Part 2 of Today's Post

After three months' worth of convincing, Alex allowed Marisssa to cut his hair. Yipee! The mullet is gone!!! Doesn't he look American? Soccer ended, and everyone on the team got a trophy. Alex wants me to send this picture to Igor and Natasha so his friends at the orphanage can see his trophy. The picture was taken after church.
Zack's birthday was in March. Marissa threw him a surprise party in our basement. The laughter coming from downstairs was contagious.

The Engaging Month of March

I have been horrible about keeping up with my blogging and have resolved to do better.

A lot has happened this month. We received interesting and somewhat terrifying news (at least for a mother) from Eric the end of February. Apparently their base in Balad gets hit with mortar attacks on a regular basis. I guess this is a take-it-in-stride, no-big-deal occurrence! Eric says the base has automatic weapons that detect the incoming mortar and shoot them down so they can't do any real damage, but on a foggy day, the technology doesn't work so well. An announcement will come over the PA system, "Incoming, incoming." Then everyone gets down on their faces, and shortly thereafter they feel the ground shake. Lovely. He keeps telling me not to worry, that he's safe. Two young men from Utah stationed in Afghanistan were killed this month. I keep thinking about their mothers.

Dad is doing much better. He kicked the pneumonia. Yahoo. Now he can tackle the remaining issues, his heart and then the chemotherapy. He gets a new pacemaker/defebrilator next week (tentatively). Mom says he has been out walking and feeling quite remarkable considering he underwent major cancer surgery a few weeks back.

Note the title of this post, "The Engaging Month of March." It's not totally accurate as Gage and Emily got engaged February 26! They are busy planning, working, and going to school. Their wedding date is June 5 in the Salt Lake Temple. The groom's mother has it easy. We've already got the tuxes and luncheon arranged. But guess what? I'm also the mother of the bride, as Marissa and Zack got engaged yesterday, March 29. They are planning on the first weekend in September. My children are dropping like flies! We are pleased with both engagements and love our soon-to-be daughter/son-in-law.

We went to parent-teacher conferences for Quinn and Alex last week, my awesome little sixth graders. I'm thanking heaven for Alex's progress. His teachers praised him, saying he's performing like he's been here eight months rather than three. I have to give Michael a lot of that credit. They read 30 minutes every morning and then again at night. We are in the midst of missionary discussions. We started out with a sister missionary at Temple Square, but we quickly decided we wanted our other children to be involved, so now we're doing them at our home with the elders. Max, Zack's friend, is translating for Alex. Although Alex understands a lot of English, we don't want any misunderstanding. Last Sunday Max couldn't come, so we cancelled with the missionaries, and instead Zack and Marissa taught an Easter lesson. Alex is so receptive. You could see a light go on in his eyes about so many things. The spirit was so strong. Last night Alex said family prayer in English. He got his little 4-steps-of-prayer card out that the missionaries gave him and said almost a perfect prayer in English, remembering to thank and then ask. One thing he said that brought tears to my eyes: "Bless Eric come home."

Zack kept the boys busy on Saturday and Sunday making a movie with our Camcorder. They titled it "Fifty Pounds." (We had watched Seven Pounds the night before.) In the movie, Quinn accidentally kills Zack. He goes on an eating binge and gains fifty pounds. Alex plays the part of Quinn's dad. We all watched the "movie" on Sunday, and I haven't laughed that hard in a long time.

Today is Marissa's birthday. She's 22 years old.

Visit to Logan

We drove up to Logan after church on Sunday to visit my parents. Dad looked pretty good for having cancer surgery and then pneumonia for a long time. It was a really good day.
We took different pictures with a timed flash so everyone could be in the picture.

Video clips of the kids having fun at Grandma and Grandpa's.

I am behind on my blogging. (If anyone can explain to me why my computer is underlining all my typing, I'd appreciate it. I can't get it turned off.)

I wanted to journal what has happened to my cute Dad the last month or so. My dad is 83 years old and has had heart trouble since he was 50 or so. He's undergone two triple bypass surgeries during his lifetime and currently has a pacemaker. He has been feeling so tired lately, and Mom insisited on taking him to the ER about the beginning of February. They ran all kinds of tests on him and discovered he has a VERY leaky valve and that his blood count was dangerously low, which resulted in a colonoscopy to find out why. The colonoscopy unveiled that he has colon cancer. They operated on him about ten days ago and took out about a foot and a half of his lower intestine. It was a scary day. Operations on an 83-year-old with a bad heart are uncertain. All five of his children were at the hospital that day, along with Mom. He did amazingly well, but now is facing chemotherapy for the next six months. He seems discouraged, and on top of that, he has been suffering with pneumonia for the last week and can't seem to shake it with his antibiotics. We hope he will be able to go home from the hospital very soon. I think Mom is give out. I wish I lived closer so I could be there for them.

Here are a couple videos we took last Sunday of my stir-crazy children anxious for spring.

Here are a couple more pictures of Eric. He called this weapon an RPG. He said it's not loaded.

This is a personal armored carrier that he drives.

On Monday, President's Day, we went out to the West Desert to shoot. This has always been a favorite thing to do for my boys. I go along to try to be a good sport, but I can't understand the attraction. This is Alex, Patrick (friend), and Quinn with their eye and ear protection on.

Their favorite gun is the AK 47. I forgot to get pictures with that one. Oh, well.

The kick would send Alex back a step with each shot!

Alex's English is coming along. He says things like, "It's so cool," or "It's so fun," or "Are you kidding me?" or "What the heck?" The first time we heard, "What the heck?" we all burst into laughter. The first time we heard, "Holy crap," we all looked at each other and decided we needed to be more careful in our choice of words.

