As I feared when I first began blogging, I have let much time lapse without any updates. In fact, follow-through is something that is a challenge to me even when I’m at my best. Oh, well. I might as well revel in the non-follow-through parts of my personality that allow me to face the world undaunted by all the “could-have-beens” in my life. Heck, with all my talents and my stunning intellect, one could claim that a lack of follow-through is a tremendous asset, since there are those in the world who think being able to do something good or positive leads to an obligation to do so.  Of course, there’s not much market for doctor/lawyer/rocket scientist hybrids, especially since I would likely be 60 by the time I finished acquiring all the degrees that would allow me to do everything of which I am capable.  Such a lifestyle would lead me inevitably on the path of a nervous breakdown.

Which leads me to my actual topic of thought tonight… my nervous breakdown. Now, typically one isn’t able actually to PLAN for such an event, because, in all likelihood, such planning would prevent the occurrence in the first place.  However, I do think it would be fun to ponder what sort of personality I would possess upon exiting from my nervous breakdown (hereafter referred to as SNB (Seth’s Nervous Breakdown)).

Many people choose to look first at the cause of the nervous breakdown, or the behavior present during the breakdown, however I feel it is more enjoyable to start with an end. As some people believe the end justifies the means, so I believe that a much-improved (or at least much cooler) personality would make SNB the most worthwhile.  As we all know, breakdowns are an opportunity to remake the personality in ways we were too afraid to try the first time around.

Though I’m not yet sure exactly what my personality would look like, it would definitely have to be some sort of stress-resistant personality. This means I would either have to be willing to avoid all work and responsibility, or work and responsibility would no longer carry the life stress that they do now. Choosing between these two options is extremely difficult, but on this end of SNB, I would have to aim for the no longer allowing things to be as stressful option, since that would be the least likely to end me up as a bum on the street (which, incidently, does hold more than a scary amount of appeal for me).  The challenge I now face is what such a personality could look like without either too closely resembling my current personality or copying the personality exhibited by the character on “Office Space.”  Somehow I would need to be able to accomplish necessary tasks without getting stressed by them. But, I would have to have an even lower stress experience than I typically do now.

I thought originally that taking a comedic turn in life might be my answer.  I could become very funny, perhaps even going into stand-up comedy.  The problem I see in this approach is that a post SNB personality should be something refreshingly and surprisingly different, and I’m not sure anyone who knows me now would look at me juggling and unicycling on Leno and say to him/herself “wow, that’s not ever a direction I saw Seth going.”

So, comedy is out. What about dark humor?  Perhaps a ironically funny pessimistic personality?  It would certainly be somewhat fitting for the job I currently hold, making return to life after SNB an easier transition, But, again, I fear that such a turn would not mark enough of a change from my current personality.

Hmm. As any reader can begin to notice, my options for a post SNB personality seem to be limited. I am by no way claiming that there is no personality that works, but it does seem the most likely choices have already been taken– by me. So, where does that leave me?  With the scary thought that I have, actually, experienced SNB and am now in the post-experience personality. This though is slightly unpleasant, because it suggests that I have little to look forward to, and that this personality I have now is about as good as I’m going to get. It’s cool and all, don’t get me wrong, but I could imagine a much better one (I just struggle on the details). Also, if this is my post SNB personality, then I have no recollection of my pre SNB personality. What a appointment, to have a new and improved stress-resistant personality, but to have no memory of the original personality. Perhaps that is a study for a future date: What did my pre SNB personality look like (or what would it look like if it did exist (as a different personality, of course, than my current one))? How can I enjoy truly the improvement if I can’t remember the past?

