3 Years and Counting: An Update on our Adoption Blog

3 Years And Counting
As we approach 3 years as a family (October 8^th is the day our adoption became official), it is hard to believe that our Sasha just turned 16.

Hard to believe or is it hard to accept? Likely a bit of both.

Last year we noted a young boy growing up far too fast. Watching him turn 16 makes this “growing” up feel more like a demonstrable fact. The boy is now a man. Or, as Jen likes to affectionately say, he is now our “man-boy”.

Celebrating Our Man-Boy
One of the things Jen and I both struggled with over these last few months was knowing how to celebrate Sasha’s 16th birthday. It felt like a milestone, and yet we also questioned whether he needed or wanted a big celebration.

We decided to ask Sasha. He gave us the same answer he seems to have for most things these days, which is “I don’t know, whatever, it doesn’t matter. You decide”. Feel free to throw in an incomprehensible teenage mumble for full affect.

And so we rolled the dice and went for something casual and small. A movie that he really wanted to see followed by supper at one of his favourite places- Red Lobster

To be honest though, I missed the excitement of the last few years, the way his eyes lit up at the idea of having a birthday. The way he anticipated it for months and had it circled on the calendar. I felt this way when he arrived in Canada, and still do, but it seemed to me that there was a part of him that was making up for lost time, for the birthday parties he was never afforded growing up in the orphanage and as a child. And I found myself questioning why (and if) this excitement had to end.

The 16^th Birthday
If you will allow me a bit of an aside, I found it interesting to look into why (and when) the 16^th birthday came to be viewed as a milestone over the years. What I discovered is that it owes its significance to an older Spanish rite of passage that celebrated (primarily) a young girl becoming a woman and being asked to embrace the responsibilities of adulthood (often) at a relatively young age.

In a similar way, this “rite of passage” developed later in North American culture at a time (of varying degrees of economic pressures and global unrest) when children were forced to start contributing to the family farms and businesses (as part of multi-generational households) at much younger ages than they do today. This changed though in the 1950’s as North America discovered a newfound sense of optimism and prosperity. Kids were now given the chance to grow up, families started to get smaller, and children attended school for longer periods of time.

Fast-forward to our present age and many of the old markers that used to define what it meant to become an adult are far less defined and recognizable, with many staying “dependant” well into their twenties and thirties.

And yet even when we aren’t expected (or forced) to “grow up” too fast, culture, no matter where we find it, always seems to deem it necessary for us to tangibly pass from, as one writer put it, “innocence into adulthood”, whatever that happens to look like in a particular time and place. For us in North America it might officially be recognized as 18 years old, but 18 is a process that unofficially seems to begin at 16 with the onset of high school and electives, a drivers licence and, in the context of Sasha's school this semester, a Life Planning course.

Speaking of his Life Planning course, Sasha’s excitement over the prospect of independence that came out of a project on budgeting life skills saw him looking to (pretend) to rent from a middle-aged man and his two cats that he found on Kijiji who enjoys smoking “in” the house and desired “company” to share his house with. When I pointed out to Sasha that this sounded somewhat sketchy and less than ideal, he explained, “but dad, its $500!! Great deal”.

Here’s to hoping adulthood doesn’t involve accidentally rooming with serial killers.

But back to idea of passing from innocence into adulthood. This remark has been resonating with me. Having a 16 year old son admittedly does make it feel like something has tangibly changed, as if time has found a way to say here, “now” he is an adult.

But does growing up mean that we must abandon our innocence? After watching Sasha over the last 3 years I am not convinced that it does.

Reclaiming Our Innocence

If Sasha has taught me anything over the past three years (and he has taught me much, to be sure) he is modelled what it looks like to experience and live through the harshest parts of our world, the stuff of life that forced him to grow up faster than he should have, without letting go of his ability to wonder, to still be a kid.

It is timely actually that I recently finished delving into the life of Walt Disney, a man who embodied this similar challenge in his life. This was a man driven to many grown up vices who allowed himself to still wonder with the heart and mind of a child. This was a man beaten down by the Church who continued to find ways to pray in the silence of his own personal space.  This was a man caught up in the limitations and corruption of the grown up world who refused to be defined by the path that the world insisted he must take in order to be successful. He dedicated his life to reclaiming innocence, first in his own life, then for the children who embodied this innocence, and lastly in the life of the “grown ups” who needed a place to rediscover it or themselves.

