One big, happy family :)

This video would be WAAAAAY funnier if I had pulled the video camera out 10 minutes sooner. Trey loves his new brother and sister so much, he doesn't even care if they jump on him all night as long as they are happy.

Ana was jumping on him for a long time and laughing hysterically. Of course, by the time I started recording it had sort of lost its appeal. I still think it's a funny video.

A World of Firsts

Oh, what the world must look like through the eyes of our babes. Everything is a new adventure. Who knew the world was this big...and this FUN?!?!?!

A glimps into my morning

My days are best illustrated through story. Here was my fun morning adventure:

Luke and Trey have been fighting non-stop. I was heading to time-out with Luke (with him screaming and hitting me all the way), and on my way I found Ana banging a metal car against the window. So, I strap Luke into his time-out seat, pry the car from Ana's hands, and turn around to find Sasha sitting in his little Fisher-Price music chair LICKING AN EMPTY YOGURT CONTAINER HE PULLED FROM THE TRASH!!!!

By the time I get him cleaned up and Luke out of TO, Ana has found something else to throw/bang, and as I take that toy away and try to redirect her I find Sasha closing himself in Trey and Luke's room trying to pull the night-light out of the wall.

HELLO NEXT ROUND OF "BABY-PROOFING"!!!

No wonder I'm exhausted at the end of the day.

Anne Sullivan I am not!

Trey

Sasha

Ana

Luke

The Hagler Kids

Here are some of the questions I have been getting lately:

DO YOUR KIDS SPEAK ANY ENGLISH?

No! Both children are basically non-verbal. Sasha understands Ukrainian (too bad we don't speak it!), and it is difficult to know what Ana understands. Sasha is picking up English, and I can tell he is beginning to understand some of what we say to him. He is rapidly picking up signs and is a VERY fast learner.

HOW DO THEY EAT/SLEEP?

GREAT!!!! Both kids eat their body weight in food at every meal. They are on the same schedule here as they were at the orphanage (just a coincidence that I keep the same schedule in my home). They nap and sleep very well. We do our bedtime routine and I walk out of the room and don't hear a peep until nap is over or until morning.

HOW ARE ALL THE KIDS GETTING ALONG?

They are doing well. Trey and Luke love their new brother and sister and generally love to help out with them. Luke is a little needy at times, but he was before "his" space was invaded anyway (he has some new teeth coming in). No, they don't play together. Sasha and Ana do not yet understand how to play with other children. Sasha plays independently, and Ana doesn't even understand how to play. I try to engage her regularly, but she has little interest at this point. We are working on it, though.

WHAT IS LIFE LIKE WITH 4 KIDS AGE 5 AND UNDER?

There is never a dull moment! At any given time there could be 2 kids crying (whenever 1 kid crys, compassionate Ana joins in), a few kids asking for help with something, someone who's hungry, 1 or 3 kids needing diaper changes, a phone ringing and a meal half cooked waiting for me to finish it. It is not bad; it just requires patience (more than I have at times) and a lot of organization. I used to have to be 1 step ahead of things, now I need to be about 3 steps ahead. I have to know exactly when I am going to feed the kids, what they will be eating, when I need to begin preparing it, exactly what time will be bath time, who needs a bath, where everyone's PJs are, etc. I have to anticipate all needs and wants of 4 kids in order to avoid meltdowns.

WHAT HAS BEEN THE HARDEST THING?

In a word: Ana. She is the sweetest, prettiest girl you could ever meet. However, in the orphanage they loved her, but expected very little of her. She is difficult to engage. She would rather stare at her reflection in the stove or bang a toy against her cheek to feel the vibration than look you in the eyes or play with a toy in the proper way. All of her meltdowns revolve around food. She must have been severely overfed in the orphanage. She gets to a point of being inconsolable if I stop the flow of food to her mouth at any point. In the orphanage, we taught her to sign "more", so I know she is capable. When I feed her she whines incessantly, which is so hard for me to deal with. She whines because even though her mouth is full of food, she wants another bite. I have been working on getting her to sign "more" at mealtimes, but she gets so upset and just breaks down. More than once I have had to remove her from the table because I refuse to give in to her. My patience wears thin with her on a daily basis, and it sucks because none of it is her fault.

WHAT DO YOU NEED?

Arms like an octopus, 5 more hours in a day, the patience of a saint, and a lot more cappuccino!