Perhaps this thought will motivate another blog update some day…

As I figured would probably happen, my blogging has stalled out and much time has gone by since my last post. Of course, that is because life goes on. Things happen, we’ve gotten and stayed busy, and all the humorous quirks from the beginning are, shall we say, not so humorous anymore.  I thought that after getting a masters degree in social work, working at a domestic violence shelter, and having the most extroverted person in the world as a wife I was immune to the drama of girls. Boy was I wrong.  What has happened you may ask? Well, one girl in the house is just that… one girl. Two girls in the house is… well, its drama. Power struggles. I never cease being amazed at what innocent seeming actions are apparently part of a deeply embedded conspiracy to prove one’s power and independence. And to think that heretofore in my life I had believed that a person’s behaviors spoke for themselves.

Hmm.

Perhaps what I find the most humorous and ironic is the similarities between the two girls. I have written previously about how similar our Ukrainian Girl (who is now 14 by the way) and I are on a number of levels. One day at the park she was contemplating infinity, and how other sentient beings in the universe would be awed by it as well.  With Sarah, however, the connection is even more freaky.  In order to understand what I’m getting at, I’ll have to reminisce a little bit about the early years of our marriage.

While I (and I believe Sarah) would both categorize the first several years of our marriage as mostly pleasant, there were definitely the usual (or perhaps not so usual in some cases) hiccups in which we found out about those habits of which we were previously unaware.  Here is a brief list:

1) it is not uncommon for Sarah to take dishes and utensils out of the dishwasher and place them away– in brand new locations. The skillet may have been kept in the drawer by the oven for the last three months, but that doesn’t mean it must go there again.  Likewise, the cutting knives had a habit of migrating throughout our kitchen.

2) Food is not eaten in any traditional manner.  What do I mean, you may ask?  Well, a fresh pan of brownies is unlikely to make it through the night intact. Sarah has a habit of sneaking out and eating the brownies… from the middle of the pan outward… with a fork (no wasting time cutting pieces).  Likewise, meals are not your typical fare.  Brownies, cakes, ice cream are fair game for breakfast lunch or dinner.  Snack foods, such as a bag of marshmallows are kept on the counter to be munched on throughout the day.

3) Timeliness is next to… well, its next to impossible. I can’t remember a church event, appointment, or generally any function to which Sarah was early, or even comfortably on time. In addition, the alarm clock in the morning is only a suggestion, and morning appointments are always open to renegotiation.

4) A final fact– one that Sarah was always adamant about– is that there is no RIGHT way to do anything… instead, there is the boring and stuffy “traditional” way, and there is whatever way Sarah chooses to do it.

These four items are just a sampling of how I learned to be flexible in life, and that it was unfair of me to impose my way of doing things onto a free-spirited human being.

Of course, the things that irritate Sarah about our Ukrainian Girl:

1) Apparently our UK doesn’t take the time to find out where dishes go when emptying the dishwasher; rather she places them where she things they fit.  I guess there’s a difference between CHOOSING to place them somewhere original and just not taking the time to find out where they go…

2) UK’s natural eating tendencies are atrocious.  Most notable is the fact that we can’t get her to stop snacking on marshmallows or eating junk food for breakfast or lunch if we don’t catch her in time. I guess one could use the excuse that she’s a growing girl and needs good nutrition, but she’s already 4 inches taller than Sarah…

3) UK is, as I lovingly refer to her (but not where she can hear me), a Pokey Little Puppy. She’s generally not in a hurry to get anything done or get anywhere in time. An hour and a half in the morning to get ready for school earns us a frantic last-minute dash through the house to get everything prepared. Cleaning her room can take ten minutes to three hours, depending on the starting time of the clean-room-mandatory event she wants to attend.

4) UK doesn’t trouble herself with the stodgy “traditional” American way of doing things, rather she believes that as long as she gets the job done, self-expression should reign supreme.

