Some more pics...

Ivanna loves chocolate like her mom!

'Helping' to decorate the Christmas tree

Out for a walk on the riverbank

First time skating

Talking on the phone (or calculator)

Holding baby 'Seal' (Theo)

Winter fun

So much for updating each month...

What is new?

Ivanna has two new cousins (Theo - born to Tanis and Jonathan Jan31, and Jonathan - born to Val and Jason Feb8). We are thankful for good health all around. She is quite entranced with the new babies and likes to hold and kiss them. Although her attention span for them is still short and she quickly moves on to other interests! She has been playing alot more with her 'baby' (doll) since they have come along. Her own baby seems to be called 'baby Theo' but we'll have to see if that sticks now that baby Jonathan is also around. Initially she had trouble with Theo's name and when she talked about him, she'd say 'baby seal...arf, arf arf - with the hand motions and everything. It was pretty cute. After Jonathan's arrival, we told her she had another new baby cousin and that we were going to meet him. We told her his name was 'baby Jonathan'. She has since deduced that he is 'baby uncle' (as she has an uncle Jonathan!). It's been pretty consistent so far and makes us giggle. Oh how the mind of a toddler works!

Other than the new arrivals, there is not much new or exciting around here. Christmas was alot of fun - overwhelming at times...but fun. It was really quite a special time for us - especially when we thought about last Christmas (we had heard just before Christmas that we had to redo most of our dossier and were feeling pretty discouraged, frustrated and sad). This year, Darren had the time off work and only did a little work on final revisions of his dissertation (which he defended before Christmas), so we spent lots of time together and with family and friends.

It will be a year at the end of February since we heard of our appoinment date. It is really hard to believe that we have been home as long as we have and that Ivanna has done so well. She has grown a full 3 inches since June and seems to be feeding up for another growth spurt. While she continues to have moments (and sometimes entire days) that are trying for her parents as she behaves like any two year old - most of the time she is a truly delightful little girl. Regardless of her behaviour, we love her very much and feel very blessed. Her language is coming along and she continues to display alot of physical gifts and skills. She's beginning to be more interested in story books (as opposed to picture dictionary-type books which she loves), but still hasn't shown much interest in TV (OK with us!). We are doing both her music and gymnastics classes again this term and she continues to love both. We've gone swimming fairly regularly with Val, Jason and their kids and she really ought to have gills. She still has no fear and thinks she can swim (not a great combo right now - we have to watch her closely!)

Shona is starting to look at return-to-work options and we are thinking about childcare options. Crazy. Darren submitted his dissertation last month and is waiting on bound copies (yay.). He has settled into his work pretty well. We are really glad to have our Fridays together (he's working 80%).

We are looking forward to somewhat more temperate weather in the spring and summer as the last few weeks have been extra frigid and make it impossible for us to get outside even to play for a few minutes (-45C with the windchill is just too cold!!!) and Ivanna really does love to be outside. We've managed to get her out skating once (she lasted about 10 minutes!) and shovelled out her swing set so she could swing on one of the nicer days (yes, she still loves to swing!) but other than that it's mostly 'run, run run' (to and from house/car) and 'leave your mitts on...it's too cold to take them off ' (do all toddlers ALWAYS take off their mitts?)! Her love of wearing skirts and dresses are also a challenge when it's this cold!

We do plan to continue updating periodically, but have obviously failed miserably with the monthly updates! Reminders do help to get us going!

Fall

Reading with Sam

Reading with Will and Eilidh and Auntie Val

going trick-or-treating with Natalie

Halloween with the MacKenzie cousins...

Halloween with the Nickel cousins

my first bubble bath - I loved it!

kissing 'Jakey'

2year old + 1 bucket at the cottage=hours of fun!

Great-grandma

Is he going to eat me?

