Ah....Christmas time. Are we crazy as Americans with this holiday?! Seeing it through Anya's eyes, I'd say yes!

‘Twas the Monday before Christmas and all through my mind, ran thoughts of the appointment, oh what would they find?

When I initially met Anya in October 2008, one of the workers that was on the trip asked if I wanted to see what was on her medical papers to decide if we really were able to handle her medical conditions if we chose to adopt her. This was allowed as a favor to our friend and is not a common practice. But, it was done any way. I got the English translation and noticed that it listed Hypothyroidism. I actually have a form of that called Hashimoto’s  Disease where my body creates antibody cells that “eat up” all my good thyroid cells. I recently found a local doctor that specializes in thyroid treatment, quite by accident. My oldest son suggested him as a general practitioner and at my first appointment when I mentioned the Hashimoto’s, he let me know that he is also a thyroid specialist!

For all the blood tests and exams that had to be redone and redone again, Dave and I used this doctor, so he knew all about Anya and the adoption. After I returned with Anya to the States, I made an appointment for her with this doctor. He also suggested before we left to get her that I use a pediatrician two doors down since 50% of his patients were special needs and he would be very familiar with what is normal or not as far as her dwarfism goes. The pediatric nurse did wash her ears out and Anya is able to hear more clearly and speak more distinctly now! He also directed us to a team of doctor’s at Cedar’s in Los Angeles that specializes in dwarfism and several ladies I have met online that have dwarfs use this team. Any way, the diagnosis of the Hypothyroidism never made it onto her final translated medical records. I found that odd since I knew it was listed. The pediatrician highly doubted she has it and insisted that she would be profoundly retarded if she did and he told me he would treat her for it if she did and that I didn’t need this other doctor. I insisted that she might and even though he told me she didn’t, so he said he would authorize a blood test for her.

I kept the appointment for me, her and Matt anyway with the thyroid doctor and it was scheduled for the Monday before Christmas. He examined us all, told me her thyroid wasn’t swollen, but that he would do an ultrasound to make me happy. I had previously had one done and my thyroid was over twice the size of the ultrasound wand but the whole thyroid should show under one width of the wand. Mine was also filled with white dots (pox he called them) and that was the indication of Hashimoto’s Disease. So Matt had his turn first with the ultrasound to help Anya out (clean as a whistle) and then it was her turn. Sure enough, she had white pox in hers too! The doctor looked at me and said, “Looks like you are a prefect match Monica! Whatever it is that you can sense about her health, stick with it, you were right!” I was so excited (not that she has Hashimoto’s) but that I stuck with my gut instinct and was right about a very important issue for her. The thyroid doctor told me that the pediatrician would have run the blood test and it wouldn’t have shown enough levels to indicate anything at all! We’ll get her on thyroid meds soon and it will open up her cognitive abilities in addition to running her body well.

We headed downstairs to the lab for our blood work. Matt went first again to show Anya how it was done. However, he got faint, fell over on the bar that goes in front of the chair and asked for the trash can to vomit in. So, the Phlebotomist suggested I leave the room with Anya. I was holding Anya and she began looking into my eyes with fear and saying, “Nyet” over and over. I kept gently saying “yes” and finally I told her in Russian that “the doctor says yes.” She shook a bit but let the 7 vials be drawn with great courage. She of course tells the story of how much of a baby Matt was and how brave she was! I was thrilled that she learned to turn to me as a comfort in during her fear and didn’t isolate herself to deal with it.

Her translator friend gave her a stuffed monkey to hold for when Anya misses her and she began calling us all monkey (mon-KA-ka). Dave called her Anya mon-KA-ka and I said in Russian, “No, Anya’s not a monkey, she’s a girl!” She very firmly replied in Russian, “I am a woman.”

For Christmas with my family, we drove down to Torrance and Anya enjoyed the day with her relatives. She was ever so thankful for her gifts and is the proud new owner of a Nerf gun, Irish fairy necklace, some clothing (that fits!) and a Leapster.  The thing that sticks with her the most is my sister’s very old Mastiff, Dempsey. Anya was telling us over and over how bol-SHOY  (big) her paws, legs, tail and body are. 

Anya carefully petting Bolshoy Dempsy

They also had a jam session, werid scenario number one: (Scott plays the accordion and learned a new song that I remember my mom liking. I asked him to bring it to play for her.) While playing a different song, Greg joined in on the piano (which he doesn’t play), Matt joined on the drums (which he doesn’t play) and Anya on the guitar (which she doesn’t play). I filmed it with Matt’s lens and it wasn’t the kind with auto focus and I forgot, so it is completely blurry (boo!), but I love it none the less. Later Scott played the other song for my mom and Anya joined him on the guitar again and had a very serious look on her face. She moved she hands up and down the neck like she really knows what she is doing.

