The trip was amazingly easy. We had a three hour flight to Chicago with almost no layover. Ella and Danya both napped. Then our long flight was eight hours from Chicago to Frankfurt. Ella slept about 2 hours, and I was able to sleep while holding her. Tima slept about four hours. Danya didn't sleep at all! We had a little drama getting seated, as they had given us seats in three different rows--which means that one of our kids would have to sit alone. We had paid for a seat for Ella, knowing that it would be too crowded to hold her the whole time. The flight was late, and the attendants ruder than we've ever experienced on Lufthansa. But with a few seat changes, it worked out and we settled into seats in two neighboring rows.
In Frankfurt, we enjoyed the perks of Eric's travel this past year. We were allowed in the business class lounge, and liked it! Not only was there free food and drinks (and liquor if we wanted!) but there was a clean place to stretch out. Danya slept on the floor, Tima read books, and I walked Ella in the stroller around in circles until she fell asleep. Then we were onto the last flight, less than three hours to Kiev. Although it was 2am Colorado time, only Ella napped.
Upon arrival, Danya melted down at passport control. Tima waited until baggage claim, where he wailed because he had to wait with me instead of going with Eric. He was so tired, but refused to lie down and rest. A woman and her daughter came and gave him an apple. That somehow broke the crying spell, and he quietly ate his apple. I was almost moved to tears at the kindness of strangers. A good welcome to Ukraine!
Two of our seven big bags hadn’t made the connection so we had to fill out that paperwork. Then we piled in a staff member's (Dima) van, with Sergei Krivonos’ help. The kids all fell asleep within five minutes. They all woke up when we stopped 40 minutes later to drop off our luggage. Ella screamed, Danya whined and, Tima wailed, “My pants got wet.” Eric and our friends carried our 300 pounds of luggage up four flights of stairs, and then we were off to meet some new friends. Alexei and Madeleine Chaplits invited us over for dinner, and the best time was right away. We weren’t sure it was the right decision, but went anyway. And, after their nap in the car, the kids all did fairly well, though a bit wild. The Chaplits have a seven-year-old boy, four-year-old girl, and two-year-old boy to play with, in a nice clean apartment with a lot of toys. Eric and I were pretty tired, though, with that fuzzy-yet-buzzing with adrenaline feeling. The boys were very distraught to leave. It felt wonderful, after weeks of good-byes, to be able to say, “We can come back soon! We live nearby.” On the way home, I commented that it was amazing that God had given us new friends the very first few hours after we’d arrived. Danya seemed sad. I thought that perhaps he was comparing his new ‘friends’ to his old ones. But when I asked why he was sad, he said, “I just wish we could go back to our new friends’ house tomorrow.”
We got to our ‘home’ around 7pm. We are staying in a guest room in the top floor of a beautiful Baptist church. It is a fairly nice, clean place, but we’re all together in one room plus a bathroom. However, there is a refrigerator and washing machine. We’ve adjusted well to living in one room, which we’ll have to do at the conference next week anyway. We’d hoped to have a kitchen, but have managed two meals a day in our room. Scott and Cymp Stemple (on staff here) provided us with food to get started, plus they brought the portable crib we bought from a family here in Kiev. So it was nice to have everything here from the beginning. The location is good for socializing with new friends—we had dinner at people’s homes the first two nights—but not good for playgrounds. It’s in an industrial sector, with private houses built by some richer people. In fact, the neighbors bring their children to the church courtyard to have a clean place to play.
