Losing her "Ruskey"

The Russian word for Russian is "Ruskey" and for English is "Englaskey"
Sometimes when I tell her the English word for something I will ask her to tell me the Russian word for it. So today we were going over our shapes, as I was telling her what they were, she was telling me what they were in Russian. Then all of a sudden when I pointed to the triangle, her face went blank. She said, "I don't know because I Englaskey, englaskey, englaskey, and now Ruskey I don't know!"
My poor girl. Everyone had told me around 3-4 months they lose their Russian. She has been home 2.5 months. This is upsetting to her. I told her when she got older we could relearn the Russian.

As her English gets better and better, she is able to tell me more and more about her life in Russian. Most is hard to hear. It is not like having a child from birth that you have been able to protect everyday. She had a totally different life before us. Most of what she shares with me we are keeping private, for her sake, just some things are hers to share when she gets older. But some things I will share, I know there are other adoptive parents reading this blog, searching for information or a sense of what this journey is like. You must prepare yourself that there will be things in their past, things that can effect who they are, their habits, their fears, etc...

Not even 72 hours post op...

and we are off pain meds!!! The timing of her pain meds, (tylenol with Codiene) was off yesterday, so come bedtime it was not anywhere near time for another dose. So I gave her some Jr. Motrin. This morning she "walked" to the bathroom with me holding her upright of course. She said, "mommy today it feels better." I replied, "yes, remember Mommy told you every morning it will be better, until one morning it will not hurt anymore." She said, "well a little better, not so much better" Mmmhmm, girl you are bearing your weight 3 days post op, I would say that is so much better!!
She can now long sit, with her legs straight out in front of her. Miraculous in the world of CP, and when she walks, although she is in casts, her heels touch the ground before her toes, brings tears to my eyes when I see it. We hope to be able to get her a walker today, she has to learn how to walk "normal" her mind and body is not used to it and neither are her muscles. Before she was bouncing off the tight heel chords, not really using her muscles to walk. She is determined to walk, she does not like sitting still.

Surgery Update

The first picture was taken the day after surgery. Those braces she has on are supposed to be warn for the first day then overnight until she is not curling her legs up while sleeping. We only used these braces for the first 9 days I think. Then I tried her without them, and when I went to wake her up her legs were stretched out as straight as a board-sweet success!!!
The second is the same day as surgery. Already you can tell the huge difference she could not sit with her legs straight out in front of her like that at all before. The white cotton on her thighs is covering the "incisions" there. 4 weeks after the surgery you cannot see the incisions at all, but you can see her skin pucker there when she is crawling, we just noticed this, no big deal, what a difference from the traditional method!!
Things went great, as to be expected. Dr. Yngve is the nicest surgeon I have ever met. He let me come back and stay with her till the gas had put her to sleep. This was a huge help becuase when they went to take her in, she started crying. He gives his CP patients a special type of anesthesia that wears off slowly so their muscles don't go into panic spastic mode when they suddenly wake up. She was upset the first couple hours, she wanted an explanation for each and every thing on her body. Over and OVER again. We were back at the hotel around 2:30. Periodically she would get herself worked up over the details like how will she go potty in the middle of night, or how will she play with her toys. They are allowed to start trying to bear weight and walk the next day, and she was all about it. With me holding her up of course. This morning she asked if she could try crawling, so she did that. Overall it is the most motivation I have ever seen in her. She will have her casts on for 4 weeks, then she will have AFOS, which are little leg braces. There is a lot of training to be done with her legs, muscles to be built up, etc... She will probably go to school with a walker at first. She is not happy the boys will start school without her for a week. I had wanted to homeschool her, but she got very upset about that. So we are going to try school. She will be in the first grade, just a grade behind her age. She is a fast learner. Her English is going great. Right now our favorite Anastasiaisms are "Ahh Mam" Anything that has man in it she puts mam in because she says she is a girl not a boy. It is so stinkin cute. She also says peep instead of peed, which is so funny the way she says it.

Friends, Beach, and Surgery, here we come!

We are making a little trip out of her surgery. We will stop in MS to stay with our very dear friends for several days. We were stationed with them in FL and we are so excited to get to spend some time with them, they just happen to be exactly half way to Galveston where A will have her surgery!! Then we will head to Galveston on Monday where we will introduce her to the beach and enjoy some family time before the start of school. I have had many long conversations with her about what is coming, and she seems very well prepared and ready.