Song for Nana.

We stopped by the firehouse on the way home to see Dave and Anya played in the racquetball court with her father. The boys were in the exercise room with me as I watched Anya in the court through the big window. Weird scenario number two: all three boys are using the exercise equipment yelling, “Mom! Watch!” or “Look!” but they are 25, 20 and 17! It struck me as odd that I was trying to watch my new daughter, the one who only had a mom for 10 weeks, and these other three, hopefully well adjusted boys, are clamoring for my attention. Comment from the 25 year old, “Well Mom, you know that when a new child enters the family, the other children feel neglected and need attention.”

We got home around 5:30 and I threw together a pre-heated prime rib, mashed potatoes, gravy and my Christmas salad for me, Anya, Scott and Matt. While I was preparing it, as quickly as I could, Anya asked for macaroni (and cheese). Happy Christmas and thanks for the memories Mom-I just want macaroni and cheese!! She switched from bread and butter and milk last week to eating whatever was served and now has a preference for mac and cheese. I had to make an emergency run to the store to get some. Not milk, nor eggs, nor bread nor butter, but macaroni and cheese. She even asks for it for breakfast!

I also have given the kids pj’s and an ornament on Christmas Eve for years, so I found Anya pair of Snoopy pajamas since she loves him and the Charlie Brown Christmas show.

That night I threw some blankets on our bed and put Anya there to fall asleep and later I found her collapsed, face down, almost in the position you are when you make a snow angel. She was WIPED out. No one told her that the next morning was Christmas and that she was supposed to wake up early all excited. Greg had asked what time he should come over that morning and I told him 8 or 8:30. He arrived at 8:01 and we were all still sleeping! Dave was force hired to work Christmas Day, so we would open presents without him and bring them to the firehouse to show him and we’d eat our Christmas dinner there. We told Anya about the big dinner several days before and she kept telling people about the bol-SHOY ye-DAH (big food) all the way up until Christmas. Scott brought Anya’s scooter in to the apparatus floor at the firehouse so she could ride it around while we were still at the dinner tables. You could see the heads of all the manly fireman eagerly turn to watch her and you could feel the stillness in the air of people watching as she rode around on her scooter. It was really sweet. That night, it took me two hours to calm her down for bed! She has had been pretty tired for the last two days trying to get over all the stimulation, but she is making really good choices when asked to choose to eat this or do that.

 Anya with her brothers on Christmas.

 The "serious look" photo.

 Tricking Grandma with the "which hand is the quarter in?" trick.

Yesterday I took Anya to Target for some clothing that both fits and that she actually likes. She still starts to melt down in Target, I guess it is still too much stuff for her, but she rode in the cart and pointed at clothing she liked and made a disgusting sound for the ones I showed her that she didn’t like. Some awesome friends gave us Target gift cards for her and she was able to get some feminine-ish clothing that really fits her well. I spent part of yesterday hemming the pants and pajamas for her and she was genuinely thankful as she told me thank you.

A few remnants of the parts I cut off of Anya's new clothes 

in order to hem them!

Scott bought his shirt the day before Anya chose her matching one at Target. As soon as she picked it out, I knew what she was up to!!

Mind you, this journey for her is not all an easy path and she has a lot of grief to process. I was wisely told by a psychologist that adopting a child from a hard place means you are instantly a grief counselor and that based on her life circumstances, she will be profoundly sad. Just as an angry person can be set off by a mild incident and all the anger seems focused on that one thing, so it is with the grief. And it either is felt as anger or sadness. It is good to see so much growth but is it usually preceded by something sad happening and us working through it (the boys are especially awesome with her when she is overwhelmed, they even offer to give me a break when they see me being worn down). Off to calm the girl. I took the squirt gun away since she was squirting it in the house after being asked not to…and it might just be the end of the world as we know it.

~Monica

Just Like Home-Snow in the Winter.

Dave’s brother and his family live in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and it was their turn for hosting Christmas this year, so it was to the snow we went. Luckily the snow wasn’t bad on the way up and we were wondering if it would snow at all while we were there since it looked like it would rain instead. The first morning we woke up to a couple of inches of snow and the second day, twice that much, just for Anya. She loves it and runs at super fast speed and slides in this weather. In Moscow, we did buy her a pair of winter boots so I figured they would have the best grip and apparently between her skill and the new boots, all is safe and good. Our little Russian, who is quite resourceful, adorned the snowman she and Scott made with twigs to make hair and arms. Scott also took Anya out to ride saucers down the hill and he was impressed with her determination and level of adventure. Oh the stories she told all of us after coming inside from her sledding trips.