Exercising with Will!
Wow. Time flies when you are having fun! It is hard for us to believe that it has been almost 3 months since we have updated our blog - so much for the monthly updates - sorry! Life at home with Ivanna continues to be a delightful adventure. In early September, Ivanna and I (Shona) flew to Ottawa with my parents to spend some time at 'the cottage' on Big Gull Lake. We had a wonderful time there with Auntie Joyce and 'Grandpa' Gord and other family that came to visit. The weather was lovely and we spent as much of our time outdoors as we could. It is amazing just how a child can entertain herself with very few toys when there is the great outdoors to play in! Ivanna was enchanted with Jake (Joyce and Gord's Dalmation) and once she had mastered the cottage door was very happy to serve as Jake's door opener. She gave him much love over the week there and continues to call any Dalmation 'Jakey'! I think he is still recovering from her attention/affection. We learned our little swimmer is not so fond of cold water and the concern of being so close to water with a 2 year old lessened after she'd been in the cold lake once or twice. From then on if you mentioned going in she would back away and say 'no wanna'! It was a relaxing week and wonderful to introduce her to extended family. Darren unfortunately couldn't come as he was working hard on his thesis - next time though. Since our return home, we have settled into our fall routines. Darren started working through the University in a research position and continued to work hard on his thesis and so has been quite busy. Ivanna started a music class for toddlers and mom's with her auntie Lecia, which she has grown to love (she's not much for sitting still and has quite a mind of her own, so a structured class was a little challenging at first - but now she seems to really enjoy it). We spend much of the rest of our week repeating the songs we learn in music class. 2 year olds sure do like repetition! We also are in a parent/tot gymnastics class, which is quite a lot of fun. Again quite structured which Ivanna does not always enjoy, but she sure does love to jump and swing and do summersaults! We do both of these classes with our neighbours (Jen and Rob) and their little girl Natalie - the girls have become quite the little buddies. Besides these classes, we spend time with friends playing or going to the library story time, as well as weekly having tea with the ladies from Darren's mom's side of the family (where Ivanna plays with some of her cousins). I've also been going the mom's program at our church which is a nice break as they provide childcare for the children. The weeks fly by. This fall we also participated in a Parent Language Program through the local hospital Speech/Language Pathology Department. We have learned many ways to help Ivanna's language to continue to develop and it does seem to be helping. She has a phenominal vocabulary, considering she's only heard english for 6 months, but has been somewhat slow in starting to put words together in phrases. This has really improved in the last several weeks and she talks constantly at home. She's still not exactly understandable to strangers - but we generally know what she is saying! "No wanna" continues to be a favorite phrase, but I suppose that is relatively normal for 2! Other excitement this fall was Ivanna's first Halloween in Canada - where she dressed up as a ladybug (or 'budeedee' as she calls them). It didn't take her long to figure out that people would give her candy as we went to the doors (she didn't master 'trick or treat', but did manage to learn 'treat'!)- we only did a few houses in our area where we know people and she certainly gave us funny looks as we passed other houses when she saw other children going up the walks! It was quite fun and after a drive to visit both sets of grandparents and meet up with all the cousins, she went to bed quite late and exhausted!

In the last week, Darren has submitted his thesis to his commitee and that is a tremendous relief. He will have more time to spend with us as a family once he has finished his defence, as he is working 80%. I have formally requested an extension of my leave from work and so will not be returning to my position until the fall of 2008. So life in our little family is settling down. It is a good life and we are daily grateful.

Summer Fun...

Having a snack with some of her cousins (Misha and Sabrina)

Playing with Will

Sunday evening supper at Nana and Grampa MacKenzie's (playing with Dad's coke can)

Just generally being a monkey!

Finding swings wherever we go (at family camp)

Camping at Pike lake

Playing and having fun in Nana and Papa (Nickel's) yard

Playing with Sam and a box...need we say more?

Having a blast at the zoo with Auntie Val, Uncle Jason, Eilidh and Will

Ivanna's 2nd birthday party at Pike Lake

Mooching dessert from Grampa (or Bampa as Ivanna says)

Swimming with her Nanas - she now LOVES water!

Reading with Eilidh

Sharing Papa's dessert... yes this is a theme of her life (mooching her grandparents' desserts)

Well, life is good and fun in the Nickel household. It is hard to believe the summer is almost over and we are planning fall activities. This has been an amazing summer and we are feeling very blessed and thankful. Ivanna continues to adjust well. Her language is coming along in leaps and bounds and she has become quite a little parrot - repeating most things we say (time to become more cautious with what we say!). She is very fond of all her family and loves to spend time with all her cousins. She now definately has a name for each of her cousins (some more acurate to the real thing than others - Tug=Sam, Wow=Will, etc...) It is such a joy to see her grow and develop. We are definitely learning A LOT and have our moments when we are amazed at just how classically 2 she can be; but she is generally a delightful child. This morning (after being lead back to her room to play/read quietly on her own at 6:45) she came back into our room around 7:20 and came quietly up to the bed, placed a stuffed dog beside me and then went around to Darren and put a stuffed bunny on his head. How sweet is that? She is a very dear child. She continues to love animals and we are trying to teach her not to torment Nana and Grandpa MacKenzie's dog (she tries hard to chase her and loves to help Nana take her for a walk). She loved the zoo when we went last week and I think we'll make good use of the yearly membership we bought (chickens are still a hit!) We spent a week at a family camp up north of Meadow Lake where she learned to tolerate the sand (at first we had to swim in deep water only). It was a fantastic time. We've also had lots of fun playing in our yard, going to parks with friends and cousins - basically being outside as much as possible. Yeah, we're having fun. Life is good.

