How could we be so off?

Collins are from Mars, Ukraine kids are from Venus.

We just hoped we'd be able to live together somewhere in between, like Earth.

We blew it big time yesterday when we planned a get together with Aaron's brother and his family. In our minds, we thought it was a brilliant idea. Who wouldn't want to meet this awesome extended family of ours and hang out with them all day doing crazy things like barreling full speed down a mountain in a sled and eating milkshakes as big as our heads?

Sasha, Ilona and Alina. That's who.

Rookie mistake for the Collins family.

But our fault or not, I don't like being with pouters and naysayers. I don't like being with kids who refuse to eat their lunch and tell me everything we do is stupid and walk on the other side of the street from us and act like the opportunities I'm giving them are a punishment. I know, I know. We blew it.

Here we are, thoroughly not enjoying watching kids do ski jumps and flips into a pool. I mean, how stupidly fu can you get? To these kids, pretty darn dumb. Bad enough that Sasha stormed off to wait it out in the car as the Americans enjoyed watching this frivolous and meaningless sport. I asked the girls if they knew what skiing was? "No." Snow skiing? "No." World Olympic games? "NOOOOO!" Maybe they really had never heard of these things before. But somehow it seemed that when I spoke of them, the very words brought back some horrific memory that invoked fury raging so deep inside of them, it waited for me to dare ask one more question so it could surface and bite my head off to silence it all. 

After leaving Olympic village, we stopped at Wal Mart to pick up some groceries for dinner. Sasha immediately spotted the smoking section on the front benches outside the store and declined to come in with us. Rather, he joined the others on the bench, I'm guessing to thoroughly enjoy secondhand smoking as he fumed inside himself about this family who was ruining his life. A bit later he wandered into the store to find us, his demeanor quite a bit lighter. Oh how I feel for these kids. Stuck somewhere between a life they know and a life they dream of with no one to help them make sense of it. Or at least no one they trust.

When we returned home, Sasha asked if he could go on a bike ride. His question was posed as a whistle as his finger drew several circles in the air, followed by one long and pointed gesture in a straight line forward. I gathered that he wanted to go on a really long ride and I was more than happy to oblige. He returned over an hour later, excited to report that he had ridden to "Big Mac", which was the McDonald's we drove by earlier that day, several miles away, through the mountain trails. His navigation skills are uncanny.

His light mood dampened after a phone call from his chaperone came through. I'm not sure what prompted her to call, but from his end of the conversation I could tell he got a good chewing out. I hadn't initiated the call, but when he hung up I could tell he had it out for me. His attitude and gestures became downright disrespectful and my patience was wearing thin. He stormed downstairs and buried himself in the TV.

Meanwhile, Ilona ran inside to tell me Alina had crashed on her bike. The scene was frightening as a wounded girl sat in the middle of the road, bike twisted off to the side, tire mark on her shirt and face, and scrapes along both arms, legs and chin. She kept on insisting, "It's okay, it's okay" but she clearly needed help to get calmed down and cleaned up. We went over to the front porch stairs and I calmly rubbed her back, as she didn't want me to look at or touch the wounds. Ilona spoke loud and fast and seemed to be telling her what a fool she was for crashing. I tried to calm them both down, but then Ilona went in for Sasha. He ran out to look at her and when he saw me, he too started talking loud and fast as if berating her for the crash.

That moment with Sasha was complicated. I was taking his place as the one to care for his wounded sister, which is a parental role he has been forced to fill for many years. Did he feel relief or resentment? His body language spoke of both as he stormed back inside.

I helped Alina get clean and bandaged while my stomach and head spun.

We prepared dinner, Ilona volunteering to cook the fried potatoes, and as we ate we could all taste the tension. All 3 of the kids either didn't eat, or ate very little, and isolated themselves from the group.

After several more hostile exchanges between Sasha and myself, I sat him down for a talk. The language barrier is the bane of my existence right now, especially because the kids seem to be unwilling to try English at all.

The talk was brief. I started by using the few adjectives in English that he could understand, namely "nice". Confusion and anger crossed his face. I typed this:

He groaned. 

I used charades and broken English/Russian to explain the important concept to him and show him the difference between a happy and sad family. Then I typed this:

He nodded.

I paused before I wrote this last one.

He read it and shrugged to tell me he didn't understand. I'm sure the translation isn't proper, and saying things like this should be reserved for kids who can get the innuendo. Then, with slowness and clarity, I looked at him and said, "I LOVE YOU. Do you understand that?"

He nodded and a faint smile graced his face.

By then the girls had joined us. I tried explaining the same things to them as I did to Sasha. Maybe the concepts and the words allude them right now, but the feelings of love and security were there. The girls each gave me a big hug and Sasha got up to walk away. Before he could go far, I held my arms out to him and he hugged me with both length and sincerity. The boy from my dream was back.

We ended the night with a trip to Grannys, a nostalgic shake shop in Heber, Utah that we have loved since our own childhoods. Mike's family sat at one table, we sat at another, and the guard seemed to lift from the kids. It's as if they were trying to tell us they were sorry to have had a hard time with it all today. They love Mike's family because they are part of who we are. But these things take time. And could we please not give up on them because they are just trying to figure out how they fit in with such a large, grounded, happy family - something they are seeing for the first time in their lives.

When they learn English I will ask them how they really felt. I made the thoughts in that whole last paragraph up. Maybe because I want it to be true. Or maybe it's my way of trying to make sense of it all too. I said it before and I'll say it again - we are complete rookies. Don't hold that against us.