It was a bit sad before we came up to Hume, because Anya thought that we were moving up here, not taking  a trip and was very worried about leaving Chico and her new friends. Some tears ensued until she understood it was a trip only. 

 A little work on the laptop with Papa before we left.

 

 A stop at Bravo Farms in Fresno to eat and pet the animals on 

the way to the mountains.

She told Dave all about how she was going to make a bolshoy (big) snowball and toosh (the sound made by throwing something or kicking a ball), throw it at Mama. So they concocted a plan which I knew meant I had to be hit by a few snowballs. Like I’ve said before, she and the ball are one and the ball and I are not, so she got me plenty of times. Anya also loves animals and the first night she here, she got a little prick in her hand from one of the cats but since has made friends with that one (which includes brushing him) and has even has coaxed the shy cat out from hiding for a petting session. 

The greatest thing I am enjoying is watching her being able to play games. She has basically learned Uno and War and is incidentally learning the English words for the numbers and colors at the same time. I just love that her attention can be held for the length of a game and it is satisfying to see evidence of her intellectual growth. Another one of her favorite things is sleeping in the loft on the bottom of one of the bunk beds with the older kids. Today she found out that we will open gifts later and I showed her one of the gifts for her to clarify what will happen later. She said three times in English with great joy, “Oh! Thank you very much, thank you very much!” A few other phrases that others have taught her are, “Nice to meet you”, “Merry Christmas” and a very clear and loud “You’re Welcome”. Plus she still loves to sing the phrase “Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow” and has learned even more of “Jingle Bell Rock.” We all now know that the Russian word for snow is “sneg” since we heard all about it when the snow began falling. We’ll decorate cookies, open gifts and have our Christmas dinner later today. 

 "This one?"

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I don’t know if I’ve mentioned Anya’s strong and quick task work ethic, but she’s got one and she’s got it good. The cookie decorating session turned into Anya’s cookie factory as she put sprinkles on all the frosted cookies that I could throw her way. She jammed through it and wasn't interested in eating any. She looked at us like we were crazy for doing so.

Anya was thoroughly thrilled that her relatives gave her gifts for Christmas and kept thanking everyone and hugging them too. I thought ahead and realized that since she is big about sharing that I’d better have gifts that she made to give others. She was able to give Dave’s mom an ornament that she painted and it has a spot for a photograph as well. She loved her matrioshka (Russian nesting doll) glass ornament and the watch the best. The morning after getting the watch she was in Scott’s face, while he was in bed, tapping on her watch telling him it was time to get up.

As Dave predicted, Anya was sad about leaving the mountains to go home. The easy main road was closed from rock slides and we had to take the road my sister-in-law calls “throw-up country” and both Anya and I were nauseous from the ride!!

More Christmas to come with my side and then our own family. I’m so glad this first celebration was limited in its crowd size and gift amount. She really did well at taking it all in. So proud of her!

A photo of some of our family in the mountains for Christmas.

L to R: Scott, Dave, Monica, Anya and Matt

Thanks to Matt and Michele (and Tom) for some great pictures!!

~Monica

Some of the oddities of immersion.

So, I just got back from an hour and twenty minute drive with Anya. She had previously been having a hard day and it suddenly all passed and she was happy and asking for a ride in the car. We headed to nowhere in particular and she asked for the music to be put on, Jingle Bell Rock specifically. I gathered that the commands she yelled at me in the beginning were “sing” and “stop singing” since she and Dave were taking turns singing in the car the day before. 

I just listened to her singing that song for 80 minutes straight, and since the song is 2:12 minutes, I figure that’s about 40 times. She sang it EVERY time and I am so thrilled she is learning such useful phrases like “What  a bright time, it’s the right time, to rock the night away,” and “Jingle around the clock” as I am sure they will serve her well in the future. We got home and the song was over so I said, “Bye bye, Jingle Bell Rock” and she pouted. I really don’t know how much longer she would have sung. Her other favorite is Let It Snow. If you listen carefully there is a good pattern of words ending in the long “o” sound followed by “Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow,” so she gets it right every time. I told her in Russian that it meant “please snow” and she thought that was really funny and will often sing her rendition which is “Let it snow, let it snow, Papa (or whomever) let it snow.”

People think I am so fluent in Russian when they hear me talk with her, but all I am really doing is stringing together English with a few Russian nouns, adjectives and poorly conjugated verbs. The other day we were in a throng of people, and not liking to hold my hand in public, I spoke to her in Russian and grabbed her hand. A friend commented about how great my Russian is when all I literally said was, “many man, woman” and grabbed her hand. Obviously the idea gets across, but trust me, my Russian ain’t as great as it sounds. It’s all a ruse.

