This Reminds Me

The kiddos have only two short weeks until school starts.  The hot weather will linger for months, but summertime is soon to end.  It’s our most expensive season of the year (babysitter, utilities, camps, etc.) but also the least stressed.   All of us enjoy their break from hustling out the door with backpacks in the morning, and the grind of homework in the evening.  No Scout outings, basketball practices, choir rehearsals or club meetings mean a whole lot more time to enjoy “human beings” as opposed to “human doings.”

Summer at Casa Woodworth means sleeping “wherever” and clothed in “whatever,” generally not in jammies, nor in your own bed.   Hannah prefers the den couch, cocooned in an Incredibles blanket, and attired in a comfy VBS T-shirt.  Vacation Bible School is always a summer highlight. We schedule all “away” time around it.  Her shirt references Psalm 25:4 - ”Show me your ways, O Lord, teach me your paths.”  it’s good to be reminded of His paths, because most around here lead to the fridge.

I’m psychic.  On summer mornings, I just close my eyes, rub my temples, concentrate really hard and suddenly – shazam!  I have visions of what they had to eat after Keith and I went to bed.  Like last night, I divined they had popcorn (served from my mother’s ancient aluminum bowl) and soft drinks.  Aren’t I gifted?!  Notice the AT&T U-verse remote control.  You don’t know about U-verse? I predict that I’ll tell you all about it if you just ask me.

My mother always accused me of feeding my children dirt.  In the summer – that’s close to the truth.  We eat balanced meals on weekends, and maybe one night a week.  The rest of the time, it’s….ummm……”whatever you can find.”  Julia has developed strong preferences for Low Fat Sour Cream ‘n’ Onion Pringles, American cheese melted on toast, cherries, apricots and yogurt-flavored Special K cereal.  Julia likes to help in the kitchen, too.  Last night she asked me if this poor creature was one of her favorite characters – Chicken Little.  She laughed uproariously at this squawk of avian humor.  The bird exercised its right to remain silent.

Okay, so, maybe our food intake isn’t the most healthy in the summer, but our drinks….ahhhhh!   From Keith’s Route 44 Diet Cherry Limeade with extra cherries to Julia’s small raspberry “chai” (tea), Sonic does keep us hydrated.  Notice the small cross dangling from Julia’s neck.  She was sprinkled Russian Orthodox last year, and is quick to tell anyone she is “Krist-yon.”

Summer means lots of time at the Fiesta Texas water park, the neighborhood pool and Vicki’s pool.  We have grown into a “two bag family” – one mesh bag jammed with towels, the other stuffed with different flavors of sunscreen, goggles, pool toys, shampoo and conditioner.   When the girls were babies/toddlers, I always kept their diaper bags ready to walk out the door.  Now it’s the same with the swim bags.  Get home – clean them out (“Who left the cap off the Ocean Potion?”) – repack them.  By the end of swim season, they need to be hosed out on the driveway.  And then the driveway needs to be hosed.

Lois, Julia and Hannah often play sharks’n'minnows in the pool, plus chase each other.  They also like to take turns racing their poor old tired mother, I think mostly because they can beat the goggles off me every time, even when I’m given a head start.  Disgraceful, just disgraceful – they have no shame at all.

Last Wednesday night, I kept smelling something…ummm….”off” in the car while driving the kids to church.  Come to find out Julia didn’t want to shower after an afternoon of swimming, so, instead, Rachel sprayed her down with watermelon air freshner.  Uh-huh.

Our older goddaughter, Brittany, is visiting this week from Pearland.   Hard to believe she’s going to be a senior, and Rachel will be a sophomore.  We had to explain to friends and family that this was the summer “the Woodworths were staying home.”  With Keith and I both working, we needed points of continuity for Julia.  Rachel, Lois and Hannah agreed, and voluntarily forewent a week with my niece Sarah, a week with Keith’s parents, a week with the Edwards (Brittany’s family) and various camps.  They also understood that Keith has only two days off from work for the rest of the year (think: emergencies), so we could spend only a weekend at the beach house. We are thankful everyone understood.  Keith’s parents, the Watsons and the Edwards have all visited this summer, and Judy and Sarah are planning to come in September.

