Super Nanny

February 13, 2008

Tomorrow is Valentines’ Day. You wouldn’t know if had you been around our house tonight. We had a pretty big blow out. I would rate it as remarkable. It’s interesting to me, really. We spent some time this weekend with friends who have two daughters from the same orphanage. If we are rookies, they are upperclassmen. They’ve been home for almost two years now. We’ve watched them go through some of the same stuff that we are facing now. In our discussions this weekend, we were talking about how the big blow outs always begin with the little things.

There have been some tremors in the past week and we knew the “big one” was coming and so it did. The girls were watching a movie (without asking permission) after dinner when Dasha got a call from her friend - which was great. She started to talk and Gina and I met in the bathroom (because it is turning out to be our safe room) for a conference about one of the other kids. About the time that Gina was getting to the good part we heard a knock at the door. It was Kirby and she was telling on Dasha because she was told to “shut up.” Now this is not allowed in our happy little home so we decided to deal with it right away. Phone call cut short and then we addressed the foul – only problem was that the offender would not apologize.

Well, now. So we followed her around trying to get a direct answer on why she wouldn’t. I think it was more about being embarrassed than anything. It ended up spilling over in the hall when Gina would not move out of her way as she fled from my presence. We all ended up in the girls’ bedroom sitting and chatting – well, that is the way I’ll describe it…. At least none of the adults raised their voices.

The conversation soon degraded to the “I don’t belong here, you’re not my real parents, she’s not my real sister, everything is better in Ukraine, I think I’ll just eat worms” conversation. Everybody we know with a teenage Ukrainian has had this little talk. And so it was our time. Now I’ve got to say, it is tough to take that from the object of your affection. Whew! Stick and stones – right?

So nothing really got resolved, but we never wavered in our love and devotion to her - at least not outwardly. Oh, this is tough! It ended up with Gina hugging and giving out free kisses.

So while all this was going on the other two were in our room – I suppose because you can hear better from there – watching TV. And as you have guessed it what was on the tube but Super Nanny dealing with at three year old. How funny is that? Man, I can’t make this stuff up.

I took the other two to the store to pick up some valentines for tomorrow and left Gina and her at home. We returned to a different climate than that which we left. It seems that while we were gone, she came out of her shell and apologized to Gina and explained what exactly had happened. Nobody got hurt and nobody ran away. So we sleep tonight thankful that we are bonding and getting it all out in the open.

And Gina, you are the original Super Nanny. Happy Valentine’s Day!