Life at home...

It is really hard to believe that we have been home for about as long as we were in Ukraine. Time has gone much quicker here. We have settled quite well into somewhat of a routine and are really enjoying our daughter. She has adapted incredibly well and at times we really have to remind ourselves that we've only had her for 7 weeks. She is such a wonderful little girl and has really just blossomed since we've had her with us. It's been incredible to watch. She is most definately well attached to us, but also is quite attached to both sets of grandparents and all her cousins, aunties and uncles. We have pictures on our fridge of the cousins that she looks at and points to (and often kisses) several times each day - it's pretty cute! She's got her own version of most of their names down (for example Will is 'wow' and Sam is 'tug' - we're not sure of the connection but it suits him!) She knows both her grandparents' houses and gets quite excited to get out of the car or stroller as soon as she sees them. She has settled in so well to our families that in many ways it is like she was always here.
We continue to learn alot about Ivanna and experience many firsts and watch her expand her little world. While at first, water was quite terrifying to her and she HATED her bath time (as in kicking and screaming hated), now she has turned into a little fish in her Nana and Grandpa MacKenzie's pool and loves her bath. The transformation started by watching her cousins (Eilidh and Will) having FUN in the bath and then progressed to having a bath with her cousin Sam (who loves the bath) to now she goes to the bath and holds up the plug and points to the taps and says 'please' with a very cute expression on her face. The pool has also helped. While at first she was a little tentative (at least I think I remember her actually being tentative the first time or two - she's so different now!) and clung to me (Shona) and her daddy, she eventually discovered that splashing is FUN and then that water is fun. After a couple of visits she was jumping in (to my increased stress) from the edge without hanging on to me and was quite happy to go right under the water (with me to pull her up). Now we mostly put her in a life jacket (and she's progressed to jumping off the diving board)! In the life jacket she will kick and try to swim and will purposefully put her face in the water and will 'dive' under the rope dividing the shallow and deep ends lifting it over her as she goes under it. It's amazing -- and actually hard to remember just how tentative she was about water a few short weeks ago!
Ivanna also really loves to be outside and will play for hours (if we let her) on the play structure in the backyard or in the parks near our home. We have realised that she is really quite a physically-gifted child as she is quite strong for her age, is incredibly flexible and has no fear. She will try to climb anything (and is able to climb most play structures - even those made for much older children!). She definately keeps us running!
In the last month, we also went camping and she had a lot of fun. She and I (Shona) went with Tanis and her boys to a nearby camp-ground (Pike Lake) and stayed for most of a week, camping with other friends. It was so much fun. The pool there is ideal for kids (zero-entry) and also has a water slide (which, surprise surprise, she loved riding down with me). Our days were fantastic and lots of fun but our nights were a little rough as she and I both had bad colds, and she had croup the first night there (not fun to deal with on your own without medical assistance close by!). We both survived and learned that she reacts with cold medication, so we will NEVER EVER give it to her again (lets just say that 4 hours of a manic/hyper child in a small tailer from 11PM to 3am is not a good experience!). We have since learned that the nightime version is tolerable and she doesn't go wild with it. Ah. Life lessons learned the hard way.
We had her 2nd birthday party out at Pike Lake and that was a lot of fun and provided a lot of space for the kids to run around. She hadn't napped that day (other than 10 minutes in the car - which apparently she thought was enough) so by the end of the party as we put her in the vehicle and said goodbye to family she sleepily said (and signed) to me 'tired, night night'. So we fed her wieners and put her to bed. A good day.
Food has been another adventure. As we got NO information from the orphanage about her usual foods, we've been kind of winging it. We've discovered that most of the time she would gobble up oatmeal in the morning and thick, chunky soup/stew for lunch (yes she'd even eat all the vegetables). Those were my 'sure things'. Well, a week of camping with her cousins now has her eating hot dogs like CRAZY and fries and ketchup. That's a balanced diet right? She also will now eat cheese (especially cheese strings - what Sam has, Ivanna wants - how that has helped her to eat more things!) and yogurt cheese (Minigo) and she'll eat a few other options for fruit besides bananas, so at least she'll now eat something in all the food groups! I'm learning to be more relaxed and let her eat what she will and not to push what she won't (she is 2 after all - the more I push, the more she pushes back! DN: yeah, I'm learning that one too. I figured that since I am older, I ought to have a stronger will. oops. not so). It really is an adventure all round.
Anyway, that's all I have time for now. She will be waking up from her nap soon so off I must run. Know that we are all doing well and loving being home. We'll post more recent pictures soon and will try to continue to post at least monthly updates for all our loved ones who live far away and don't get to experience the adventure first hand!
Shona, Darren and Ivanna

time warp...

