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Kramarchuk Ukrainian AdoptionFebruary 08 Almost A Year.....In exactly one month and 8 days we will have been home from Ukraine exactly one year. It's hard to believe, but looking at the pictures makes it real. She has changed so much in what seems like so little time.
Anya and Luka have reached a settlement. Let's just say the first 6 months were.....rough. Very rough. But, they have come to some sort of an agreement and manage to play for longer periods of time now without trying to kill each other. Well, actually, it was more Luka's problem than Anya's. She was the intruder in his space and he wanted nothing to do with her. I recall a few times that I think he might have actually tried to get rid of her, but we won't go into any details! Now at least I can say that there's definitely more laughter in the house than screaming and crying. Score one for the parents.
So what's new?
Anya celebrated her 2nd birthday in August and Luka turned 5 in December. WOW!
Chester celebrated his 14th birthday in September. Woohoo! Way to go Chester!
Christmas was amazing; Anya's face when she realized the presents were for her was priceless. Both of them had such a great time opening their gifts.
Anya had an assessment with a speech-language pathologist last month and they told us that she's about 8 months behind; we're trying to work with her everyday with the suggestions they gave us. It's very difficult to do and she gets frustrated very easily, but we have to perservere. Next month she'll start a playgroup that will focus on increasing her expressive language.... Hopefully that will help her.
Well, time to put them to bed......
 yay!June 09 Food for Thought...Our children are not our children because we have given them our genes, Our children are our children because we have had the audacity to envision them. —Anonymous
"However, I believe whenever we choose to accept a child into our families we are related to him or her on a far deeper level. First, we are related by choice. One of my patients once said to me, “Our children will always know they were wanted because we worked so hard to bring them into the world.” This is equally true of the children we choose to make part of our families through adoption, surrogacy, donor egg or sperm, and so on. But in a spiritual sense I believe these children are ours because they want us as their parents. When I was studying Chinese medicine, for a short while I felt a sense of a “presence” with me all the time. I noticed it especially in those moments between sleeping and waking. I had this sense of life wanting to express itself when the time was right. This feeling stayed with me until I had my son, Lars. While I can’t say for sure whether this feeling and the birth of my son were related, on a deep level I believe that that presence had something to do with this soul wanting to be part of my life. And if it’s possible that our children choose us as parents, then I wonder if it matters to them whether they’re born of our bodies or someone else’s. " However these children came to us—be it by our own eggs or assisted reproductive techniques or adoption—matters less than our tenacity, what we have gone through to make these children part of our lives. I believe that the most important aspect of parenthood is letting our children know where they fit in the world, giving them a sense of belonging, no matter how they came to us. If they come from us, if they come through us, or if they come to us, being a parent means holding them and letting them know, “This is where you belong.” ~Dr. Randine Lewis
If there really is a divine plan and we are placed on this earth to learn and grow, then perhaps the lessons of our souls are met through those that are put in our lives. As Khalil Gibran wrote:
Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with his might that His arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the Archer’s hand be for gladness; For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.
May 20 We're Still Here!!How quickly time passes when you don't have time to look at the clock. It's May already and that's so hard to believe. Four days ago we celebrated being home for 2 months; well, it wasn't a real celebration, it was more of an acknowlegement in the midst of all the craziness!
Sunday, May 20, 2007
I really had no idea how busy it would be. At the end of the day when both monkeys are tucked snuggly in their beds with sugarplums dancing in their heads, Mark and I settle down for a glass of wine and can finally release our breath.
Ana and Luka are better with each other now but it will take a lot more time. I still don't feel comfortable leaving them alone together and need to remind him constantly to be gentle with her. He thinks that because she can jump on him and lie on his belly that he can do the same to her. NOT! Because of their backgrounds they are both so needy and demand so much of our attention. Ana wants to be held all the time and screams like a banshee when she's put down. Luka has fears that we are battling on a daily basis (of the dark, of being alone, of noise, to name a few). It can be very, very draining some days.
But then, there are those things that make it so worthwhile.
I absolutely love witnessing the small exchanges between them:
 I love the way Luka asks if she's awake yet and then races me up the stairs to go get her.