Anya is losing a bit of her Russian which must happen for awhile in order for her to learn English and apparently I am losing some of my English as well. Matt pointed out to me the other day that I said “forgetski” to him, which is neither English nor Russian. One of my favorite things to hear Anya say in her deep throaty voice (when Dave comes home from work) is, “Oh!! HUH-lo Papa!!”

She is insane and intense when it comes to sports. We visited Dave again and played on the racquetball court and she was all in. And how did she manage to hit me with the ball three times on the second bounces? Maybe it’s because I don’t move and I just close my eyes? One of them came almost from the ceiling and landed right on the top of my shoulder next to my ear!! She loved it of course, but also apologized over and over. 

Note the faces in the pictures below...

She loves doing headstands, without her hands!

Anya has a couple of friends her age already and it proves to be great bargaining power when she isn’t in the mood to obey. She loves the neighbor family around the corner and they love her, so we try to see each other every day.

Poor Anya thought we were moving when we told her we were going to visit relatives in the mountains for Christmas. She was worried about leaving Chico and her new friends. She told our translator she didn’t want to go, but we got it all straightened out, her fears subsided and after asking to see pictures of their house, she is excited now.

The friends around the corner have Anya for a half and hour so I can get this typed up and posted (I poop out at bedtime) so I’d better go rescue them!

~Monica

Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toast, Knees and Toast…

Yes, being quite a mimic, Scott teaches Anya phrases when she is in her leaning mode.  Earlier that day she was frustrated that we didn’t understand she wanted her bread toasted so we taught her “toast” and she learned it well. So, of course that evening when Scott was taught her “head and shoulders, knees and toes” she heard it as “head and shoulders, knees and toast, knees and toast”.

There is another funny thing she says too. Scott taught her that same night, “I don’t speak English.” She came out and said it once, then it turned into “I… don…spenglish!”

Anya got to meet all of her cousins, but somehow we only got pictures with the two teen cousins, two and three years older than her.She was quite the teenager while they were here. We went to the park and she nailed kicking the soccer ball. She zeros in on it and runs toward it and bam, kicks it straight on. Even is she were from my gene pool, I’d have to say she didn’t get that from me. I cringe and duck for cover when a ball comes my way. We also visited Dave at the firehouse and played with a handball on the racquetball court. Same drive and determination-throw your body down to get the ball. To me, that is a completely foreign idea!

Anya and two of her ten cousins.

On the drive to the firehouse, I had a local radio station playing Christmas songs and Anya seemed to be just staring out the window and not really paying attention to anything else. I heard a newer rendition of “Last Christmas, I gave you my heart, the very next day, you gave it away.” I don’t even know the title or who originally sang it, but I kind of liked this newer rendition by the cast of Glee (I am Showtunes lover, so I like the way they sing some of their songs, but have never actually seen the show). On the way home, the original version of the song, which I don’t consider classic Christmas song at all by any stretch of the imagination, began playing. I heard this soft addition to the song and looked in the rear view mirror to see Anya, in the sunglasses I bought in Riga, Latvia and look a bit like cat’s eye glasses, singing, “This Christmas……..give it to someone special, special.” It was so funny and also sad for this idealistic mother’s heart that the first Christmas song she chose to sing was that one! Later, I heard her singing to herself, “Jing Boo, Jing Boo” which by the tune a similarity of words must have been “Jingle Bells”.

Anya gets tired from all the new stimuli and sleeps a good 10 ½ hours a night. She loves to eat bread with butter and milk still and I can’t believe how quickly we go through those items.

Last week Dave’s brother was in an accident and had a major head trauma, requiring the ER to do an induced coma so he could rest and heal instead of thrash around. I had the translator tell Anya that her uncle was in the hospital and that Mama needed to go there for three hours to be with her aunt. Matt and a dear older friend who lived in Russia for three years stayed with Anya, but she was quite concerned when I got back. We called the translator again who told her that her uncle had very bad headaches and Anya told her that he needed to take his temperature and take all his medicine from the doctor. She was very concerned, but now things are better and he is walking and talking and actually coming home today!

That’s all for now as we are getting ready for our first trip to the pediatrician-could be fine or could be…interesting! I told her we were going today and she put on her “I’ll buck up and do it” face.

 Anya with Dave's mom and my parents.

Helping Dad with the Christmas lights.

At the airport visiting Dad at work with Mom and Chico.

Pretending to be a patient in Dad's helicopter.

 Driving the golf cart with Dad and Chico at the fire station!

~Monica