Jet-lag has been a challenge. Ella adjusted right away to the new time, meaning that she cried unless we held her from 9pm until midnight, just like she has been at home. Then, the boys wake up at midnight, and are up until about 4am. I’ve been trying to cut down on the time we’re awake, and the amount of snacks that we eat, but so far it hasn’t worked well. (I’m starving, too!) For example, on our third night, I let them sit and play in the bathroom from 12-1. Then from 1-3 they were in their beds, though still awake. This, of course, was accompanied with various levels of whining, crying and pleading. Finally, at 3am I let them get up for another hour. However, the fourth night they awoke earlier—at 11pm. That’s when I started writing this email, though I don’t know when it will be sent. I gave them only one bowl of cereal, and one hour awake. But they stayed awake in bed a long time again—Danya was awake from 10:30pm-4am. But the fifth night, we all stayed in bed all night, though each boy had a long period of wakefulness. And I had more trouble sleeping than I expected. With such exhausting nights, Eric and I decided to sleep late in the mornings—the first two days until 11am, then Sunday until 9. Tomorrow I think we’ll try for 8. Our days have been remarkably normal, though obviously short when we get up at 11! The day after Danya was up so long, he woke happy at 8am, only took a one hour nap. Contrary to our expectations, Ella seems the least affected by the change. Only on the third night was she wide awake at night, and then for only about an hour. She is waking to be fed around 10:30 and then again at 4am. And she’s the first one ready to get up at 7am.
Our temporary home seemed very nice and clean…until we were sitting on the bathroom floor having snacks. The next day, we bought some cleaning supplies. There’s nothing like watching Ella crawl around and gather dust on her clothes, and put her hands in the grimy corners, and put every piece of anything in her mouth. We still could use a vacuum, but I haven’t figured out how to ask for one without sounding insulting. But as we’ve eaten many meals in the room, the crumbs have accumulated. So at least most of the things Ella eats off the floor are relatively fresh!
Over the years, I’ve had a lot of experience sitting in the bathroom with kids in the middle of the night. It started when Danya was a baby, and we went to about three conferences a year in Moscow. With the five hour time change, that meant that we were up by 3am every morning. I would take the kid(s) to the hall or bathroom to let Eric sleep. I usually found it pretty lonely, and a great occasion for self-pity. Maybe this time I just wanted to help them have good attitudes, but it seemed kind of fun to be up with Danya and Tima. (This place is also much nicer and cleaner than most bathrooms we’ve been in Russia.) We sat on the bathroom floor eating fake cheerios out of plastic cups, reading books and coloring for hours. The next night Tima whispered from his bed at 1am, “Mom… can we go… eat cheerios… in the bathroom… sitting on the floor?” We did. By the fourth night, though, the sleep debt was accumulating, and the fun wearing off for me, though the boys still enjoyed it!
The first day, we walked to the nearby train tracks, but there was a family of guard dogs who came out to watch us and bark. Poor skinny dogs, each had a broken tail that made it painful to sit. We didn’t stay long. Danya’s reaction… “Ukraine isn’t as much fun as I thought it would be.” After Eric took the boys on the bus and metro to visit McDonalds, Danya he commented, “Except for our new friends, Ukraine isn’t much fun.” He notices the dirtiness, the ugliness, the lack of playgrounds. Yesterday he asked, “Are there houses in Ukraine? I want to live in a house. I’m tired of all the stairs.” Our temporary home is on the fourth floor. Danya complains almost every time about the stairs. Tima takes my hand and says, “Can we count them Mom?” My perspective on this particular ‘hardship’ has been affected by knowing young families in Irkutsk who lived in student housing on the fifth floor, so they had to carry their baby, stroller and groceries up every day. (And they only had one room as well, with a communal kitchen and bathroom, and no washing machine.)
In general, Tima has surprised me with his resilience and good attitude. Except for the occasional meltdown when he’s really tired, he has been smiling, laughing and very playful. He seems much happier than before we left the States. He seems interested in learning Russian, repeating phrases like, “May I have… “ and “Do you want…?” as well as practicing counting at night while awake in bed. On Sunday, we went downstairs to church, and the boys went to the childcare provided. They weren’t too excited about it, but when I came to check on them they were playing quietly by themselves. Later, Tima said that he had asked over and over again for water, but they hadn’t given him any. I saw him talking to a boy after church when the kids were running around the courtyard. Tima kept asking him something, and seemed to not understand that the boy really couldn’t understand.