Keith and I recognized from our very first discussions about adopting that how well our “new girl” did with Rachel, Lois and Hannah was as important as how she did with us.  Two years ago this month we first spoke to them about what we believe God wanted us to do.  In fact, after we talked to them, I took them to the pool, where we ”what if’ed” and “do you think” and “what about’ed” for about two more hours while bobbing in the water.

When we started the adoption process, there was no way to predict “who,” or even “when.”  We didn’t know there was a four-year-old girl being moved from Baby Home #9 to Children’s Home #47 in St. Pete.  We didn’t know that she’d be made available for international adoption in November 2005, shortly after Buckner began establishing a relationship with that orphanage.  We didn’t know we’d meet her on Valentine’s Day, or spend Mother’s Day in Moscow with her.

We didn’t know how this summer would go.  We knew we needed to be with her all that we physically could be, and we have.  At least one of us – usually two of three of us – have been with her 24 x 7 since we arrived home May 18.  We knew we needed to work with her on English, and we have.  Thanks to her sisters, she has proclaimed, “Mama is a s*xy beast” loudly in the grocery store, and everyone in her Sunday School class now knows that “Papa is a cutie with a booty.”  She can count to about 25, and sing the ABC song.   She’s mixing English and Russian constantly now, and actually corrected Keith in English last week when he spoke to her in Russian.  She loves puzzles, and coloring, and going anywhere at any time in the car.  Today in morning worship, she insisted we cross the sanctuary to hug our much-loved summer babysitter, Catherine.

Juia has done better so far than we had any right to expect.  And a great deal of her progress is due to the acceptance, affection and attention of Rachel, Lois and Hannah.  Does that mean we won’t have any problems with her in the future?  I don’t know.  I know she sometimes visibly misses her friends in Children’s Home #47 when she sees their pictures (we have several scattered about) or watches video of them.  Will she regret losing contact with them?  I don’t know.  Will she do well academically?  What’s in her genetics?  Will she be proud to be an American?  I don’t know, don’t know, don’t know.

She made the bigger sacrifice coming here, not Keith and me.  We left Russia with suitcases of “stuff” we owned to return to a home we owned and children we loved.  She left Russia with only a cheap metal cross on a string knotted around her neck and an inscribed book of fairy tales from her orphanage director to come with two people she didn’t know to a home in a country she didn’t know filled with three sisters she didn’t know.

We were returning to the familiar.  She left everything – and everyone - she knew.

There’s so much we didn’t know, she didn’t know and that none of us know still.

But I know this:  We’ve had the most unusual – and rewarding – summer of our lives.  And I couldn’t be any more proud of my four kiddos.

The end.

Julia got her first software tonight – Adventure Workshop Preschool.  I think the real adventure has been Rachel and Lois showing her how to click out and color her name – repeatedly.  When Lois was “summoned” upstairs to Hannah’s work station for the umpteenth time and announced, “No more!,” Julia replied with an equally indignant, “Okay – fine!”

Yes, that is a cow cloth on the work station.  Hannah is our “Moo Girl” who collects and decorates in all things bovine.  Julia spotted those Power Ranger pajamas in the Disney Store on Saturday, ran to them, clasped them to her chest and crooned, “Oh, I love you so much!”  Forget Little Mermaid or Tinkerbell or Princesses – only Power Rangers would do.  Did she need new pajamas?  No.  Did her sucker mother buy them anyway?  Yes.  (sigh)

Lois – who blogs and creates online identies for various anime sites – recently produced this drawing for posting to her Gaia online profile.

I thought this sketch was really good – and look, the hair is all one color! Amazing!

Every now and again, one of the girls will whine for a dog, to which I always respond, “I don’t do maintenance items that don’t call me ‘Mommy.’”  But instead, now I think I can say – “A dog?  Huh?   You’ve already got a mouse.”