But since those are not things you can help me with, PRAYER! God has provided for all of our physical needs in an overwhelming way. Praise Him!!!

Home

Adoption: a Lesson in Love

This adoption journey has been many things: long, difficult, tiring, emotionally draining, and WONDERFUL! There have been many challenges along the way, but none so great as the challenge to love. Loving my biological children is easy. I know everything there is to know about them. Their habits, good, bad, and otherwise, were developed in our home. They love us back. How do you love somebody who does not love you back? I don't know for sure, but we are learning. Our children are at a point where I would fail to consider them "attached" in any sense of the word. I am not heartbroken by this or even discouraged. Think about their pasts for just a moment and ask yourself if you would want to attach to anyone. Ask yourself if you could be as strong and brave as these two sweet little ones. I don't think I could. Yet, our children find the courage to smile everyday, to make the best of their surroundings (even a 10 hour trans-Atlantic flight, that only gave way to about 10 minutes of Ana crying...for the WHOLE trip!!!!), and to try to love us the only way that they have been taught to: at arms length. Eventually the barriers will come down, and they will love us and we will love them as equally as Trey and Luke. For now, we seek God's love for them, and pray that He will show them His love for us.

ARGH, Blogger!

I poured my heart out on this thing last night, and Blogger ERASED it (along with many of your comments on our Gotcha day). Now I can't upload pictures :(

Stay tuned for more soon, though.

GOTCHA!

Gotcha day: a monumental day in any adoption. The day that you get to walk through the orphanage gates, child/ren in hand, never to return. It is a day that you dream about and you wish for it to come sooner.

TODAY IS OUR GOTCHA DAY!!!

The weather was a strange mix of sun and rain. As we walked to the orphanage, it was drizzling. We trekked the short distance with 2 strollers filled with champagne, chocolates, cookies, and of course diapers and clothes. We stopped by the orphanage lawyer's office and dropped off a box of chocolates to thank her for her help with paperwork, and then we headed to Ana's room. All of the kids were still asleep, but they woke Ana for us. We dressed her in PJs for our long train ride in the evening. We left champagne and chocolates for the nannies and convinced them to trade us shoes. The ones I brought for little miss chunky toes were too small :) The nannies were very sweet and bid Ana good-bye with a few "paka"s and some blown kisses.

Next we headed down the hall to Sasha's room, where his groupa was also still asleep (nap time was scheduled to be over in 5 minutes--it wasn't like we came in the middle of nap if you are wondering). They woke Sasha to bring him to us. He was groggy and whining, but when he saw us in the doorway his whimpers turned to smiles and laughter. He immediately sat down for us to begin dressing him (also in PJs). Right before we left one of our favorite nannies walked in for her shift. She kissed him good-bye, and we left the champagne and chocolates for the nannies and the cookies for the kids. One nanny chased us out the door with a snack for the road for Sasha...so sweet :)

We walked outside to find the rain had disappeared and sunshine had replaced it! We hurried through the gates (secretly hoping the guard would try to stop us) and walked back to the apartment.

First order of business: a bath. That orphanage smell HAD TO GO!!! I expected the bath to be a disaster, but they both loved it! After bath we had time for a quick snack (yogurt) and a few moments to play with Malika and Justus (our underage roomies). Then Roman arrived to take us to the train station.

We are presently en route to Kyiv with 2 knocked-out kiddos :) For the record, Ana is a tummy sleeper, and Sasha sleeps with his fingers clasped, eyes slightly open at times.

I'm looking forward to learning everything about them, not as some lady who shows up during visiting hours, but as "mommy".

Love from the Ukrainian countryside!

Lindsay

Happy Victory Day!

Ukraine is a country of holidays (and gifts). I think we would be home at least 2 days sooner if it wasn't for all these holidays.

Today is Victory Day, the day the Germans surrendered to the Soviets in WWII. There are lots of people having picnics in the "park" (I don't even know what else to call the area), the orphanage is full of parents and grandparents visiting their children, and we were told there will be fireworks later.

Our kids are still doing great, just one more day of visitation before we grab them for life ;) I think us being gone for a few weeks was good for Sasha (from our vantage point). It didn't feel like he was attaching last time we were here. It felt more like we were handed an uncaged lion and told, "good luck". He whined when he didn't get his way, tried everything to get into trouble, and never seemed to mind when we took him back to his groupa. But now, he just wants to be with us. He doesn't care if we are just sitting down outside or playing. He doesn't really try to misbehave any more, and he rarely crys. The most crying he does is when we take him back to the groupa. He scrunches himself up into a ball so that we cannot change his clothes, cries, and makes his body go limp when we try to put him in the room. It makes me sad to leave him but so happy that he wants to be with us.