He reminded me of Sasha, and it was no surprise for me to learn that Walt gave much of his life to international adoption. But what gets me most excited is that both of them also remind me of Jesus, who once said that to know God we must get to know the heart and mind of a child, and more than that we must become like a child.  

Yes, Sasha might have outgrown his wrestling matches (my body is thankful but my heart is sad), and is long past being comfortable with us tucking him in, reading him a bed time story and praying with him at night. He is growing ever more aware of what people might think of him going to animated movies with his father. But the very fact that he found a way to move to Canada 3 years ago and was willing to seize an opportunity to make up for lost time tells me that reclaiming innocence is not only possible, it is necessary for living.

It was necessary for that 13 year boy discovering the simple thrill of roller blades for the first time, smiling wide as he felt the wind and the freedom of the road passing by as he rode “as fast as I ever have in my life”. Or the 13 year old boy coming to discover this thing called Halloween and diligently practicing how to say “trick or treat” in his thick Ukrainian accent in the back seat of the car. It was necessary for that 14 year old boy who would still be thrilled by all of the toys that lined the walls at Dollarama, and it was necessary for that 15 year old boy who would still find room to build bow and arrows out of sticks and debris in our back yard.

And it is still necessary for that 16 year old who over the last few months still manages to let it slip from time to time that deep down he is super excited about birthdays and Christmas, even if he is not completely sure if he wants to show that excitement outwardly.

To which I would say, be excited Sasha. Keep reclaiming that innocence. See the world with wonder, and never stop no matter how old you get. And don’t let anything in this world tell you that you can’t. You are not required to follow the same old cultural footprints that the world says you need to follow to in order to “grow up” and become a man. Do it on your own terms. And do it with the spirit’s, that childlike spirit we are called to embody, guiding.

I can imagine feeling isolated and uncertain about who he is and where he should be in the whole “boy becomes man” narrative. I can imagine because I lived through it myself. What I can’t imagine is needing to learn how to do that in the midst of all of the experiences that mark his past. No amount of time can change the level of awe and respect that both of us have for this kid, a kid who keeps showing us how to face this stuff with such courage and dignity and strength without giving in, without giving up. The truth is, Sasha has experienced things that have matured him far beyond many his age. And as he officially becomes a “man”, the most exciting thing for me is watching him struggle to not let go of that hopefulness, that childlike wonder that was stolen from him all those years ago.

Where We Grieve We also Celebrate

It is in the midst of all this that we also acknowledge that another year has gone by, and that does mean Sasha is taller, older, and changed from who he was a year ago, ready or not (and no, we are not necessarily ready).

A friend of ours recently expressed the idea that parenting is one long process of learning how to grieve. You live in the moment and suddenly you blink and that moment is forever gone. This is not something we were prepared for when we became parents. It’s not something we were necessarily told when we decided to become parents. But it is something that has definitely been proven true. And when it comes to an international adoption of an older boy, there is a sense in which this sort of grieving is fast tracked.

But of course, as Jen rightly added to this conversation, where there is grief there is also the chance to celebrate. Where there is loss there is also the chance to gain.

And so as we prepare to mark 3 years as a family, I have found it worthwhile to look back at the year that was by revisiting some of the hope and expectation that we had for this man-child and our family, and then in this same spirit of childlike wonder, hope and expectation, offer a glimpse of where our adoption journey finds us heading in the year ahead. 

Hopes and Expectations

1.   Find ways to further explore his Ukrainian past and heritage while helping him grow into his future as a Canadian citizen
No longer having the Saturday morning Ukrainian language and culture class and no longer being in Ukrainian immersion has made it tough to see this hope realized, but there is still opportunity to reinvigorate this anticipation in the year to come. We have found a few smaller ways to help keep investing in this at least. Such as our trips to the Ukrainian/Russian food store that is just down the street from where we live. Jen has remarked many a time about how this is one of her favourite things to do, as it is so wonderful to see his eyes light up when he walks in and is able to pick out his favourite nostalgic treats.

How he sees dried squid as a treat I have no idea, but hey, if it floats his boat I can put up with the smell.

The second has been investing in a couple of opportunities to reconnect with an old friend from his orphanage in Ukraine. He does live a good distance away so this requires planning, but it is time that we continue to cherish. I know that on our first trip down Sasha gave his friend a matching necklace, a symbol that no matter how much distance and how much time happens to separate them they are still connected in spirit and experience. If ever there was a gesture from a “child” that could be more adult, more mature than this, I’m not sure I could find one.

