natasha to Vilas Zoo because we thought that she would enjoy it and it’s one of the major attractions of our fair city. I think that Ukranian zoos must be very different.  She originally said "I don't want to go see a bunch of animals in little cages".  First response: “No”. Second response: “No.” Oh well…

So we drive to the zoo and find it blissfully empty of other patrons. But that might’ve had to do with the rather chilly wind and rain… in January. Anyways, we slogged through the weather and marveled at the animals enjoying their natural climate, like the lion, and the camel – um, wait.

However, Natasha really started getting into it when she started spotting the big cats and other large game animals. We found out a cool secret (that probably every other Madisonian knew); when there’s inclement weather, you can get a much closer look at the animals because they’re in their shelters and there isn’t much in between you and them. The giraffes were especially cool. There were some epic Natasha selfies.

We also held our bowling party for others to meet Natasha on Saturday. I think the girls were in junk food heaven with all the pizza, soda, nachos, fries and onion rings they could handle. I think I could smell the grease emanating off of everything! But it seemed to be a success. We had friends come over and stop by, some people we met for the first time, and overall it went very well. For a short spell, Natasha refused to mingle or chat with some of the people who wanted to meet her, instead asking to speak with other Ukrainians that she had met previously. But, as usual, she turned it around. I will say that her ability to adapt and strive to be better is enormous.  It's got to be overwhelming to be constantly meeting new people who speak a foreign language.

Oh, by the way, her English is a lot better than even she lets on. She’s gotten comfortable enough where she has a great time making fun of Marine in Ukrain-glish. It’s fun to watch and hear.

A short, sad episode occurred at the end of bowling. Grandma and Grandpa Hoksch visited us as well and at the end, they went to say their goodbyes to Natasha because most likely they wouldn’t be seeing her again before she departed. The enormity of it hit her hard and she held on to Grandma for several minutes. I can’t even imagine what’s going on in her head.

Things looked better today because it combined two of her favorite hobbies: shopping and speaking to other Ukrainians. We went to West Towne today to get her some more clothes and meet with Anastasia and Mike. They started chatting instantly and had a great time just doing what everyone else in Madison must have decided to do today. Parking was unreal. But overall, a good time was had.

This week, we hit the home stretch. I definitely enter it with a lot of emotions. We’ll be heading out together as a family to do some more activities and try to prepare her as much as possible for the flight home. I definitely wish we had hosted her during a different time of the year, even though she loves snowball fights. Summer in Wisconsin is a great time of year. But I’m still glad for the time we’ve had with her. Til tomorrow…

School

Sorry I missed yesterday’s post, it was an eventful and late day.  We decided that on Wednesday Natasha would accompany Hailey to school for the full American high school experience (I assume that involves lots of texting and selfies). As posted previously, we planned Natasha’s clothes the night before (thank goodness for that, we’ll get to that soon) and made them go to sleep early.

Marine woke up early with the baby (as usual) and because I always plan for the worst, I had him check on the girls to make sure that they were bright eyed and bushy tailed and wouldn’t miss the bus. If by bright eyed and bushy tailed you mean, unconscious and out cold fifteen minutes before the bus was coming, then yeah, great, winner winner. Marine flipped the switch, yelled out an alarm to wake the dead and finally got a mumbled “Are you kidding me? It’s seven?” from Hailey. Marine said that he had never seen the girls move that fast before. Hailey took charge and got Natasha going (we were a little worried that she assumed that the bus would just idle and wait for her) while Marine stood at the bottom of the stairs and did his best impression of a NASA countdown official.

Ultimately, the girls got off to school on time, wearing suitable clothes, with iPod and cellphone translator in tow.

Their school day ended up being a little long, since Hailey couldn't find Natasha in time for the bus (not sure why) so they stayed after to study for chemistry with the teacher.  (Her chemistry studying happened to involve a boy she has a different kind of chemistry with...).  However at least they were with the teacher, so I ended up picking them up on the way to youth group and just let it go.  They did have a great day together at school, used up the batteries on both phones with their non-stop pictures and Natasha's first words when I picked her up were "Hailey, school, me, tomorrow?" .  Everyone had a great time at youth group, we all went home, didn’t have to clean up after dinner and it was a good night.