I know so many of you are eager to know what is going on over here and when we will be home. So I will do my best to answer what I imagine you are asking :)

Our kids are great, but they still reside in Baby House 1*. We were told that it would be wise to keep them there until we are ready to head to Kyiv. There are many reasons for this, just a few of which are: we currently have 7 people living in a tiny 2 bedroom place (Gary and I share a couch, with no room to spare), their little bellies are going to get a bit messed up with new foods, and we had a lot of running around to do in the beginning (much easier without little ones).

We are waiting on passports, which should be done in about 4 more days. We have train tickets for 4 to Kyiv on that same evening. We have an appointment at the embassy the following day and should be able to obtain our visas the day after that. The most exciting news is that we have booked 4 one way flights home for next weekend! :) Please pray that everything stays on course and we don't have to change our flights (a costly endeavor).

We have started trying to experiment with foods with the kids. So far we have tried bananas and flavored yogurt. Sasha did great with both. Ana ate about half of each thing. Sadly, she did not know how to bite or chew the banana! She caught on very quickly though. They are both struggling with the sippey cups. I have to take the valves out for them, and still Ana struggles. She mostly just lets it run out the sides of her mouth. If she keeps it in, she chokes on it.

Today Sasha almost made his escape plan a reality. He found a gap in the fence, and then he realized that his tiny little body might actually fit through it. SCORE! He had about half of his body through, with us watching and laughing all the way, when Gary decided to get a picture of him. Gary opened the walk-in gate to get on the outside to get his picture, and Sasha realized that that was a much easier route. He quickly pulled himself out of the gap and reached for the gate. But, alas, he was thwarted by mommy :(

He was also not so happy about me wiping his runny nose all day today, so when we went inside, he reached in my bag, pulled out a wipe, and "got me back" for all the nose wiping :)

As soon as we get to Kyiv we should have internet (Thursday), so I may be able to be in touch at that point.

If you need us before then:
Garyhagler@imsready.com

Paka!

*Baby House 1 is a good orphanage, by orphanage standards. There are many kind and loving nannies there. This is why we don't hesitate to keep our kids there for a few more days :)

Spring has sprung in the big U

Hey all,

Back in U, posting from the phone again (so don't mind the formatting).

It has been beautiful here this time. When we left last time it was cold and depressing, with rain nearly every day. But in two weeks time the sunshine and warmth have found their way here :) And the packs of wild dogs have been replaced by random goats.

Our children are now officially Haglers! They have new birth certificates with their new names on them, and that name us as their parents. We got to take them out of the orphanage today to get photos for their passports :) Ana was a lucky girl and was treated to a special dandelion crown by Uncle Roman, and Sasha was digging the kids disco music Uncle Roman played for him in the car. Sasha was dancing and waving his little fingers in the air :)

It was a fun adventure. Passports should be done by mid-week, and then on to Kyiv for 2 days and home next weekend :)

Paka!

Why?

This large billboard was uprooted and tossed to the ground.

This hotel was reduced to a one story hotel.

This 150 ft. light post (and many more along the freeway) was snapped like a toothpick. The pictures you see were just at the fringe of the damage. We were unable to get pictures of where the major damage happened because the road was closed.

I have asked myself this question so many times over the last few days. Not, "why were there storms," or, "why did they do so much damage". No. I asked, "why did God save us?" I don't have the answer. Our town was destroyed by the tornado that came through. Our firehouse is missing its roof; gas stations, restaurants, and hotels were obliterated; houses were left in piles of rubble, yet somehow our subdivision was untouched. The tornado touched down 1/4 mile from our home and then tore through the town. We lost power for 26 hours, but that was it! It was as if God Himself placed a protective bubble over our community. But, I don't understand why. THere was not so much as a tree down in our neighborhood! I know that we are not worthy people. We are not worthy of our Savior, God's love, or His mercy. But for some reason He has shown it to us. We are devastated for those who lost homes, and more importantly loved ones. My emotions are so incredibly jumbled right now. I am relieved for my family, and saddened for our community and its people (along with all of the others across the South who were hit by this mass of storms), I am also shaken up by how close it came to us. Please pray for the families and the people who were not as fortunate as us. God bless you all!