Picture: Natasha in Mama's Hat

I adopted my daughter Natasha from Ukraine in December 2000. She was 3.5 years old.

Natasha was full of anger and had every right to her anger. She was in the orphange system for 2.5 years. I believe that the adults did the best that they could. But Natasha was in an institution. She did not have a single item that she could call her own.



When you see underwear that you wore last week on someone else....

You have to know that you own nothing. Natasha had very little control over her life. She had to fight for what she had.

When I picked her up from the orphanage... after the adoption was finally finalized

Her first questions were about food and sleeping.

"Where will I sleep?"

"What will I eat?"

Sleeping and eating are 2 big priorities for toddlers. I always made sure that I had food when I was visiting with Natasha, prior to the adoption.

After the adoption was final, I gave Natasha a canvas bag, baggies, animal crackers and gold fish crackers. Natasha had a great time counting and moving her food from bag to bag. This was cheap entertainment that reassured my darling.

And I took pictures of my house and family to Ukraine. I showed Natasha where she would be sleeping. We talked (via a translator) how she would be coming home with me.. where she would sleep... where she would eat... This seemed to help Natasha too.

Here is a list of other things that I did for my darling toddler to make traveling less stressful.

• I had low expectations on Natasha's behavior. I didn't take anything personal. I didn't worry about being Mama. I just wanted to get us home in one piece.



• I let Natasha turn the light switches off and on twenty billion times. Natasha reminded me how cool light switches really are.



• Another adoptive family in Ukraine gave me a toy. The toy's recommended age was 18 months. It was a battery powered toy that bounced around the room. At first Natasha wasn't certain what she thought about the toy. But quickly she decided it was good. She squealed and chased it.


• We timed in together. If Natasha was heading toward a meltdown (very frequent), we would sit on the floor. Then I would fan my fingers out and count them one at a time. Who knew counting fingers could be so cool.