Alex's favorite words on Tuesday were, "I don't like school. It's no fun. No friends."

Or when doing homework, "I don't like this. Geez, Mom."

Or when being told Mrs. Benson was coming, "I don't like it."

Or when eating dinner, "I don't like this."

It seemed the "I don't like" and the "I don't want" just went on and on. Sometimes I wonder if there is anything about our family or house that he does like. About 8:00 p.m., I had had enough and said, "I know, Alex. You don't like anything." I went into Marissa's room, closed the door, and screamed, "Take me away!!"

This sent Alex into melt-down mode. He went to bed and would not talk to anyone. Next morning he refused breakfast and would not talk to anyone.

Come Tuesday evening, he had returned to normal. When he is "normal," he is very cute and endearing. For instance, last night at Scouts, he saved his ice cream treat to bring home to give to Michael because it was his birthday. I thought that was very sweet and thoughtful. This morning we saw him restrain himself from saying, "I don't like this" when we put breakfast before him. He simply took a few bites but didn't complain. My friend told me to think about the movie What About Bob? "Baby steps, baby steps."

A Collection of Recent Photos

Here are a few pictures of Eric in Iraq. This is some pretty impressive equipment. I'll add more pictures later when our computer is working right. It shut down on me while downloading photos.



Quinn received his Star at Court of Honor.

I can't take credit for all those merit badges, 25 to date. He has a great Scout leader.

Eric's gun arrived back home after a "recall." The boys had to have some pictures with it before we locked it away.

Working on the science fair.

Josh, Quinn, and Alex at Camp Klondike. This was Alex's first Scout camp, a nice cold one to break him in.

More science fair. At least the experiments tasted good.

Gage, Emily, Marissa, and Zack got free VIP tickets to a Jazz game. Emily's parents know the coach from the opposing team. Here they are, looking very short, with one of the team members.

This is Christmas Eve at the Salt Lake Airport, the night we brought Alex home.

A Christmas picture of Zack and Marissa

Quinn was in the group that represented Calvin Smith Elementary at Creative Pursuits.

We go the the Martin Luther King lunch every January. It's free. Michael does some legal work for the NAACP.

Alex having a melt-down. Was that mean to take a picture?

Alex and Quinn before school. This was Alex's first day of school in America.

Adoption is a Life-Changing Experience

So I took Alex and Quinn to school today because I had visions of them on the bus carrying their science display boards and everyone pulling and poking at their boards and all the pictures and information falling off onto the floor of the bus. I can't tell you how elated I was this morning to have those two projects leave the house today. I hope both boys are proud of their projects and can hold their chins up. Quinn mentioned to me yesterday that a few kids had said, "Oh, no. Science fair is due tomorrow, and I haven't started!" Oh, brother.

I wanted to share my thoughts on another incident that is bugging me. We got the boys to bed pretty late last night because of (you guessed it) last-minute touches on the science projects. After family prayer, I told them, "You have five minutes to be in bed. I'm going to come down in five minutes, and you better both be in bed." Note: Alex moves in slow motion. There is no hurrying this boy. The bus can be on the corner, and he is like the rock of inertia, especially when you're trying to get him to read, do homework, or something else he finds unpleasant. And going to bed is unpleasant for him, although it's one of my favorite activities.

Anyway I waited for five minutes and went down to their room. Surprisingly both boys were in bed. However, Quinn's bed and floor were covered with clean socks, underwear, and undershirts that looked like they had been thrown there. I said, "What's going on?"

Quinn said Alex had taken them out of Alex's drawer and thrown them at Quinn, claiming they were Quinn's. Alex's story was the same. He was very bothered by the fact that Quinn's stuff was in his drawer and said he threw them over on Quinn's side of the room. I asked him why he couldn't simply have said, "Quinn, I think these are your things. Here, I'll put them in your drawer for you." Alex responded by putting his blanket over his head and ignoring me. He then gestured with his hand that he wants a wall put down the middle of the room. I knew exactly what he meant because he's already talked to me about it before.

I said, "Oh, you want a bedroom of your own? Did you have your own bedroom in Ukraine?"

"No."

"How many boys did you share your room with in Ukraine?"

Silence.

"Wasn't it seventeen? Seventeen boys in one room in Ukraine?"

"Yes, but my friends."

"Quinn is your friend. Quinn is nice to you. Not only is he your friend, but he's your brother. "

With that, I left the room.

I wanted to say, "This was Quinn's room before it was yours, yet Quinn has never asked to put a wall down the center. All the toys you play with are Quinn's. Quinn lets you use everything he has and has complained very little. Do you think this has been easy for Quinn or anybody else in our family? Do you know he has agreed to share his life so that you can have one? Do you realize how much less time and attention he has from me and dad so that we can help you with your homework, help you learn English, help you read?"

Well, that's what I wanted to say, but I didn't. I'm still smoldering about it. Maybe I should have said it. Maybe it would make me feel better to pull out the ledger of expenditures made to give him a home and show him what it took. He would be blown away. Maybe I should have removed ALL of the socks, undershirts, and underpants from Alex's drawer and put them in Quinn's drawer so Alex could remember what life was like in Ukraine and realize what a blessing it is to have a surplus of those clean items.

Or maybe I should just let it die and try to realize that this all has been traumatic for him too, that he lost his friends, his country, his name, his language, and his routine life in one day. As poor as it seemed to me, it was his life as he knew it, and it disappeared in one day. I hope he and I both will learn the lessons to be gained from this life-changing experience.