Shhh...Can You Hear Them?

Sometimes life is so bittersweet, you wonder if you are strong enough to let it in.This morning I feel like that.

I awoke at four in the morning, restless, and whirling the previous day around over and over in my head. I turn to see my sweet little girl sleeping, a needed break from the pain of yesterday. It had been such a dark and unforgiving day for her, and she had spent hours, heartsick, crying in my lap, her little body wound up like a ball of string, as tightly as she could.

And so, at four in the morning, I watched her inbreath and outbreath and thought of all the thousands of times she was sad before she came home to me, and how there was no one, all these years, to wrap her in their arms and hold her. There was no one to kiss her forehead and pretty cheeks. There was no one to breathe in the sweet smell of her breath while she wept inconsolably. This is a pain I cannot articulate for you -- this thinking of my daughter all alone. I can't even go there very often in my thoughts, because I think it will break me.

Why do we live in a world where children, so many children, have no comforters, no solace-bringers, no loving fingers to wipe the tears, no mamas and papas or aunts or grandmas to gather them up in their comforting arms and tell them everything is ok? I wish I had a hundred thousand arms, I wish my lap could hold a hundred million little souls, I wish my voice could sooth the ones who sleep in the sewers beneath Moscow, or in the brothels of Cambodia, or the languid street corners of Haiti, Africa, India.

Every night I send out a message to these children. Every night I tell them someone is thinking of them and loves them. I sing it as sweetly as I can, hoping their hearts will catch it on the wind. I sing until my throat is hoarse. I sing when I want to weep. I hope they hear.

We need to do more. We need to not only wish to do more and hope to do more, but we need to shake off our complacency or fear or indifference or whatever it is that keeps us from actually doing something, and we need to do it.

It's morning now. My girl awakes and there is a mother there, taking her in and loving her every move, her every freckle. Each breath.

My dream is for every child of the world to wake this way. Loved. Delighted in.

Known.

Blini, Pelemeni, and Borscht...Oh My!

blini

Nast has an exhibition at her school tomorrow evening. She goes to a charter school, and part of the grading process is to participate in a school-wide exhibition. It's more like organized chaos, but still fun. Nastia is so darn excited about this, it's simply adorable. For the past few months everyone in her class has been studying a particular country and its culture. She chose Russia, of course. So tomorrow she gets to share all she's learned with parents& friends. One of the requirements is to make food item that represents the country you are studying. She has been struggling with what to make. I think it feels like a bigger deal to her because she is Russian and she wants to give her classmates a good impression of her homeland.

borscht

So for weeks she has been talking about blini,pelmeni and borscht. We've had cabbage blini and potato pelmini for dinner about ten times this month. Fine with me, I love the stuff. She thought of making borscht or even blini, but she finally settled on making cookies, since that is what most of her classmates are doing.

So, tonight we are baking 'pechenye domachni' which translates into something like 'home crackers'. Lol...sounds soooo appetizing.Lots of sugar, eggs, vanilla. We'll fatten up those 6th graders yet. Here is what they look like:

Today we also received something very special in the mail -- a dvd of her sister in Siberia. It was footage of her being interviewed by the searcher that found her for us. Nast watched the whole thing absolutely transfixed.

'Mama, she have my hair...' she murmured as she watched it.

And then 'Ooh, mama, me think she have my eyes, too!'

Imagining seeing your sister after a decade? Imagine hearing her voice for the first time? It was like God dropped an answer to prayer in her lap. I was as transfixed watching her watch the video, as she was watching her sister.

You could tell alot more about her sister from this dvd than from all the photos we received back in December. First, she is utterly adorable. She has dimples, those signature Siberian eyes (they turn up at the outside corners) and the sweetest most gentle voice. And she plays piano!

We head over to Siberia in late April to meet her for the first time. I don't know how I'll keep it together til then...waiting to see them embrace for the first time in ten years. I just cant wait to see them walking side by side. They have missed so much, being apart. Time to make up for that. Hoping against hope I can adopt her. Please pray.