Four Months!

Sorry we have been so silent. The pace of life has picked up since getting home four months ago. It is amazing that one rather small teenager can turn our lives upside down!

We went to Ohio for Thanksgiving. He was able to meet extended family for the first time. Oleg had so much fun with his cousins! We had turkey with all the trimmings for Thanksgiving. We had explained what Thanksgiving was all about and he seemed to understand. The day after Thanksgiving Oleg was jumping on a trampoline and came down on his ankle wrong. After a trip to the ER we found out he had a bad sprain. He now has a boot on.

It is interesting what stands out to Oleg. Someone asked him if he had turkey for Thanksgiving. He said no. He said we had pizza. We did go out for pizza one night. He had forgotten about the big feast with 20 people! Go figure.

The sprained ankle has cramped his style. He hasn't been able to go to the skate park. That is his favorite thing to do. It will be amazing if he wears his boot as long as the doctor said to.

Christmas is coming! Oleg has been telling us what he wants almost every day. He wants a new scooter to use at the skate park. He wants to look with us online to find just the right one. He is very persistent! He wishes there would be snow for Christmas. I will be happy if the temp is below 80 for Christmas!

School is going well, thought he doesn't like it much. His English is improving all the time. Last night we had a pretty good conversation about the Lord and life in English, with a little help from a translation app. God is working!

All three of us have experienced frustration as we go through the adjustments. The language barrier is the hardest part. We also have to get used to being parents for the first time. We are trying to figure out what things don't really matter and what definitely needs to be addressed. We are all learning.

2 1/2 Months!

We have been home 2 1/2 months already! Time is flying by. Oleg is doing well at school. He will even come home and do homework without too much of a fight. His language arts and ESOL teacher has him excited about earning points by answering questions in English. He copies and pastes them into Google translate, answers them, and has it translated. In the process he is picking up more English. He has been making friends with good kids. That is a real answer to prayer.

Oleg is going to church with us. On Wednesdays there is a Jr. High service. He has been going with a friend from school. He doesn't understand much of it but enjoys playing basketball afterwards. We go to the Saturday night service at church and Oleg goes with us but doesn't really know what is going on. We all go to dinner with a group of friends after church. He is not shy. One time he was entertaining the whole group.

While there is a break from soccer, Oleg has been enjoying the skate parks in the area. He soars over the ramps and curves. It is fun to watch him. He is getting really good!

This has been an adjustment for Oleg and for us. To go from being a childless couple that got married later in life to now having a 14 year old son that doesn't speak much English has been a real roller coaster. We are getting on the job training in parenthood. God is faithful. We know that He is working and that the outcome will be good for Oleg and for us.

6 Weeks Update

It is so hard to believe that we have been home 6 weeks already!  The time is flying by!  Oleg is keeping us very busy.  We have two soccer practices a week and one or two games on the weekend.  We have a break for 3 months from games now, but the practices continue.  Oleg love to go to Andretti Thrill Park and ride the go karts and playing in the arcade.  He also loves going to an indoor skate park.  He has been using his scooter there but wants to get a skate board soon.  He loves to be on the go!

School is going ok, though he says he doesn't like it.  He is picking up more and more English.  We can tell that he understands more and he is speaking more English.  We had one of Oleg's friends here for an overnight.  They had a couple hours at the skate park and then were home for the rest of the time.  I expected more noise but they were pretty quiet.  No complaints here!

Oleg is very talkative.  He is pretty quiet since he doesn't speak the language well yet.  When he gets home he likes to Skype with friends and relatives from Ukraine.  As soon as he gets on with friends he talks a mile a minute.  It is amazing how fast he can speak Russian.  I look forward to when he can speak English as fast, I think.

There are challenges as we all adjust.  Oleg gets frustrated sometimes when we don't understand him and when the app on our phones doesn't translate right.  Sometimes we tell him something and think he understands only to find out later that he didn't.  We can tell that he doesn't like rules.  He has been very independant up to now.  He is affectionate and happy, most of the time.  God is good and we know He is working and has great plans for us all.

Oleg has been here one month!

Sorry we haven't posted for such a long time.  We have gotten really busy!  Oleg is playing soccer. They practice twice a week and usually have one game on the weekend, sometimes two. Believe it or not, a 14 year old boy is not content to sit at home in the evenings after school.  Our quiet lives have changed so much!  Tonight when I got home from work Oleg asked what we were going to do tonight.  He and Darwin went over to the community center to play basketball while I did a little shopping.

Yesterday Oleg said that he wanted to go to a park to ride his scooter.  He said he wanted to find a beautiful park.  In my mind that meant a park we could ride bikes and he could ride his scooter. We got to the park and he said, "Mama, park?"  I could tell it was not what he wanted.  We found out through our translation apps that he wanted a park where he could jump with his scooter.  He wanted a skate park with ramps, etc.  We tried to find a skate park for him but nothing was open. We took him to Andretti Thrill Park.  He loves the go karts and the arcade.  I'm sure we will be there again.

Oleg seems to be learning English slowly but surely.  We had a conference with his teachers last Friday.  One of them said that she has heard Oleg talking to other students in English.  He doesn't talk to the teachers much in English but is comfortable enough with the students to speak English with them.  Each of his teachers is doing something to help him with English.  His science teacher has a  phonics program she is using with him.  His Language Arts teacher showed us the program she is using with him so we can do it at home too.  We can tell he is understanding more and more when we talk to him.  We still use the translation apps on our phones quite often though.