I love watching Ana dance with excitement in her crib when she sees Luka and I enter her room. I love the way she screams his name when she's upset over something she's been reprimanded for (picking the cat up by his fur, for example). She calls him "Ya Ya" (how this come from "Luka", I'm not sure but it's SO cute!! *SCREAM*... Ya Ya ... *SCREAM*).I love watching them hug and their nose flattening kisses.
I love our family dinners and watching how they raise their glasses to each other for a toast. "Cheers!" or "Ha-Zdorovlia!"
I love the way Luka will nonchalantly touch her hand or her hair as he walks by her.
I love hearing their belly-laughter from the next room as I prepare dinner. As busy as it is and as exhausting it is, I wouldn't change it for anything. In tough times I try to remember Mark's words of wisdom, "ten seconds of happiness can bring you through 10 days of difficulty".
I think back and remember that with Luka things didn't comfortably settle down until about a year later. So...10 months, 11 days, 9 hours and 36 minutes to go....
~sigh~
Thank God for an amazing husband who is parenting right alongside me, and for family and friends who stand by us and are there for us at the drop of a hat.
My Goal for this month:
Now with 2 children, I have a mission to make our home as natural as it can be. I want to stop using all those awful chemical products that have been linked to so many diseases. I want our children to get the best start in life as early as possible and right now it's up to us as parents to provide that. I plan on going to the library today to research environmentally friendly cleaning products and plants that help clean the air in your home.
Let's see what I can find... April 01 For you...Breath of My Breath
Breath of my breath and heart of my heart
I feel that you're truly my own.
I don't know how long it will take you to see,
But I hope that one day when you are grown...
you'll too, know the love you feel for your child.
A blessing from heaven above...
A task we accept and honored to have.
A baby, our new life... to love.
And I as your mother, would feel just the same
if you had been born unto me.
You are part of my heart, and each breath that I take,
no more my child could you be.
... If you had grown just under my heart
inside my tummy below...
For greater my child, you grew in my heart
... as only your mother could know.
-anonymous March 26 Back at the RanchMarch 25, 2007
Cedar's purring in my ear is lulling me to sleep and my feet are being warmed by dear, sweet Chester. It is so late, but for you, I shall put off going to bed for 5 more minutes; that's all I can promise you without drooling on the keyboard.
Dare I say it - could I have lost my mojo in Ukraina?
I don't know if it's true, or if I am just too exhausted to formulate a sentence but I can't think of what to write. I would be completely and utterly satisfied right about now to just stare at a wall, watch tires rotate at Home Depot, or hang low with my dearly missed friend, Mr. Vodka. Is this what being a parent of two does to you? Why am I stuttering, even when I think? Disjointed thoughts; one day spinning into the next; not enough sleep, a jealous 4 year old..... Diapers and vomit and spit-up.....oh my! It's all a blur. When I close my eyes for a second at the most, I find myself traveling in hyperspace lost in a Star Trek episode.
Ethiopian coffee would be like a cup of chamomile. Bring me the real stuff. Please!
It all started the other day when I actually stopped to check that I wasn't still in my pj's when I went to Sherway Gardens; that's how I knew I was in trouble! What's happening, you ask? Here it is in a nutshell. 10 days have passed since we ecstatically landed on Canadian soil and we can't be happier to be home.
Things are good. Very good as a matter of fact. Everybody is getting to know each other (ahhemm, Ana and Luka) and we're falling into a nice routine, but to say we're busy is the understatement of the century.
I hear you. What's the problem? What could possibly be so bad, so time consuming?
Let's see......
2 kids (believe me, this is usually enough), a house renovation, a 13 year old golden retriever who has recently started taking testosterone and gingko biloba for his senility (a blog in itself, let me tell you), 2 birds who maintain a love/hate relationship, and a cat who believes he is 100% your equal and who ejects hairballs the size of Italian sausages on a daily basis with a dramatic flair.....
C'mon, ask again, but come closer this time. I double dog dare you.
