Slava Went to Church!

It was the first time in 8 weeks that I'd been to church which seems so strange to me. I thought I'd have my emotions under control since I'm not one to cry, however since Ukraine I find my emotions creeping up on me often. I was fine until the worship team began "O Holy Night" that song gets me every time since we were in Ukraine 4 years ago. We sang that song in church on Christmas Eve when my kids were all back home without us. Now whenever I hear it the tears come. Then we did the song "How Great is Our God" and that was it, I was done. Everyone loved meeting Slava and thought he was another Jordan. Since he loves music he did very well during worship, then I took him into the nursery and stayed with him there. He did very well I think because it was a small confined room and he prob felt save. Our house is pretty big with wide open spaces which he is not used to. Also, my pastor's daughter, Laura, was in there and she's been a missionary to Ukraine for over 15 years. She chatted with Slava and he liked talking with her. And he was fine around the little children. I didn't start him in Sunday School yet, I figured the nursery was a good place to start with him until he settles in. There are mostly toddlers in there right now anyway.

Slava's latest obsession is the vacuum cleaner. He can now say "vacuum" and wants to use it all the time. He seems more interested in things that are not toys then in real toys. My mom has an old school dust buster and she just brought it for him to have for a while. At first I though it was a brilliant idea, however now he's got to learn how to wait while it charges. He lets it run so long that it dies out and he gets upset and doesn't understand the wait. It's turning out to be more of a headache than a brilliant idea.

Over all we are seeing mild improvement as he settles in. As I've been reading up on attachment and bonding I can tell he is not suffering from attachment disorder issues, just typical adoption adjustment issues. We are very thankful. We're confident that as the days, weeks, and months wear on that he will bond, adjust, and settle in as well as the other kids have. Andrii (now almost 14), Anna (11), and Jordan (7) all have adjusted amazingly well. It seems as if they've always been part of our family and they've only been here 4 years as of January! When we arrived home with them our house was even under construction as we'd been in the middle of putting an addition on our house prior to going to Ukraine. I seem to have forgotten how difficult it really was in those early days! So this gives us hope that "this too shall pass" and our little guy will be going with the flow in time.

Wednesday Slava will see our pediatrician. I was going to wait until after the holidays since he'd had a physical and blood work prior to coming home. But along with that naughty "peeskah" word he's been indicating that his "Peeskah boo-lah" which means boo boo. I'm not sure what's going on, so we'll see the doc on Wed.

That's it for now. My big kids are baking Christmas cookies and Slava is busy vacuuming. This is shaping up to be a pretty good day!