It is almost unbelievable that we have had Ivanna for 6 weeks and that we've been home for 5 1/2. Ivanna has settled in extremely well. She seems very attached to us -- and actually, pretty fond of us too. I (Darren) have been going in to work most days and must say that it is very heartwarming to see Ivanna's face light up as she says, "Dada!" when she sees me. Yeah, it is pretty great. She has picked up a decent amount of English already and, we think, understands even more than she lets on. Really, she seems to be exhibiting most of the normal behaviours of any 2-year-old girl -- which brings me to the next point: we are tired. Who knew that having a 2 year old could tire you out?
Ivanna has incredible energy. She seems overjoyed to be discovering the world and sprints from interest point to interest point. She is at times a bit hard to keep up with, but oh so much fun to watch. I'm coming to realize that all the energy we spent worrying about the future before we had Ivanna is now spent on her -- where is she? Is she safe? How did she get that? How did she do that?
We celebrated Ivanna's 2nd birthday on Saturday with family and friends at a local provincial park and had a great time. It will probably take a few years, but I hope she comes to see just how blessed we feel and how much many people love and celebrate her.

The way home (part 2) and ...

not sure how that is a comfortable sleep...

playing with Misha

on the swings in our backyard with Sam

So… Here we sit in Toronto. Ivanna slept from around 3:00am (NFLD time) to 7:20ish, which is good. We played, had breakfast, got cleaned up and dressed then went for a walk – to the airport as the other direction had no sidewalks. It took less than 10 minutes to walk there. We walked inside a bit (it was about 7 Celcius in St. John’s this morning – so inside walking was good after being acclimatized to over 30 for the last 3-4 weeks!) and had a coffee at Tim Hortons and introduced Ivanna to donuts (pretty big hit). We walked back and then did the last second packing up and grabbed the shuttle back to the airport. Our girl was pretty tired by the time our flight was loading and had a bit of a fit as I tried to settle her and hold her so that she might sleep. We eventually tried some soft chewy candies (actually – oops – I bought sour candies and so had to suck the sour sugar off then she would eat them) which kept her quiet for seconds to minutes at a time. She slowly got tired though and even though she still was fussing a bit by the time the plane was taxiing her little eyelids were drooping and as we took off she fell asleep. She slept for 1 ½ hours (until I decided to try laying her down as we had an extra seat again – unfortunately she stirred and woke and didn’t go back to sleep despite probably needing it. Alas. Mom and Dad were back on. She actually did quite well for the rest of the trip and played mostly on her own in her seat with some books for most of an hour and only got a bit fussy right at the end (she really doesn’t like losing her freedom for take-off and landing!) Darren did a good job of distracting her with a puppet. Once we got into the terminal (gate service for the stroller is the most brilliant idea ever – much easier than yesterday) we had a nice meal (we were all hungry) of burgers for Darren and me (it’s been a LONG time without burger for Darren) and chicken fingers for Ivanna. Now as I write Ivanna is ripping around and playing. She’s enjoying watching the goings-on the tarmac and trying to entice her Daddy into a game of chase (which she loves, but gets incredibly riled up – which after yesterday we are trying to avoid - so Darren is doing a good job of emanating calm – or is it just the fatigue?) We are both feeling very weary and will be very glad to get home tonight. It’s still hard to believe all that has happened in the last 6 ½ weeks. In some ways it seems just like yesterday we were here waiting to leave to go the other direction and had no clue of what would happen when we got there. Now there is this amazing little girl who calls us ‘mama’ and ‘dada’ who is traveling HOME with us. There are many moments when this all still feels like a dream.

