Gardening, Tree Climbing Boys and bonding

Steven climbing our apple tree.


As Alla our translator would always say, "Boys will be boys." Today, we spent a lot of time outside getting the garden ready for planting. The boys love digging in the dirt, therefore, they were more than happy to help me prepare the soil for planting. They helped me rake and dig up the weeds that grew over the winter and early spring and just digging holes anywhere in the backyard they had the desire to dig. Of course I was doing my best to keep them focused on the garden but at times I just let them go even though we had a few divets in our yard.

At one point a wiggly worm appeared and Steven, being the bug lover that he is, picked up the wiggly worm. This little worm open the door to him first sharing with me about some memories of the deskydom (orphanage) and of his birth mother and birth family. Here I am digging and pulling up weeds when he starts to tell me of the worm him and his "brothers" (other boys in the orphanage) from the orphanage found in the orphanage garden. He then went on and told me a few other stories about what he remembered about his birth mother and family. I was surprised, but yet thankful that Steven was so open and free to express his memories and his life in Ukraine. Periodically I would ask some questions, wanting to find out as much as I could (since he was ready to share) and mostly to make sure that his experiences were positive ones. I am pleased and am thankful to say that he was treated good in the orphanage and that he has positive memories of his birth family. I was surprised when he talked of his birth mother that he showed no emotion (positive or negative) when he talked of her. I made a point to mention that his birth mother loves him very much and I'm sure she misses him and Evan. He didn't react the way I thought he would. He just kept talking and kepting playing in the dirt like I was talking about a stranger. I know he was young when he entered the orphanage, about 3 and a half years old, however, it surprised me that he remembered so much and was willing to share so freely.

Evan hugging the apple tree.

Later on that afternoon, we walked up to our apple tree in our yard and were checking out the buds on the trees. Since the branches were low enough to the ground the boys of course started climbing up the tree. I used to love climbing the trees in our yard growing up, and remember hiding from my brother, David, by climbing to the tippy top of the tall oak tree in our backyard. He was so furious that he couldn't find me that day since he was supposed to be watching my sister and I that day. Anyway, here are a few pictures of the boys climbing our apple tree.