Thursday was a good day for Natasha. Earlier in the week, we had driven past the state capitol building and she was excitedly gesturing towards it. So, after taking her to the Realty Exec office for a meeting, she and I ditched Marine at work and toured the Capitol. Natasha was really excited for something the rest of us take for granted! She ran around taking selfies, exploring everything and all in all had a great time.

When we went home, she then decided to cook for everyone. Natasha made this great hot dish using hot dogs, eggs, spices and potatoes. Don’t know what it’s called, don’t know how to make it, can barely describe the taste, but it was a hit!  We did have another episode of "I want to chat with my boyfriend on VK" but when she realized it was not going to happen she got over the issue much more quickly than before.  Off to the zoo tomorrow!

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!

Back to Work

With the beginning of the New Year and it being a Monday, we all experienced the same thing: getting back to work. And with that, Natasha was off with me to my realty office and to meet pretty much the entire company since it was the first business meeting of the year. Many thanks to grandma Cheryl for watching over the Legion of Doom aka Weston, Remy & Ky since Marine also was off with clients for the day.

Natasha went over very well with all of the fellow agents in the office. It was a great way for her to be exposed to what a business-like culture looks like in the states and to introduce herself. She was bubbly, happy and kept trying to steal my coffee. Bad Natasha! She got to hang out with some of the other agents and see what I did for a living (which to her, probably looked waaaay boring). But the alternative was to sit at home with the kiddos and play referee all day.

At one point, Marine popped into the office and we decided that he would interview Natasha for a blog post on our business page. It was pretty funny watching her as she kept hearing her name bandied about between Marine and I while we discussed what type of questions to ask of her. When informed that she would be in front of a camera, a very clear “NO” came out of her several times. She was so cute! She actually thought she had a choice! But in all seriousness, she did a great job, she had a great attitude and it looked like Marine had a lot of fun pretty much talking the entire time. 

Overall, it was another good day. Natasha and Hailey helped (ie made dinner again) for everyone and we had some good moments together bonding over Facebook late in the night. 

Ukrainians!

I’ll start today’s entry by stating the obvious: teens are an interesting bunch. No matter how much you plan, how much forewarning is given, sometimes the results are the same. We’re not dealing with adults here, so it’s always taken with a wink and a nod, but… grrrr! The night before, everyone was informed and knew that church was on the schedule and we’d be leaving at about 9:15am. Marine went up to wake the girls a few times to no avail. Finally, Hailey came lumbering out of her slumber and got ready quickly. At about 9:07am, Natasha was finally routed from the floor (where the girls decided to sleep for the night for some unknown reason), grumpily put on too much makeup and sauntered downstairs. We ended up making it to church on time, but it was another mini-battle.

We got home and got to our Sunday cleaning. Natasha sat on the couch and thought she was good there, but was quickly corrected. She chose to improve her attitude and did do a great job dusting.  While Marine went to meet some real estate clients, grandpa and grandma came over. Natasha completely turned her attitude around and she and Hailey spent the afternoon getting clothes ready for our evening activities.

Our first stop was Weston’s hockey game where we met up with some past real estate clients, one of whom also was Ukrainian! Natasha and Anastasia spoke the entire time and Natasha must have been in sugar heaven because Anastasia brought some old country sweets with her. It was a great time had by all, with Weston flopping all over the ice rink, Marine skating around “coaching” the four and five year olds (he calls it herding cats), little Ky asleep on mommy’s back, and Hailey… um, I’m not sure what she was doing.

After the game was over, we said our goodbyes and visited yet another former client who had prepared a traditional Ukrainian dinner for us. Thank you so much Sam and Olga! The moment Natasha walked in, she and Olga hit it off and we don’t think they actually stopped talking the entire time. Great food, great conversation, and oh yeah, Olga and Sam have a 15 month old daughter that our dear Ky thought was absolutely fascinating. Something about babies causes mesmerization for our dear little one.

We definitely wish we had better understanding of Russian, because we just found out via Olga a few tidbits about Natasha we didn’t know about. Apparently, choreography is a future career she is extremely interested in? Never knew. And, of course, because we’re dealing with teens, we had to correct a few bits of information that Natasha said to Olga. Remember folks, there’s always more to a story than what a teen tells you. Always.