June 6th….the story continues
We are now safely home, but I will jump back to where we left off in Toronto. We managed to pass the rest of the time waiting for our flight and all were pretty exhausted by the time our boarding time came around – and passed without the plane boarding as it hadn’t arrived yet. We managed to keep Ivanna somewhat distracted from losing it (she was really tired and ready to sleep – airports are way too stimulating for toddlers!) When the plane finally arrived and we got on, she actually was pretty calm and fell asleep as the plane was taxiing. Unfortunately, it then proceeded to sit on the runway, in a line-up of planes and then the pilot came on to say that all takeoffs were being stopped as there was an electrical storm and the priority for air-traffic control was to get the planes in the air landed. We worried a bit as our connection in Winnipeg was only 40 minutes and we were approaching ½ hour delayed at this point. The positive to all this was Ivanna was sleeping (thankfully – neither of us had much for reserves to deal with a screaming kid). Eventually, we did take off, but it was an hour late. I couldn’t believe we’d come so close to only be stuck in Winnipeg for the night. Darren was quite calm about it and I just cried. I was feeling pretty desperate to just be home. Ivanna slept for pretty much the whole trip, but was quite restless and cried intermittently in her sleep – I think she was just desperate to have a comfortable space to move around (she does kind of thrash in her sleep) but was limited to the lumpiness of our laps). As we got closer to Winnipeg the pilot came on to say that we would be arriving 45 minutes late and said nothing about connecting flights, so I asked the stewardess to ask about whether we would make our connection to Saskatoon. She wasn’t sure and wasn’t able to get any answers from the flight deck as they were busy. All we could do was pray that somehow we would make it. As we landed and taxied in the pilot came on to say that the Saskatoon flight was being held for us as there were several people connecting and asked that people who weren’t on that connecting flight to remain seated and accommodate the rest of us getting off. Slava Bogu. We quickly got our stuff organized and stood up as soon as we could (along with most of the plane – so much for accommodating other passengers, people are funny). In any case we got out, grabbed the stroller and headed into the building. The Saskatoon flight had not even started to board yet – it had been delayed (what I prayed for as we left Toronto). I just sat down on a vacant seat with Ivanna and cried. The faucet was very leaky after that last and FINAL scare about not making it home that night. A few minutes later, an attendant asked if we were on the Saskatoon flight and came over to get our boarding passes and told us we could head into the plane. Ivanna had woken up on the landing from Toronto but was so tired still that she was very subdued. We settled into our seats and she quietly looked at a book and then fell asleep again as we took off. About halfway through that final and short flight, I realized my bladder would not make it to the end. We managed to shift Ivanna into Darren’s arms and I snuck out and then on my return did the reverse for Darren. Thankfully she’s mostly quite a sound sleeper. She slept right through landing into Saskatoon and just woke up with the seatbelt sign going off. She was a little trooper as we gathered our things and headed off the plane and was pretty happy to see her stroller but reached up for my hand as I walked beside her. We headed into the building and as we came out of the security area saw a sea of much-loved and missed faces in front of us. The cousins all had balloons and there was a great big sign welcoming us home. It was incredible. We were quickly surrounded by family and friends and the cousins swooped in to meet Ivanna. She did remarkably well considering she was surrounded by strangers and was exhausted. She was pretty quiet and rather stunned-looking but tolerated the adoring attention of the kids really well. They tied balloons on her stroller and gave her some to hold to (at which point she finally let go of my hand). She continued to do well, checking to see where we were when one or the other of us moved away briefly. After a lot of well wishes and hugs and a small smile or two from Ivanna as some people interacted with her, we (her parents who were not sitting down and were ready to drop) headed home in our car with Jonathan as our Chauffeur – he had picked up all our luggage and brought the car around. Ivanna didn’t fuss with the car seat – she just picked at and looked at the restraints with disdain and played with her balloons on the way home and began saying ‘paka, paka, paka’. Pretty sweet. We arrived home to a huge chalk arrow leading into our driveway and wonderful pictures and ‘welcome home’ filling the driveway. I took Ivanna directly up to her room and she went to sleep without a problem. We were completely overwhelmed by all the gifts and cards and pictures of us with Ivanna that filled our home and yard. That night Ivanna slept well until 6:30 the next morning. Darren did the same. I was awake from 2am until about 5:30 (forgotten how to sleep). Our first couple of days at home have been pretty amazing. Ivanna is adjusting well. She had quite a ball yesterday morning investigating her room and toys and the rest of the house. We’ve shut a few doors to limit just how much of the house she knows about right now – so as not to overwhelm her too much. I continue to sleep poorly and haven’t yet been able to nap despite being completely exhausted. Hopefully that will change soon. Things still seem to have a bit of a dream-like quality. Perhaps that will change with rest. We continue to be amazed at just how well Ivanna is doing. We are slowly getting to know better who this little girl is. We are discovering her likes and dislikes with regards to food (that can be quite funny – she has a pretty good whole body shudder when she doesn’t like something). We are guessing most of her food has been pretty bland so far in her life as anything with a lot of texture or flavour promptly gets the body shudder and spit out onto her tray. I am finding it both delightful and frustrating at different times. It would have been nice to have gotten more information from the orphanage about what foods she ate, but it is interesting to try different things with her – so far no major upsets to her tummy. This (like the whole process of adopting from Eastern Europe) is quite an adventure – probably not for the faint of heart. We are enjoying being home and are very thankful for our daughter and our family and friends who have supported us. We are blessed.