One year ago today…
Today…
We met Reed and Lena one year ago today!
We have a lot to be thankful for today! Happy Thanksgiving!
All posts by Molly
East Coast Adventures
Somehow we made it here after 24 hours of driving. Actually, not all 24 hours were spent driving… a few were spent in a certain Indianapolis suburb and other time was spent here and there are rest stops and gas stations. What’s the deal with the Indianapolis stop, you ask?
We got to stop and see Dasha! Dasha was in the same baby house as Reed and Lena. She is so precious… she is one of the kids who really stuck out in my memory at the baby house and she is now so different and seems so comfortable at home with her family.
Her brothers were great, too. Matthew and Sam took some time to play football with the little ones… Lena really took to them and was enjoying their company. Caleb was just adorable.
It was a really nice place to stop. Norm made us some yummy breakfast and we got to know each other a little better! I love “comparing notes” with other adoptive families and hearing how things are going.
Reed and Lena were so happy to get here. Lena, especially, crashed into bed that night with a big smile on her face. They jumped right back into playing with their cousins too.
These two in particular just clicked! She is about 18 months older than him, the same age as his friend Alina. Reed really likes to chase her and I think she really enjoys it too. She likes to be an animal and he pretends to be the hunter.
Every night they crash! I walked in to grab my pajamas the other night and Reed was not in his bed! I started to worry and looked around, wondering where he had ended up. Then, I saw this. When I finished getting ready for bed, he was back in the right spot!
We are having a great time. Lots of adult company and lots of company for the kids.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Remember, you have until Tuesday, November 29, to order your shirt. Uh-oh, too late.
Geocaching and Mario Karts
This is my first post, a while ago Molly asked me to explain more about geocaching. Somebody once defined it as using multi-million dollar satellites to find tupperware containers in the woods. That really sums it up pretty well. A geocache is some sort of container such as a Lock&Lock container, an ammo can, a pill bottle, or some other container that somebody has hidden. It might be in a park, on the side of the road, on a hiking trail, in a crowded city, anywhere that they want to place it that is legally allowed. After they’ve hidden this container, they post the coordinates on geocaching.com and the coordinates can then be downloaded to a GPS. Once they’re in your GPS, it tells you which direction to go and how far away it is. From there you just follow the arrow, and once it gets close to zero then the geocache should be close, most of them are within about 30 feet of where the GPS puts you. A lot of the containers in the woods are larger and covered with rocks or pieces of wood, the ones in urban locations are usually smaller. Once you’ve found it they contain a log that you can sign and some of the larger ones also contain toys that can be traded. More information is also available here.
I’ve found that what works best for the kids is to look for ones in parks that are larger containers because they can find them much easier and they also like to trade out little toys. I also prefer walking in the woods to a crowded spot in the city. Winter is really the best time to go because there’s not all the bugs and growth. We’ve been doing this for almost five years now and we’ve found over 1000, but we haven’t been that active recently. Last year we found 71, and we’ve found 85 this year, you can see our profile here. This is a picture from February when we went to pick up our dog from Texas:
Also, here’s a video I took last night of our kids and their cousins in the basement. We were using their plasma cars, and it reminded me of Mario Kart. The video is a little hard to follow because I was trying to hold the camera and steer with the same hand. Look for the crash around the 10 second mark:
Biology
I was just googling a celebrity– don’t remind me of all of the things that I REALLY need to be doing with my time. I saw that this celebrity has two siblings and on her wikipedia page, it listed them as her “separately-adopted siblings.” I’ve never heard it worded that way before, but I figured out what it meant… two siblings who are both adopted but not biologically related.
Next link I clicked was a page with a Q&A about this celeb. “Are so&so real brother and sister?” That question breaks my heart. “No” was the answer. Heart break. Because we are familiar with this question.
I know people say that there are no stupid questions, but this is one. Especially asked in front of my kids. We don’t usually get it worded this way. But, all the time, we get asked, “Are they brother and sister?” My answer depends on how interested I am in the person asking and my own mood. “Yes.” OR “They are not biological siblings.” or maybe “They don’t have the same birthparents.” Really none of your business, buddy.
My kids are real siblings. Real, fight over toys just to fight, sit as close to each other as they can to watch a movie siblings. They’re who’s turn is it to pick the story? no, it’s my turn! siblings. They’re it’s okay, I’m here, hold my hand siblings. They’re through the fire and out the other side siblings. Biology has nothing to do with it.
My kids are very young, but their bond is deep. When they left the orphanage, the one thing that they got to take was each other. Not a single physical object or piece of clothing, not their language, or their culture. Just each other. Wouldn’t you love and cling to that person dearly?
So, yes, if you are still asking, they’re real siblings.
Eleven months ago, exactly.
Last month.
Last week, watching a movie. No one else had been on the couch and she had been leaning on him right before I got the camera.
Edited to add: I had someone ask me this question literally hours after I wrote this post, in those exact words that I mentioned above (are they brother and sister?). Just to be clear, I don’t think this question is rude in certain contexts, including the context that this person asked me in. Friend to friend, talking about the adoption process– it’s appropriate, although better language is “are they biological siblings?”. However, this is rude if you just met me AND/OR in front of my children. They ARE old/smart/fluent enough to understand those words.
Why the Change?
Why the change in blogs? Well, I realized after two people emailed me today asking me for our blog address. I figured the title was just too long until I realized I had typed aboard instead of abroad in the blog address! Whoops! So, this is a bit easier. Can you excuse me because of my adoption-brain, please? It’s amazing I can function at all right now.
Maybe if I share a cute photo?
This was taken sometime in the last couple of weeks.
a moose in moscow 