Wow! What a difference a year makes.
I was at the pool today with my toddler. My two older kids had headed off to an amusement park with my husband and his sister. My toddler was quite content to have his mommy all to himself for a change. As we entered the pool area I noticed it was a typical community pool. It had steps that we could walk down and numbers on both sides of the pool that progressed 3 foot, 4 foot, etc. and increased as the pool got deeper and deeper. My toddler was quite content to play on the step area and splash his feet in the water. The pool had several grandmothers in it as well as their grandchildren.
After playing on the steps for a while, my toddler started getting a little restless and started walking around the pool. He would point to the 3 feet sign and say “three”, he would walk some more and say “four” and then finally up to 8 (in the 8 feet section). After doing this quite a while, one of the grandmothers that was observing asked me how old my toddler was. I told her he was two years old. She looked at me and another person in the pool and pointed to my toddler and said he is a “Little Einstein”. She was so impressed with his counting and language knowledge. When she said this, I smiled and it made me think back to last year at this time.
You see, last summer in June, my husband and I went to meet our son for the first time. He was in an orphanage in Samara, Russia. We traveled half way (literally) across the world to meet him. He was 19 months old. We had traveled from Baltimore to Philly, then Philly to New York, New York to Moscow and then Moscow to Samara, Russia to meet our new son. When we got to Russia last year it was over 90 degrees and humid. Not quite the snowy and cold weather you think of when you envision Russia. When we arrived to the orphanage to meet our son, we waited patiently in a room for him to come in. One of the orphanage ladies’s brought him to us. Our son looked at us and started heading out of the room. He cried like their was no tomorrow (not uncommon for a child that age). It was definitely not love at first sight for him. We were crushed. My husband and I thought to ourselves “we traveled half way across the world to meet this child and he doesn’t even like us”. Soon after, the orphanage lady returned with a cookie to calm down our son. After his cookie, my husband and I got down on the floor and started playing with him. We got to see him for only a few hours for two days.
About 6 weeks later, we returned to Russia to bring our son home. English would be a second language to our son at this point. He had grown so much in that short of time. By now it was July and it was about 97 degrees and very humid. No air conditioning -- was it hot. My husband literally had sweat pouring off of him. We went to court in Russia and our son became officially ours. As we left our child’s clothes behind and put on his new clothes, we were ready to start our new life together. Ourselves and several other adoptive couples piled into a minivan and we were off to the airport. I held my son close to my chest and I could feel his little heart pounding very hard. He held on to me tightly and off we went to our new life together.
Now a year has gone by and my adoptive son has crossed so many milestones. He says “STOP” every time he sees a stop sign. He tosses pool rings to the other children in the pool. He points and says “French fries” when we pass his favorite fast food place. I just look back and say “Wow! What a difference a year makes.”
Robin Bartko
After playing on the steps for a while, my toddler started getting a little restless and started walking around the pool. He would point to the 3 feet sign and say “three”, he would walk some more and say “four” and then finally up to 8 (in the 8 feet section). After doing this quite a while, one of the grandmothers that was observing asked me how old my toddler was. I told her he was two years old. She looked at me and another person in the pool and pointed to my toddler and said he is a “Little Einstein”. She was so impressed with his counting and language knowledge. When she said this, I smiled and it made me think back to last year at this time.
You see, last summer in June, my husband and I went to meet our son for the first time. He was in an orphanage in Samara, Russia. We traveled half way (literally) across the world to meet him. He was 19 months old. We had traveled from Baltimore to Philly, then Philly to New York, New York to Moscow and then Moscow to Samara, Russia to meet our new son. When we got to Russia last year it was over 90 degrees and humid. Not quite the snowy and cold weather you think of when you envision Russia. When we arrived to the orphanage to meet our son, we waited patiently in a room for him to come in. One of the orphanage ladies’s brought him to us. Our son looked at us and started heading out of the room. He cried like their was no tomorrow (not uncommon for a child that age). It was definitely not love at first sight for him. We were crushed. My husband and I thought to ourselves “we traveled half way across the world to meet this child and he doesn’t even like us”. Soon after, the orphanage lady returned with a cookie to calm down our son. After his cookie, my husband and I got down on the floor and started playing with him. We got to see him for only a few hours for two days.
About 6 weeks later, we returned to Russia to bring our son home. English would be a second language to our son at this point. He had grown so much in that short of time. By now it was July and it was about 97 degrees and very humid. No air conditioning -- was it hot. My husband literally had sweat pouring off of him. We went to court in Russia and our son became officially ours. As we left our child’s clothes behind and put on his new clothes, we were ready to start our new life together. Ourselves and several other adoptive couples piled into a minivan and we were off to the airport. I held my son close to my chest and I could feel his little heart pounding very hard. He held on to me tightly and off we went to our new life together.
Now a year has gone by and my adoptive son has crossed so many milestones. He says “STOP” every time he sees a stop sign. He tosses pool rings to the other children in the pool. He points and says “French fries” when we pass his favorite fast food place. I just look back and say “Wow! What a difference a year makes.”
Robin Bartko
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