I have decided to return to the world of blogging. Mostly because I talk to a lot of people who are adopting themselves and they are interested in hearing what my life is like. I have to admit that my life is quite interesting and since I like to write, I figure I might as well.
So I will begin here with a brief update on what most people are interested in: the 4 children who came to us by way of adoption. First, the baby. As many of you know, when we first went to adopt Vicka, we came home empty handed. As we landed in Atlanta from that trip, we got a call from Angie Spackman at the Adullam House in Wetumpka. She wanted to know if we had any interest in adopting Jalen. We had known Jalen since birth but he was not then available for adoption nor did we, at the time, have any notions of adopting an infant. So here we were after adopting 2 older children and failing at adopting another, being offered that infant who was now 3 years old. To make a long story short, we said yes; Jalen (whom we renamed Jay Marcus Davie) came to live with us in December 2009; we completed his adoption in August 2010; and we feel like he has always been a part of our family. He is quite the live wire; I have recently begun calling him Jay-Turbo; not only because he is a speedster but his emotions are pretty much on turbo power most of the time. He should count as 2 children at least. More on him in the days to come.
After we committed to adopting Jay, we got notice from Vicka that she had made a mistake in saying no and so we went back to Ukraine and adopted her again. She came home in April 2010. Since my last blog post in 2010 was an appeal for someone to adopt her friends, Vicka and Dima, I am happy to report that they are now living happily in a family only about 45 minutes from us. Our Vicka had the hardest time adjusting of all our Ukrainian children. She is more introverted and it seems like she spent the first 3 months here in her room. But she eventually came out and now we joke about those days. She went into 9th grade at a public high school and has been on the A-B honor roll every semester. The social adjustment has been harder. Being 17-18 in the 10th grade is proving to be a test.
Which brings me to Vitalik. When we went to adopt Vicka the second time we took Vitalik because we couldn't trust him enough to leave him here. He ran away; lived on the streets I guess for about 5 weeks but somehow we managed to get him home with us. Boy did he smell. But I digress. When we got him home we sent him to a wilderness therapy program in Georgia to detox and try to get it together. He was there about 8 weeks. We went and got him after he ran away thinking he could get home before my birthday. Yeah, I'm a softie. Vitalik had a great summer that year; had a full time job; started public school in the fall. Then about October, he bought a ticket to Ukraine with the money he had saved and he was gone! Just had to get it out of his system I guess. 6 weeks later he called and said "I know I can't live with yall anymore; I will live anywhere you put me; just please can I come home." Music to my ears. He told someone recently that the sweetest sound he had ever heard was when I said yes. We had a rough year after that but at present he is living in an apartment about 5 minutes from the house; we see him everyday so that we can still parent him and he has a full time job landscaping. He is 19 and I look at this like his college years. There are always bumps in the road but at least right now the road seems to be headed in the right direction.
Roman and the bio kids will get there own blog tomorrow. Until then.....
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