2.   Build new memories and new friends as he starts at a new school and enters the challenges of grade 9.
This was likely the biggest transition of this past year for Sasha, and it was a challenge that he both met and excelled at. We had so many fears about how this transition was going to work. We wondered about where he was with the English language. We wondered about commuting him a lengthy distance to a social community of students that lived nowhere near where we lived. We wondered about the support he would get in class and if he would be able to keep up.

After the first day of school we found out his counsellor had made sure every class he was in had an EA. They also organized his course load so that he would have a “working” spare to help him keep pace with the rest of the students. And the result? Honour Role grades with minimal to no adaptation along with a surprise letter this past week that informed us Sasha will be receiving an award for his 2016/2017 school year. Way to go Sasha! Just don’t expect him to admit that he actually cares about school.

3.   Build on our current routines and traditions
We are now more aware than ever that Sasha is someone who needs structure. Our best guess is that much of this stems back to being formed by life in the orphanage where the clock was kind of irrelevant. But after three years he still doesn’t do well with the idea of choice, free time or with plans changing. A calendar, a GPS and a detailed agenda have been good tools for us to navigate this, but last year I think we both felt like he could use a bit of encouragement to break out of that box, if only a little bit.

But at the same time Sasha’s need for structure has also afforded us a great opportunity to invest in routines and tradition. Over the years we have been able to create these things in both small and big ways. On the bigger end, a couple of trips to Toronto have created a lasting and positive memory with going back to Niagra Falls, with a stop at the hot sauce store of course. He always resists travel to anywhere, but this is one place that always finds a spark in his eye. Equally so has been getting him used to our trips down to Minneapolis, which we did again this summer, along a recent trip to Duluth for snow boarding that now sees him pining and planning for the opportunity to do that again this winter.  

On the smaller side of things, while summer is of course the season of ice cream runs and walks through Kildonan Park, nothing tops his love for Christmas and Halloween. This opened up doors for us to really dress up the season with cooking and baking nights, decorating and other festivities last year. Hopefully we can tackle another perogy making blitz again this year. In truth, he has been game for anything in these two seasons as long as it does not involve pumpkin.

And of course one of my favourite activities is taking him out to the movies on Tuesday nights, a routine that I hope stays alive for a long time. It probably should since that Life Planning course also saw him budgeting $100 for movies, his only entertainment option on the list. Like father like son.

One last significant thing to mention is Sasha’s summer at camp. Once again he spent some time at two different camps, a nice tradition to keep investing in. Only this summer he also had the opportunity to sign up for something called the Branch program. During the course of the program he spent the first few days doing some backwoods camping while they trained him to be a counsellor for the junior camp at the beginning of the summer before staying for his own week of camp after that. This occupied him for the first three weeks of the summer, and from what we heard he did extremely well and fostered a greater relationship with life at this camp. We are hoping it stays a part of his summer traditions. 

What’s Ahead

So what does the remainder of 2017 and 2018 have in store? Of course we really have no idea, and that is probably a good thing… I think. 

One thing I do know though is that even three years in to this adoption journey it is still good to be reminded that adoption has its own unique challenges and opportunities when it comes to building a family together, and that it is just as important now as it was before to be asking the right questions about who this 16 year old kid is who has added so much into our lives, because the truth is we never know when the silent pieces of his past might resurface and affect his (being) present, and that means the most important thing we can do is continue to listen and to learn, never make assumptions, and always be willing to adapt.

With that said, I think we can point to a few things we are anticipating in the coming year:

1. More snowboarding
It looks like this winter will hopefully include another trip to Duluth. He had so much fun on the hill it will be great to get him back for a second go around. And maybe this time they will have the fat bike rentals up and running (last year the weather kept them off the hill) so that I can join him. Because I can’t stand upright on a snowboard for the life of me.  

2. More Tuesday night movies
Mom doesn’t always enjoy going as much, but for dad and Sasha it’s hard to keep us away. And I love that he gets so excited about the old fashioned theatre experience.

3. Red Lobster dates
It turns out that Red Lobster is not the best restaurant for gluten free dad. And even if it was, Lobster and shrimp are not at the top of my list of foods I willingly consume. But mom shares Sasha’s fondness for shrimp for sure, and that seems to have turned into an opportunity for a few dates nights down the road.

4. Swimming Lessons and Lifeguarding
Sasha has committed himself to the life saving program at one of our local pools. The hope of completing this course is that by next summer he will be a certified lifeguard, something he hopes will translate into job opportunities.

