Along with spring comes new life...new beginnings. Thankfully, here in Michigan, the record breaking winter has decided to move on, the flowers have started sprouting and the birds have come back home.
There has also been lots of changes in the Warchol house. Our family has expanded again and we are now a family of 4. Late last year, an opportunity to adopt through disruption presented itself and after much prayer and discussion we decided God was handing us exactly what we had requested...an older daughter, Ukrainian heritage, no out of country travel, no physical challenges (....hhhmm if you don't count clumsiness) and it has been a fairly "easy" adoption process.
So how is it going you ask? HOLY TOLEDO!!!! I thought becoming an instant parent to a toddler was difficult, try doing it with a teenager....a hormonal one at that. :)
First lets start with the amazing facts. She is beautiful, inside and out. She has a gorgeous smile. She can be tender, attentive and very sweet. She is extremely helpful. LOVES to cook, and LOVES food. She has the tall, slender, straight posture of most flawless Ukrainian women. She is very strong physically and she is can be very artistic. All of these promising characteristics are what keeps her going, make her strong mentally and is what will make her the amazing woman she will grow to be.
We have our work cut out for us though, as does she. Adjusting to another family, another place, suffering another heart break, learning new rules, testing new patience, trusting new people. It is all in a days work and most likely will be for the next several years. Some days we cry and we feel defeated, but we spend the night regrouping, remembering and praying. Everyday is a new day and we start with a fresh happy face.
Thankfully, much to my delight, Olena seems to be handling all of the changes and chaos very well. Just when I think she has hit her breaking point, she springs right back and is back to her old charming self. Gaining a sister is challenging in itself, especially for a young lady who has been the one and only for the last 7 years. Then when you gain a sister who comes with several "strange" and displeasing behaviors that is even all the more interesting. She makes me proud every day and I thank God every night for His help with her being so accepting.
The last 3 months have been spent restructuring, teaching, correcting, and more correcting. She still struggles with several institutionalized behaviors which we address on a daily basis and of course she has the classic signs of sensory processing disorder, attachment disorder, and some delays. Over the summer we hope to hit the pavement running following the same "brain retraining" plan as we did with Olena. Lots of therapy... OT, audio and behavioral as well as some counseling. I am very confident in her abilities, she has fought through a lot in her young life and she still comes out swinging so I know she will succeed especially once she realizes what she is capable of.
I still plan to keep the blog updated, I was just choosing not blog because I wanted to be sure this was all headed in the right direction before I shared our news. Granted I could have blogged about other stuff but in all honesty this has consumed much of our lives for the last few months, so there wasn't really too much else to report.
Easter went well, we had wonderful weather. Sunday we kept it low key and spent a few hours at the zoo. but we had a busy pre-weekend with family and birthday parties, and then movies. The kids had a great weekend. As for me..I am tired and ready for the next weekend so maybe I can get some rest.
There has also been lots of changes in the Warchol house. Our family has expanded again and we are now a family of 4. Late last year, an opportunity to adopt through disruption presented itself and after much prayer and discussion we decided God was handing us exactly what we had requested...an older daughter, Ukrainian heritage, no out of country travel, no physical challenges (....hhhmm if you don't count clumsiness) and it has been a fairly "easy" adoption process.
So how is it going you ask? HOLY TOLEDO!!!! I thought becoming an instant parent to a toddler was difficult, try doing it with a teenager....a hormonal one at that. :)
First lets start with the amazing facts. She is beautiful, inside and out. She has a gorgeous smile. She can be tender, attentive and very sweet. She is extremely helpful. LOVES to cook, and LOVES food. She has the tall, slender, straight posture of most flawless Ukrainian women. She is very strong physically and she is can be very artistic. All of these promising characteristics are what keeps her going, make her strong mentally and is what will make her the amazing woman she will grow to be.
We have our work cut out for us though, as does she. Adjusting to another family, another place, suffering another heart break, learning new rules, testing new patience, trusting new people. It is all in a days work and most likely will be for the next several years. Some days we cry and we feel defeated, but we spend the night regrouping, remembering and praying. Everyday is a new day and we start with a fresh happy face.
Thankfully, much to my delight, Olena seems to be handling all of the changes and chaos very well. Just when I think she has hit her breaking point, she springs right back and is back to her old charming self. Gaining a sister is challenging in itself, especially for a young lady who has been the one and only for the last 7 years. Then when you gain a sister who comes with several "strange" and displeasing behaviors that is even all the more interesting. She makes me proud every day and I thank God every night for His help with her being so accepting.
The last 3 months have been spent restructuring, teaching, correcting, and more correcting. She still struggles with several institutionalized behaviors which we address on a daily basis and of course she has the classic signs of sensory processing disorder, attachment disorder, and some delays. Over the summer we hope to hit the pavement running following the same "brain retraining" plan as we did with Olena. Lots of therapy... OT, audio and behavioral as well as some counseling. I am very confident in her abilities, she has fought through a lot in her young life and she still comes out swinging so I know she will succeed especially once she realizes what she is capable of.
I still plan to keep the blog updated, I was just choosing not blog because I wanted to be sure this was all headed in the right direction before I shared our news. Granted I could have blogged about other stuff but in all honesty this has consumed much of our lives for the last few months, so there wasn't really too much else to report.
Easter went well, we had wonderful weather. Sunday we kept it low key and spent a few hours at the zoo. but we had a busy pre-weekend with family and birthday parties, and then movies. The kids had a great weekend. As for me..I am tired and ready for the next weekend so maybe I can get some rest.
Here are a few pictures from this weekend.
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