Today I made borscht. A 10-gallon pot of it. Since we’ve been home I try to make a Ukrainian dish at least once a week. They seem to all appreciate it, or at least seemed to until today. None of them, except Vlad, wanted any of it and they are all crabby.
This is the life of adoption. Some days are good, a few days are very good and the rest are like having a 24/7 preschool with 3 year olds. Temper tantrums, pouting, yelling and just plain being mean. Today the 4 Ukraine teens walked in the door after school and it all started.
Mom: Glad you’re home, anyone hungry? I made borscht today.
Teens: Nothing
Mom: Hello? What’s up?
Vlad: What mom???? (annoyed tone of voice)
Mom: How was school?
Vlad: OK (still annoyed)
Mom: Are you hungry? Do you want some borscht?
Vlad: Yes, a little.
Mom: Does anyone else want some? Hello? Anyone?
None of the rest ended up eating any. I asked about a field trip that 3 of them went on today and got a “it was nice”.
Vlad and Anna left to go do parkour at the park and Yuri asked to go on the computer. I said no, it’s very nice outside and it’s the weekend, no one needs to go on the computer. You and Daniel go to the park with Vlad and Anna.
Ha! You would have thought I told them to clean the house and scrub the toilets to see their faces. They both ran upstairs and slammed the door to their rooms. I followed them up, opened the door and just quietly said, we don’t slam doors in this home. Currently they’ve been sleeping for two hours.
OK then. This parenting stuff is so much fun! This on top of two days of chaos. Our house almost burned down yesterday thanks to a guy cutting the wrong wire (or something) to install an upgrade to our internet. Thank Yahweh Tom was home and heard the pop and smelled the smoke. He ran outside first to make sure guy was still alive then realized the pop came from inside, down the basement. Smart man took the fire extinguisher and put out the fire then ran back upstairs and outside to dismantle the electric box so it didn’t re-ignite. Seriously had I been the only one home I never would have known to do that. So we were out of power and internet the past two days. Fun stuff!
The past 5 weeks have been full of adventures like this. Ups and downs every day.
We found out that Daniel had been abused by older kids early on in his stay at the orphanage. Kicked and hurt and just picked on. It explains a lot about him. Vlad had his citizenship appointment on Wednesday. All three new teens are in school as of today.