5. More and more interest in getting a job
Which leads us to mention the notion of him desperately wanting a job. In the Life Planning course, one of his assignments is to put in a certain number of “working” hours and to write about it. This shouldn’t be hard because all he talks about is getting a job. Speaking of growing up too fast, on our end we would love to see him still be able to enjoy his youthful summers (before he gets enough money to begin looking at sketchy apartments), and we are definitely not pushing him to feel like he needs to start working. But he seems determined and at the very least taking some of the steps needed to get into the working world soon. Stay tuned…

6. Youth
Sadly Sasha lost an important mentor in his life, his youth pastor, to a job half way across the Country this year. The youth group at our Church is small but it was an important part of his daily routine. He will be missed. But thankfully there are a few others that have stepped up and we are hopeful that he will be able to find more positive mentorship in the months ahead.

7. Boxing Club
It looks like this year Sasha will be joining a unique program that is being run through his school- a Boxing Club. It comes with high praise and is hugely popular as a program. It is more about learning physical skills and having the opportunity to stay active than actually getting pummelled, but we are hopeful it will become a new part of Sasha’s routine as well. 

8. Driving
Yep, you heard that right. Sasha is taking drivers education starting this November. He technically could have signed up last year, but he was a little apprehensive about it back then. But he seems eager to go. Us… well, we will just try and stay off the roads in the meantime.  

Growing Up With Freedom and Grace

“Different cultures in different time periods have different ideas about when exactly a teenager goes from being an older child, to being a young adult.”

So with all this said, perhaps the most hopeful thing about the coming year for us is that Sasha finds ways to hold on to that childlike heart that has come to characterize him over the last few years. There is no one path that has to be followed and no single cultural norm that must define him. And we hope this year that, as his parents, we are able to help play a role in freeing him up to live into his reality with freedom and grace.

Year 2 in Review: Transitions, Routine and The Stuff of Life

Another Year Gone By
I can remember looking back on our first year as a family with a mix of nostalgia and introspection. As August arrived I felt like I was being transported back to our time in Ukraine, feeling like we were only days removed from walking off that plane and meeting Sasha at the orphanage. Our boy had yet to hit the growth spurt that now finds him standing taller than his mother (and fast catching up to me). He was still that familiar kid who fit nicely under his mother’s chin.

Two years in and I think we are both realizing just how fleeting the moments have become, especially with the onslaught of teenage hormones (and attitude) that have come in tow. Why, it was just the other day that he insisted the only girlfriend he has is in his dreams (“Good, cause that’s the best place for her”, as his mother would say). In reality we have entered the phase of lingering gazes and inevitable flirting.

In our dreams we secretly hoped for another year of our young, hormone free boy, but alas, time is moving forward.

The Transition of School

One of the big dynamics we wrestled with last year was the push to keep Sasha in Grade 8 for another year. That decision turned out to be the right one for all of us. If I may put on my proud parent hat, his conversational English has grown leaps and bounds, as has his maturity. He managed to graduate with successful grades and minimal adaptation, while also gaining high regard from his teachers and a “Most Improved Student” award. We might not feel ready for him to grow up and enter high school, but I think the extra year gave us some solace in the fact that he feels ready to make the transition.

For me, the move to high school means that he is finally feeling grounded and established in his new Canadian home. This is exciting for me. From day one we have celebrated a kid who made the transition to a foreign country and a new family better than we could have imagined. He has been far more emotionally present than the adoption seminars prepared us for, and far more resilient. From the first day of bouncing in to his room and sleeping through the night, to being comfortable enough now to make daily raids of the fridge as he talks back to his parents through a mouth full of whatever (um, didn’t we just go grocery shopping yesterday!?... and would you like to repeat that?), I think there is a ton of room to celebrate the way he has allowed this to become his new foundation. He might not be able to show it very often, but I believe he genuinely recognizes and trusts that we are his family and he is our son, and knows that we aren’t going anywhere. This is something that I believe has allowed him to make all of these transitions well.

The Process is Complete:

Speaking of transitions, one of the most memorable moments of this past year was watching him become a Canadian citizen. It was interesting, as the process itself requires registering and waiting. We had no idea when we would get the call to come down for the ceremony, but for a kid who rarely wanted to acknowledge or talk about his Ukrainian heritage it came on a day when he suddenly developed a craving for Ukrainian food. This turned in to a day of celebrating all things Ukrainian, as a trip to one of our local Ukrainian/European grocers turned in to a tour of them all, the end result being a table full of traditional goodies.