It amazing me that such a person as our 14-year-old Ukrainian Girl not only came into being without being birthed by Sarah herself, but that she somehow managed to find her way thousands of miles from Ukraine to our house, when she fits in perfectly. Of course, I think life would be a little calmer if she didn’t fit quite so naturally into the role of our 14 year-old, strong-willed and head-strong daughter…

My whole life I have never understood why some people are just so touchy about what they call “rough housing” or “running” indoors. Growing up in the cold mountains of Colorado, we would likely have wasted into nothing had we not gotten our physical exercise indoors when the winter temperatures outside prohibited us from leaving the safety of our home and the wood-burning stove. That sounds good, at least. The real fact of the matter is that either my parents tried to make us “behave” from the early years on and failed dismally or they weren’t that concerned with the social norms involving no running or playing indoors. Maybe it was a little of both. Whatever the case, our house was a hotbed of  playful activity. Dinner time, for example, was a wonderful lesson in survival, as my two brothers and I challenged one another to see who could make it up the stairs from the basement (maybe that’s my problem– growing up in a basement…) to the dinner table first. It is not as if we did this in isolation, however, for in my junior high years I was spared disciplinary action for breaking the couch in a wrestling match only because it was my dad whom I was wrestling at the time.

I write all of this simply to explain that I never understood why you weren’t suppose to rough house or run indoors. Aside from the couch, we broke remarkably few items throughout the years (probably because they had all been stored safely away) and we had so many fun times, that I have never understood the prohibitions of others.

Until now.

I have learned that the rule is not “no running indoors,” but rather, “no running into doors.” I discovered this recently as a contest over  possession of a pink volleyball resulted, ultimately, in our 13 year-old Ukrainian girl running into our front door and sending her knee through a pane of glass. She’s all right– nothing some hydrogen peroxide (H2O2– I believe it’s the extra oxygen molecule that both earns it the name of peroxide and provides the volatility necessary for the sanitizing chemical reaction to take place) and a few band-aids (or adhesive bandages, to avoid trademark infringements) couldn’t fix. However, I have now learned that “rough housing” and playing with balls indoors should be done with discretion, and the door should be avoided at all costs.

That, folks, is the sweet, sweet sound of victory. For almost six years a silent war has raged in our lives. The war against the uncontrollable; the unknowable.  Our tactics vary. As for myself, I prefer the wait, observe, and react strategy; There is no sense stressing for the future or planning for that over which we have no control. Instead, I have always believed firmly in the flexibility of the human spirit, that quality which allows us not only to adapt to our environment and circumstances, but which also empowers us to take ownership and manipulate that world with which we come into contact.

My wife? She follows a different strategy, one in which the power of human beings to control the world is limited merely by the quanity of words proceeding from our mouths. This takes form in a number of ways. When confronted with someone of a different persuasion of thought, victory is assured for the person able to speak the most words. It is as if, simply by filling the air with syllables (both argumentative, declarative, or descriptive), she can smother the life out of all opposing forces. It goes further, however, for my wife considers words to be the element of divine power instilled in human beings.  Archimedes once said, “give me a lever big enough and a place to stand, and I will move the world.” According to my wife, however, the brilliant Greek was mislead, for the universal laws of physics are superceded by the divine gift of the tongue. We will be far more effective if we take a collective breath, open our mouths, and let forth a stream of words, dictating where, when, how, why, and to what extent we want the earth moved. Seasons can change, crops can be raised in a day, if only we are able to generate enough words.

How is this relevant? Well, throughout the years we have known each other, my wife has been pouring forth into the void words intended to make her future certain. That future would include a daughter, and that daughter would be everything a daughter should be– outgoing, extraverted, the proper fashion sense, obedient, obsessed with babies and children while avoiding snakes, snails, and even puppy dog tails. In short, this daughter would be the clone of my dear wife. And for six years my wife poured out the power of her words, dreaming, stating, even guaranteeing that the future would be so, while I sat back in my introverted world, waiting to greet what the universe brought my way.

And now….

KA CHING!

Our 13 y ear old Ukrainian girl is an introvert, wasting virtually no words, keeping the power of that divine spark within her.

KA CHING!

Her greatest wish as she came to school in America? To play school sports.

KA CHING!

Her favorite school subjects? Math, science, physics!

KA CHING!