But we said our goodbyes, Marine learned a new recipe called “golubtsi” that he’s going to try making and we raced home to put the kiddos to bed. All in all, despite some of the bumps, it was a good day.

Photos & Friends

So, today was a pretty interesting day with Natasha. She’s doing really well within the household again now that she has Hailey all to herself once more. It seems like she just needed someone to connect with more consistently. Go figure, thirteen year olds.

We did have a bump in the road later on in the day. We had scheduled a photo shoot at a local park for the family, but focusing mostly on Natasha. The curse of the pretty dress reared it’s head again! Hailey did a great job getting clothes ready the night before for her and Natasha, but as departure time got closer, Natasha started rebelling with the clothes choices. The rest of the family was wearing classic tones and suitable winter wear. Natasha ended up trying to wear a red dress and absolutely refused initially to go with anything that went with the rest of us. We heard lots of “No” upstairs but we eventually put our foot down and got her to change. Unfortunately, her demeanor was pretty sullen for most of the car ride to the photo shoot site. We ended up getting our chaperone/translator on the line to speak with Natasha and found out that (as with most things) this attitude stemmed from boyfriend troubles… again. We weren’t even sure when she had a chance to get onto Ukrainian Facebook, but Hailey informed us that Natasha did so when we visited Marine’s parents the day before. This just goes to show that teenagers can be motivated when they want it bad enough.

We ended up going to our old standby… Starbucks. After everyone got treats and caffeinated, the mood in the car brightened up considerably! We showed up to the park, our photographer met Natasha, and she immediately jumped out of the car without her coat and started giving some glamour poses out. She’s a natural. I will say that it was only then that we noticed that the eyeshadow had been applied a little heavy. It reminded us how much Natasha had been forced to grow up but also left pretty much to her own devices. We were able to get some great family pics the rest of the time but the sun decided to set and it felt like an evening in January in Wisconsin. So we left for a friend’s house.

We were welcomed in to Paul & Clio’s home for dinner tonight. Paul & Clio are a wonderful couple with three awesome children. They were very excited to talk to Natasha and definitely are spreading the word about finding an adoptive family. Our three boys had a great time there, including little Ky. He thought it was very exciting to see another 7 month old boy and kept trying to investigate.

We did find out that Natasha was a huge dog lover! Paul & Clio had recently welcomed a retriever puppy named Teddy into their home and I think if Natasha could have done so, she would have committed a dognapping. Once in a while, Paul had to let the puppy out the backdoor into the frigid night, and Natasha quickly followed. She also couldn’t get enough of Paul & Clio’s 7 month old. I tried to snap a picture of her bouncing that baby boy on her lap but was too late! Hmmm, Natasha is like the perfect test subject for TV commercials; she loves babies and puppies J.

We ended the night watching her run out in to the cold and having a snowball fight with Paul & Clio’s 9 year old. It is amazing sometimes watching her vacillate between being just a kid who likes to run outside and a teen who has grown up too fast and realizes that there are a lot of important things happening in her life right now.

New Years

Yesterday we spent the day home, no night on the town with 3 little ones!  We took down the tree and Christmas decorations and then the girls did a much better job of keeping themselves occupied.  They spent the day playing with the guinea pig and then giving each other a makeover.  

Natasha has been a little frustrated since she got her haircut, she doesn't feel like she knows how to style it right. I'd love to help her but I'm really not all that great with hair either so I had asked Hailey to help her out.  Hailey is fantastic at that sort of thing!  So 2 hrs later, Natasha came bounding down the stairs to show off her makeover - hair, nails, makeup (not my first choice for a 13 yr old but a battle I'm choosing not to fight) and some fake glasses that Hailey gave her.  

Today we went to visit Marine's family for New Year's.  New Years is a big thing on the Korean side - much bigger than it is for most Americans so we usually spend Christmas with my family and New Year's with his.  Works out pretty well.  Of course, since the baby just doesn't like to travel we only drive long distances on his nap so were back home by 5.  Just in time for our Friday pizza & movie night.  Tonight we opted for the cartoon Tarzan which Natasha loved.  It's easy to follow along and get the humor even without understanding everything.  

Oh, and while we were visiting for New Year's, Marine's brother offered up his photography skills to get a great headshot of Natasha.