Ever since the adoption of our first child from
Russia, we've tried to incorporate our children's heritage into our daily lives after
all, we are no longer a German, Irish, Cherokee, American family. We are Russian by virtue of adoption.
We celebrate Russian Holidays and Christmas Eve Traditions. Sometimes we
make it up as we go along. Like when we combined Russian name day and Adoption
day. My famous Snowball Cookies have been are renamed Russian Tea Cakes. (they
were virtually the same cookie anyway)
We make future plans to visit Russia and talk about all the places we
want to go to. My ballerina needs to see the Bolshoi and my son wants to visit
St. Basils Cathedral to see if it actually looks like the street vendors oil
painting which hangs proudly in his room.
We have read all the books about Russia; Eyewitness Russia, Eloise in
Moscow, Count to 10 in Russian, Boyra and the Burps, and of course my favorites
Anna Karenina and Dr Zhivago. We have Language CD’s and Berlitz
dictionaries, count to 10 in Russian, and name all the table setting. We
say Spasibo for Thank You and Nyet for No.
We've seen performances by the Moiseyev Ballet at the Performing Arts
Center and my daughter has been an authentic Russian dancing the part in the
Greenville Ballet’s Nutcracker, and Coppellia. And we've seen the Russian National Theater and the Moscow Circus.
So now our life is a balancing act, or a dance if you will.
Sometime it leaves your head spinning and other times you have to take a step
backwards before you can move forward. Who knows where it might lead?
Maybe one of our children will end up on dancing with the Stars!
The Greenville Ballet
Labels: Adoption Awareness, Cultural Identity, Family, Heritage, Holidays, international adoption, Kids and Teens, Parenting, Russian adoptions, Russian Holidays, Toddler Adoption