Her clothing style? She adores the clothes I pick while turning her nose up at my wife’s picks…

KA CHING!

Her first American purchase? Green hair spray!

KA CHING!

Her joke style? Puns and word plays

KA CHING!

Her favorite pasttime? Dogs, cats, bugs, lizards, turtles, and any other creepy crawlies

KA CHING!

The power hidden in the universe has been revealed, and it has closed its ear to the stream of words and instead has rewarded my still, small voice with a child who resembles me in so many ways and leaves my wife speechless in surpise.

As a social worker, it is not uncommon to support causes, either directly or through positive thoughts (you all know you do it, too… “that’s a good cause, but I don’t have time to DO anything, so I’ll just say its a good cause”) One of the perennial causes is to “Feed the Children.” Of course, When we typically hear that we look globally, sometimes to the neglect of the need to feed children in this nation. Of course, we cannot forget– in our excitement– to ensure that children withing our own city/town/neighborhood are being fed as well.  Even more immediate, however, is the need to ensure that the children in our own house are being fed. Perhaps we sometimes lose the forest through all the trees.

So, to my embarrassment I realized just how much of a childless yuppy young professional I have become. We had a party/shower (the kind of shower where you get gifts, not where you get cleaned up) for our new 13-year-old Ukranian girl. At the party we had cake, and fudge (my fudge, yum), and M&Ms, and cheese and crackers, and punch, and other stuff. After the 3:00 party wrapped up, we headed home, cleaned house, and began the recuperation process. Sarah and I began our standard wind-down-the-weekend routine without thinking about anything. Our 13-year-old was having fun playing with a friend who came over, and we were preparing for the week ahead. All was well.

Except…

The friend, being the very polite and proper girl she is, asked me casually around 7:30, “are you planning on eating dinner before my dad comes home?” Even then I missed the point, concerned more that she was trying to coordinate dinner plans with her father. I replied, “I hadn’t thought about it… are you hungry?” (I wasn’t… too much junk food). And, of course, being polite she stated, “No, that’s fine, I was just wondering.” And, as you may have guessed, I believed her.  Oops.

Luckily, I realized about two minutes later what was going on and grabbed one of the wonderful frozen cook-in-the-skillet meals and we had a nutritious, albeit late dinner.

And the children were fed. Finally.

For those folks who do not know how it is that I, at age 29 (will be 30 by the end of the month) happen to be parenting a 13 year-old Ukraining girl with my 28 year-old wife I will tell you from whence it (meaning the suddent onset parenting) came.

First, this arrangement should come as no surprise really to anyone who knows us (and I don’t think it has). My wife holds the record as being probably one of the most unconventional of people when it comes to certain social norms; she pours her chocolate syrup straight into the ice cream carton, she thinks strawberries saturated in milk is a delicious treat, and, significantly, she thinks taking children is a normal phenomenon. This is most common when at a public event, such as a football game, and anyone who knows Sarah knows also that it is not unusual to look away for a moment and, when you look back, to find Sarah in possession of someone’s small child. Even more bizarre is that the mother never seems to mind, and frequently seems grateful to, let my wife wander off with the child in tow. Sarah has never been limited to small children; some may remember when we were providing foster care for a 32 year-old with Downs Syndrom.

So, we have established that this is no surprise, so here are the mechanics of the situation:

In high school, Sarah had a an exchange student come live with her from Belarus. They became friends and kept in touch. Very nice. Sarah even went to Belaruse for a lengthy visit and learned some of the local lingo.

Over the years, Sarah has continued staying in touch, and earlier this year (or late last year?) the Belarussian came back to the US for a visit. She is currently working for a company in Germany and getting along quite well in life, no doubt due to the fantastic US education system (and having nothing to do with the half-dozen languages she speaks nor the impressive intellect). At the end of her second visit to America, she encouraged my wife to come visit her in Germany.