This has been a very emotional week. The search for Anastasia's grandfather has opened up some very long conversations with Anastasia. She has shared with me the details of her mother's death. It is tragic and she witnessed it. I can't even type that without tears coming to my eyes for my daughter. She shared with me many other things over the past couple days, things about her life in Russia. Things that are not pretty.
The fact that she is sharing so much so soon is a good sign of her attachment and bonding with me. I feel privilaged that she trusts me so much. And today after we talked she asked if we could pray together, so that "the bad things would go out of her head" (so she would forget them)
We are sparing nothing to find her grandfather, she wants a picture of her "Natasha Mommy" (that's what we call her) She should have that and if she doesn't get it it will be hard for her, not just now but in the future. She crys saying that there were 2 boxes of pictures but they would not let her have them. She is so grown for her age. I do pray so hard for the healing of her mind and heart from these things she has been through and seen.

I had planned to homeschool her for several months, but she insists on going to school. Even though she knows she will have casts on her legs and that she will be put in a classroom with children younger than herself. She still insists on going. So she will probably miss the first week, then if she is walking alright she can go the following week. They did some testing at the school and we don't know yet if she will be in a kindergarten or first grade classroom. They said they know she will catch up so fast, based on what she has learned already, but without the "tests" to prove it they may not be able to place her in first. So we will see.
She has learned so much, she is very smart. And the girl who screamed 2 months ago when I was holding her in the pool can now swim across the pool by herself and even float on her back!! Watching her everyday is amazing.

Official Surgery Plans!

So up until now I have been going back and forth on the surgery. It is a lot making decisions for your child, I want what will be best for her, the VERY best. So after tons of prayer, research, talking with Gary, etc... We have decided to go ahead.
She will have her consultation on the 30th and surgery on the 31st, then we will spend one night there, and head home on the 1st.
I was concerned about our insurance covering the surgery, but the approval came through this morning, and we think they will have to pay travel expenses also. What a blessing to say the least.
If you are a prayer warrior, first of all we pray for her safety, we pray for her understanding that she knows we are doing what is best for her, we pray for her to be motivitated to help herself, she does not like to do her stretches and exercises. I try to explain to her that it is her body, I can stretch it for her, but I cannot build up her muscles for her. She has no self motivation. We are seeing slow improvement in this as she sees that she can accomplish things, such as swimming, standing up on her own, etc...
I have not been able to explain to her that she will not start school with the boys. I think she will be happy to have me to herself during the day. I mean I had Cody for 3 years by himself, and Cooper has had the 3 also while Cody was in school, I think it will help our bonding to have that time together.
She is learning so quickly, we see no signs that she is behind cognitivly. She has a great attention span, and loves to do the work. Her occupational therapist is helping me with a "method" of teaching her to write her letters that I think will help us along.
I'm going to post a lot of pictures in the next couple days, so stay tuned for those!!

My Friend

Today we are traveling north of Atlanta to visit with one of the other little girls from Anastasia's orphanage. She was adopted just months before Anastasia and they are good friends. This will be their first visit since being home. She is so excited. I'll post and let you know how it goes, I am super excited for her.

I'm Here

So after my last post we realized it was not a kidney stone, it was the flu, I was sick for 4 days, then Anastasia was sick for 2 hours, then Gary was sick for 2 days.
Ya, notice that Anastasia was sick for 2 hours, tough cookie, then she was mad that right after she vomited I wouldn't give her chicken nuggets. LOL
At the last minute Gary was able to take off work so we packed up, and drove overnight to Ohio to visit my family. The kids were marvelous in the car, both on the way there and on the way back.
Our visit was great, too short, and crazy busy, but great. Anastasia took to meeting everyone better than we thought she would. She told my Grandma that she was Hannah Montana and proceeded to sing and put on a performance! As always she more to the women, especially my sister and Aunt. On our last day there she turned to my sister and said, "Me, I love you" How precious! Some of her favorite things from the trip: tickles from Aunt Kelly and Uncle Dave, Feeding the fish with Grandma Alice and Papa Joe, Wrestling with Cousin Bryan, Flicking people with my Grandma, Going shopping with Nana Lyn and Aunt Jamie, and the sparklers and fireworks.

Some of my favorite things from the trip:
Her telling my sister she loved her,
Her running into the house exclaiming, "Look Mommy and Daddy at THIS, me found!" It was a pinecone!!
Her declaring she is Supermam, the female version of Superman.
She fell in love with one of my Grandma's dogs, she said the dog has "eyes like babydoll"

It was just a great trip, watching my family fall in love with our wonderful daughter just as quickly as we did. And it was some nice respite for me to have her attention off of me for a bit, I think it refreshed us both.

Oh, and I got to see the "book" my Grandma Alice made of my blog. Oh my goodness, it's huge, I would have never guessed it would be that big all printed out, I should have taken a picture. It was very sweet of her to do that, and everytime I post she prints it out and adds it to the book so my Papa can read it.