Oleg has interesting eating habits.  He doesn't really like to eat breakfast.  I am glad that he eats a little something before starting school.  At lunch he eats a lot!  He likes the food at the school cafeteria.  It is much better than the food he used to eat at the orphanage.  His teachers have commented that he eats well at school.  When he gets home he is starving!  He eats a snack and then sometimes isn't hungry for dinner.  He loves bananas and sometimes eats 4 or 5 per day.  We have some banana trees in our front yard.  He will enjoy the bananas when they ripen.

We will try to be better at posting.  Thanks for going through this journey with us!

Week Two

All of you who are parents will not be surprised by this post. Darwin and I have never been parents so this is a big adjustment for us, and of course for Oleg. He has been in school for one week and has taken the bus to school three times. Oleg is not a morning person and does not like to get up. We start waking him up 30 or 40 minutes before he has to leave. The first day on the bus he forgot his phone and Darwin jogged back home and got to the bus stop with the phone, with a minute to spare. The school allows Oleg to use his phone for translation only.

Oleg has made some friends at school. We met one of them. P.J. seems to be a very good boy. He is helping Oleg get to his classes. He also put the translation app on his phone to help. Soccer started this week and we were happy to see that P.J. is on his soccer team. I never thought I would be a soccer mom!

The son of very good friends of ours, Sergey, is helping us with translation and has become a good friend to Oleg. He went with us to soccer and the coach asked him to be an assistant coach, to help with translation and coaching. Sergey has also taken Oleg to the Jr. High youth group at our church. We at hoping he will make good friends there and get well connected at church.

Darwin and I have been married for almost 10 years. We have had such a quiet, easy life. It has just been us and the dogs. We love Oleg and have no regrets about adopting him. Things are just different. :-) 

Before we adopted we took a parenting class at church. That is really helping us. We are trying to be consistent and set boundaries. Believe it or not, Oleg is testing the boundaries! Right now we have given him yard work to do and taken his laptop away for a period of time. I won't go into the reason, but it had to be done.

We are excited about what God is going to do in Oleg's life and in our lives. We know it is going to be good. We are really looking forward to Oleg learning English well. He is learning more every day. He is saying simple phrases and is understanding more of what we say to him.

First Week

This has been a busy week for us. Oleg is still in summer mode and wants to swim every day. We have been to the Palm Bay Aquatic Center twice. He loves the diving boards! He also loves the beach and wants a boogie board. Twice we had Sergey over. He is the son of good friends of ours. Sergey is Russian and has been a big help translating for us. He has also taken Oleg on a bike ride and spent time with him. 

Oleg starts school on Monday. There is a good ESOL program there. We are hopeful that it will help him learn English quickly. We can tell that he is understanding more every day.

Having a teenager in the house has been stressful. Becoming a first time mom at 57 is not an easy thing. I am learning that teenagers argue and want their own way. It is hard going through that with a language barrier. We are trying to institute an allowance if Oleg cleans his room and bathroom. We will see how that goes. He does like US dollars so that should be motivating.

This afternoon we met a couple who adopted two boys from Russia two years ago. The boys are now 15 years old. It was so helpful to talk to someone that has gone through what we are going through.

We have been to church twice with Oleg. He is used to Ukrainian Orthodox. Our church is not what he is used to! Tonight at church we met a Russian woman that came to talk to Oleg. Also, a friend of ours, Oksana, who is also from Russia, came to talk to him. He was very happy to be able to speak Russian with someone. Next Wednesday Sergey is going to go the the Jr.high youth group with Oleg to translate for him.

I will post next week to tell you how school is going.

The first 48 hours in a new country

We arrived in Orlando at 6 PM Saturday, and went through immigration. A standard part of this is a secondary document review into which we brought a packet prepared by the Embassy adoptions unit to be given to the US Citizenship and Immigration Service.  We waited almost 2 hours but Oleg now has a 1 year Green Card.  The Visa was a one use, one time document. The Green Card will allow travel outside the country if needed.  We will be applying for his Social Security Number and then for a US Passport.
Until age 18 he will hold dual citizenship. At 18 he can decide to either keep both or renounce his Ukrainian citizenship.  Should he keep it he becomes eligible to serve either country's military.  It's something to think about.
We've had him at the beach on Sunday afternoon and at the city's local aquatic center this afternoon.  The center has a tube slide, and a pair of 1 meter springboards.  He liked this a bit better than the beach, but he's not tried surfing yet.
Tonight he had his first moments of missing his homeland.  He's been a trooper through it and it caught up with him this evening.   Our usual night owl turned in before 7 PM.
We noticed a distinct turn in his behavior once we arrived in Frankfurt with German and English being spoken, but very few other than some passengers spoke his language.  Many children in their home countries are more bold and wanting to lead the parents around.  Being dropped into a foreign country where you know little of the language is a humbling experience.

We have been talking with various schools and will try to enroll him in our nearest middle school.  Stone Middle School.  They are best equipped for English and Second Language learners.  Oleg's learnign style is not yet self motivated nor disciplined. The added contact with his peers will also spur him on to learn.  We do have a Rosetta Stone license and will see how he likes that.   Once he gains competency in our language other doors will open.  The school has had good reviews and many reading this in our county will recognize the school.