Memories

This upcoming trip has stirred up a lot of memories for Mark and I, thinking back to the trip to bring the boys home. While it has been very stressful trying to get everything done between the move and the upcoming adoption, we have had a lot of laughter between the two of us over various things that have been happening. I love my husband very much and am so glad I get to go through all of this with him. :)

We've been doing a lot of the "Do you remember when..." in reference to bringing the boys home, and it's fun to think that soon we'll have those same types of memories for the girls. It's amazing how vivid the memories are of all of their firsts--first self-flushing toilet, first hand dryer, first drinking fountain, first baths (and then when they learned to enjoy them). They didn't like pizza the first few times they had it--now they ask for it once or twice a week. :) We found the sippy cups and containers we took with us to the orphanage and both boys commented on the things that they remembered having in them (juice, goldfish, and peanut butter crackers). Zhenya even asked why it was so hard to get the goldfish out of the container--which it was, and in the orphanage Mark and I got a kick out of watching the boys try to figure out how to either get into the container or get the goldfish to come out the little pour spout (they didn't want help, but inevitably ended up asking for it).

The preparations for the upcoming trip have stirred up some memories for the boys, too, which I think is a good thing. A few nights ago Dima was trying to tell me something about going on the plane to get the girls. He was getting pretty upset because I couldn't figure out what he was saying...something about the plane and not being able to sleep and not enough seats. Keep in mind, Dima claims not to remember anything from before he lived with us. I know this isn't true, but he has no desire to talk about any of his memories prior to joining our family. I think somehow he's afraid that if he talks about them they will become reality again.

So he was trying to communicate this thing with seats and a plane and it finally clicked--he remembers. He remembers the flight home, where he was sitting in the seat and didn't get to lay down to sleep (he actually did, on the seats, but I think in his mind he just remembers not being able to sleep in a bed). He was very upset about this until I told him that we would have 5 seats, and plenty of room to sleep, and that we could sleep on the plane. Then he was as happy as could be, content knowing that he would be able to sleep on the plane. Interestingly enough, he will claim that he has never been on a plane, but this reinforced for me that he does remember because his concern was specifically over not being able to sleep on the plane, so he did know we were on a plane before.

I know this trip is going to stir up a lot of memories, especially for Dima. However, I think it will be really good for us to be able to deal with a lot of the memories that I think he has negative impressions of--like the flight home (apparently) and some of the first few days we had in Slaviansk and Kyiv as a family. There are a few things I am interested to see if he remembers, but we don't push him to talk about any of his memories. We let them come out and deal with them as they do. I'm hoping that as some of these surface, we will be able to work through them with him and bring him some comfort and healing. This trip may help fill in a lot of gaps for him, and I'm especially hoping that it will solidify even further his status as a part of our family.