Basically it amounts to this: you learn to pee when you wake up and before you go to bed, anything in between is inefficient and is considered a luxury, food is obtained by picking scraps off moving plates, the 5 second rule no longer applies and has been changed to "it's still good no matter when you pick it up", showers are combined with brushing of the teeth, and you learn to quickly turn your head and abide by the motto "what you don't know can't hurt you" as you catch a glimpse of a little hand dipping into the dog food.
You learn to laugh and go with the flow.
Ana has only bungee jumped out of her crib and fallen on the floor- ONCE, she has only swallowed ONE Band-Aid, and has fallen into our sunken living room twice, oops, our bad. But on a positive note, when she fell into the foyer, she landed on the dog's bed. Score one for the parents.
On that note....it's time to pee.
March 15 Goodbye Ukraina (And Thanks for all the Fish)!March 15, 2007
To Our Beloved Family and Friends,
“If I see further, it is only because I stand on the shoulders of giants”
Isaac Newton
In the past seven weeks so much has happened, yet at the same time, it has passed in the blink of an eye. The memories will be forever etched into our hearts and minds; everything from the people, to the sounds and smells of Ukraine. How quickly time passes. Friendships forged, new adventures experienced, bonds formed, marriage strengthened, but most importantly, our family has grown through the addition of our darling little one - Ana Sofiya.
Your support and knowing that all of you were standing behind us, enabled us to become strong enough to take on the many challenging experiences we faced while here in Ukraina. One thing we learned when adopting Luka and know for certain once again, is that without family and friends you are nothing. So having said that, know that these next two little words carry a lot of weight....thank you.
Oh yes, one more thing.
To Ana and Luka
Where should we begin?
As your parents we want you to know this.
While we, with the names of Mama and Tato sit in this apartment, we believe we are as small as two grains of sand amidst all the beaches in the world. Finding you both and having you become part of us, is testament to a higher power. There is something else in this universe that pulls you toward those you are meant to find, meant to learn from, meant to love. We walked through the dark only to be rewarded by a light at the end that has surpassed our wildest dreams...twice.
We want your hearts to find peace when you stand under the sky and warm your faces to the sun, when you lie on your backs counting the stars beside the bonfire, when you feel the gentle breeze on your faces and catch snowflakes falling from the sky on your tongues. Know that there is much more to life than what stands before you. Know, and take comfort in knowing, that many before you have wondered and questioned the meaning of all this, just as you will. The happiness and suffering, the solitude and togetherness, the joy, the pain - it's all fleeting. Nothing is insurmountable. Revel in 10 minutes of happiness because that is what will propel you through 10 days of difficulty. Know that, it too, shall pass. Look to others for comfort and give comfort to those who are looking.
Our sweet Ana and precious Luka,
Learn from each other and love one another. Discover together that love reaches far beyond genetics and DNA. You will have many teachers in your lifetime: parents, school teachers, family, friends, mentors, coaches, and we are but two.
Bringing the two of you into our family has taught us powerful life lessons. Life is about helping others. About making a difference. About opening your heart and in doing so performing your own little miracles. Some people only dream about what they can do to make a difference in the life of another. We were given a chance to actually make it happen and are thankful for that from the bottom of our hearts. You were born with a purpose; you were born for us. If we can teach the both of you one thing, it would be to let your hearts be big enough to let love in; to realize the human potential and exactly how much each one of us actually has to give; when your heart is open there are endless possibilities. We pray that in loving you, we will be able to teach you this. We want you both to strive to pass on the love we have shown you.
Parenting is the hardest job in the world, but let us tell you both now, that despite all the day to day "stuff" that you deal with as a parent, the meltdowns, the time-outs, the tears, the frustrations, the warnings, the yelling (not too often!), at the end of the day, when we crawl into bed, it is the love we share for both of you that helps us rest peacefully at night. The good always outweighs that which is less than good. You make us want to be better people, and for that we are grateful and want to say, thank you.
On a final note -
There are so many loving arms that await your arrival, precious Ana. So many people who want to kiss your cheeks and embrace your warmth. Go into their arms, little one, they all have so much to show you- life is grand!
Goodbye, from Ukraina...for now
xoxo
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