Because Sarah’s dad is a pilot for an airline, the trip to Germany cost very little, and Sarah flew oversees to visit her former exchange student. The former exchange student had a friend in Germany who was from the Ukraine. This woman was attending the local university and single-parenting a 2 year old boy. As Sarah spoke with her, she found that the woman also had a 13 year-old daughter living in the Ukraine. The child was living with the father and step-mother, an arrangement that just wasn’t working out.

The request that was made of my wife was “please pray that we find a good home for her.” The reply Sarah made was “we’ll take her.” Of course, Seth was still back in the US, oblivious to all.

When Sarah flew home and Seth drove to pick her up she debriefed him on her trip, concluding the story with, “Seth, if I tell you something do you promise to listen and not get upset?” Never the best way to start a confession, but being the good husband that he is, Seth said, “Sure, what?” At which point Sarah said, “Can we have a 13 year-old Ukrainian girl come stay with us.” To which Seth replied, “Sure, what is supposed to make me upset?”

So there you have it. A logical chain of events that could have resulted easily in any one of you out there being in our place.

No, the title does not refer to that travesty of literature, known as the Left Behind Series. I apologize for anyone who might find my label Travesty offensive, but the work is both literarily and scholastically lacking on a number of levels. But that is neither here nor there. The real meaning behind the title refers to a crossroads this blog has experienced. And, since this is the second installment of the blog, you may be wondering to what possible crossroads could I be referring? Well, it is the crossroads where I decided it was better to update the blog with current information than to play “catch up” from the point at which our 13-year-old Ukrainian girl entered our lives. I was going to recount, day by day, all the zaney shenanigans we have experienced, but getting motivated to regurgitate week-old information was proving difficult. Instead, I choose to start anew. From this day forward. Perhaps some of the great first-week experiences will be recounted elsewhere, but not before I start with the current stuff. So, that said, tonight’s lesson: the importance of being cool.

Everyone knows the importance of being cool. Cool people do. Uncool people do. Even people who claim that being cool isn’t cool really think that they are, by discounting cool, being cool. Unravel that for a moment if you need to. One fear Sarah and I have had going into this is that we would be a boring family for our 13-year-old. We don’t think we’re boring to one another, but we have not been parents, and our house has not been stocked to entertain those from the pre-teen and early teen demographics. In addition, we are aware that most of the 7th grade peers have parents who are much older than us and would have, likely, grown and changed along with their children, thus producing an age-appropriate home environment. Tonight, however, Sarah and I received the affirmation that we had so been waiting on. Our 13-year-old’s sanguine friend informed us that we are “more entertaining than cable.”  Yippee. Did you hear that all you folks out there who ever called me boring??!!! A seventh grader would rather come hang out with me and my wife and our 13-year-old Ukranian girl than spend money on cable for a month!

I need to pick up a sponsor…

There are days that one just feels like a sell-out. Among those are the day one picks a major for its usefulness, the time one picks a car for its mileage and safety rating; and, of course the day one begins a blog. Even worse, is the second day, when one has to re-post the first post because it did not post correctly.

Today is such a day for me, and however much I may chaffe at doing so, I am creating a blog, writing my second post, which will be the first post according to all of you, because my first one disappeared somewhere after publishing it. Bah Humbug.

And now I must make the obligatory first-post statements, such as “I know lots of people blog, but I hope to…” or “I decided to start this blog in order to…” I’m going to say I know lots of people think their blogs are unique, but mine really is unique, etc. And then make a pathetic supplication, stating how I hope someone out there might benefit from the blog. Well, the truth is that my blog will be original only inasmuch as it is written by me, a trait shared by no other blogs.

And what, then, has motivated me to sell out in such a way? Well, it would be the experience of bringing a 13-year-old Ukrainian girl into our home. Why is this of note? Well, I am learning many things about parenting a 13-year-old and gaining many experiences. Many of those experiences are items people have shown an interest in, and so as a service to those individuals, I figured I would start the blog to detail the experience we are, well, experiencing.