Christmas Eve

It's our first Christmas with Galyna, obviously. The highlight for her so far is the Christmas tree. We were able to find an acceptable one this past Sunday at Home Depot of all places. The selection was slim, but that's what you get when you spend the bulk of your time since late November in Ukraine. She and her sisters decorated the tree up nicely, and now the presents are starting to appear. With all the snow, it finally feels like Christmas too!

Frankly, with the focus in Ukraine being on the adoption, we missed all the ramp-up to Christmas. It's the strangest feeling Christmas I've been a part of in that until this week, I've barely given it a thought.

It should be fun to watch Galya open presents that are FOR HER! I can't imagine she's had many opportunities in the past. Everything is so very new, and adopting in the holiday season accentuates the newness of everything. It makes cramming in last-minute Christmas shopping worth it.

One of our challenges will be the time with family. This is not to say we don't want to introduce Galya to the broader family; on the contrary, we obviously do. But adoption advice we were given by multiple adoption "professionals" was to keep things low-key in the first few months so the child doesn't end up not knowing who he/she is bonding with, or so the child doesn't end up not bonding altogether. Low-key is impossible at this time of year. We'll be trying to manage it carefully. As we found on the way home from Kiev, Galya is willing to latch onto anyone being nice to her. That is fine to a point, but if it ends up causing problems with integrating our family...well, you can imagine we don't want to take that on. So balance in all things is key.

On the plus side, she ate all her veggies at dinner last night, even declaring them "num-num." I take that as a good sign having cooked said dinner. She's also picked up a couple of words in English. She can count to ten, say "hello" and "good morning" in the proper contexts. She still parrots more than actually uses words, but I can see signs she's working on it.

At daycare yesterday (which she handled with aplomb) the Russian-speaking son of the daycare provider did find out Galyna knows what school is, and so won't be surprised in January when we take her there. She also got to go sledding and ice skating. She'll be a natural-born Minnesotan in no time!

That's the update. Today is another chance to learn about this new family dynamic and our newest daughter, as well as for her to start meeting more family. We'll see how it goes, and as always pray it goes well.

For you and yours, I wish you a very Merry Christmas. As much as we are focusing on Galyna, Tierney and Amissa, this time of year is about remembering and celebrating another child and why he was born. Enjoy the season, the family and the traditions. But remember first the real reason of Christmas.

God bless,
Ron