It would be in this moment of capturing a picture of a smiling Ukrainian boy sitting behind a mountain of Ukrainian food that the phone rang and we got word to come down for the ceremony the very next day.

It is unfortunate that he could not retain dual citizenship, but we remain thankful for that celebratory moment, as he got ready to take the final step forward in to his new identity. He shared very little about what this meant for him, even whether it was a struggle or whether he was excited or grieving, but we felt privileged and honored to be a part of it. This was the final step for us as well. No more paperwork, the years of process was now complete.

From a Year of Firsts to Building Routine

I have found year two to be less about the firsts and more about the routine. To be honest, some of this year was extremely tough. Okay, a lot of it was extremely tough, for all of us. This was where the fairy tale image of the old Krakow square that I wrote about a year ago really began to give way to the messiness of daily life. With both of us now working, and Sash in full swing at school, navigating some of the pressures of having two working parents and a not quite independent son provided a steep learning curve. And yet all three of us continue to forge forward, developing our family through the messiness, holding on to the positive through the ups and the downs. Perhaps most importantly we are reminded that the story that brought us together was a messy one too, and that’s perfectly okay.

The Mess of Family

It’s in the messiness that I am reminded that adoption is a unique thing that requires a unique approach. This is probably most evident in the reality that Sasha has a past that is still largely unknown to us. There have been some pretty incredible moments where he has opened up and where some of the pieces of the puzzle have been able to fall in to place, but there remains a life-time worth of memories and experiences that we are only able to imagine. Year two has reminded me that we can never simply assume what lies underneath actions and emotions (or lack of them), we can only choose to remain aware and adaptive. This might mean forcing those one-sided conversations, and continuing to try new approaches when the previous one failed to work. But it always involves giving grace both to him and to our selves.

In all of this I hold on to the idea that, somehow and in someway, even when we feel like this entire experiment called parenting is failing, that Sasha is getting the chance to catch up on a childhood that his limited life in the orphanage never fully afforded.

As I have been reflecting back on this year I recognize that we have kept him fairly busy, but for me, one of my favorite things this year has been watching him continue to find his way in the life of our Church. He has found a natural fit with helping to care for the younger ones (it is always a great sight when to see him coming up the stairs on a Sunday morning with at least three young kids hanging off each arm), and he has made some good bonds with the other youth and his youth leader. Perhaps most surprising is his enthusiasm for the bi-weekly outing to our local food and clothing shelter.


Knowing How To Celebrate
It must be said though, when it comes to reflecting on this time of year, it was an interesting process to know exactly how to celebrate and honor the key dates of our time overseas. Do we celebrate our arrival in Ukraine (August 23^rd)? The first day of meeting Sasha (September 1^st)? The court date when we officially became a family (October 8^th)? His first day in Canada (October 23^rd)? Throw Ukrainian Independence Day (August 24^th) in to the mix and his birthday on September 12^th, and suddenly Christmas is around the corner. I remember feeling emotionally tapped by the time the winter season was in full swing last year,  and yet I can’t escape the feeling that finding a way to continue to incorporate these important dates remains a necessary part of the cross-cultural journey, both in to the life of our son and the Country that was his home.

The sad truth is the memory of our time in Ukraine is starting to feel a bit more fragmented and bit more distant.  I guess time has a way of doing that. I have hope though that, however we navigate the celebrations and memories of these next few months, that there is opportunity to slow down time, even briefly, and to be reminded about the stuff that remains most important: the stuff that brought us together.

Most of all, I hope the next few months provide an opportunity to encourage and allow Sasha not to lose sight of where he came from. Ukraine is his heritage. It is a part of who he is. The memories, good and bad, are the stuff that can help him to understand who he is and how to grow. It is also the stuff that can continue to give us a window in to who he is and teach us how to help him grow.

Looking Towards Year 3

As we get ready to move towards year 3, it is my hope and prayer that Sasha continues to grow in to his new present identity as a Ukrainian-Canadian on the other side of his Ukrainian Immersion school, and that we will all find ways to explore his past together while helping him stay connected. It is my hope that we can find ways to also build new memories as he moves to a new school, makes new friends and meets new challenges. I hope that we can be more spontaneous and invest in new experiences, while also continuing to build on our current routines and traditions. Most of all I hope we can find ways to slow down the clock even a little, to allow us to make the most of year two. Because all it takes is one blink and we’ll find him behind the wheel. Memo to my son: Don’t grow up too soon Sasha, you’ve got a lifetime to do that.