6 months
It was six months ago today that we walked out of the orphanage in Taldom with these two kids. They are doing extraordinarily well. Language, behavior, attachment...all headed in the right direction. They are growing in every sense of the word. The Best of all, we all love each other.

But here's what's hard from the parent's perspective. This has been a true odyssey. The two trips to Russia. The endless trips between Moscow and Taldom. The smell of the orphanage. The scene in the courtroom. A week in a Moscow hotel room with one bed. Speaking mostly Russian for two months. Some haunting memories of kids left behind. All of that forms a memory that is precious, painful, movie-perfect, and distinctive. Our kids are succeeding. They are blending quickly into the American landscape. It's what we want for them. But the cost is that their unique route to this reality will soon be lost to all onlookers. Not only that, but the special roles we've had to play in helping with their transition will soon be unnecessary. We will simply have to be good parents like everyone else.

We are delighted and sad.

My kids have a toy that consist of an oval plastic train track, a four-car train, a front-end loader that carries and unloads plastic logs and a little helicopter. The design is quite ingenious in the way the pieces interact. The truck dumps picks a log from a hopper, turns around and heads for the other side of the tracks. Just before it gets there it stops and waits for the train. When the train arrives, it stops, then the truck moves forward,dumps the log in a railroad car, and turns to go get a another log. The train dumps it's payload in the hopper on the other side.

What I like about this system is that it mirrors my metaphysical view of the world. The key is that only the truck and the train have batteries (brains). There is no system clock or other smarts associates with the system. Yet it all works in concert. So what the point? The way I look at the world we are more or less free spirits confined only by system (i.e. cultural, social, physical) parameters. Most religions, by contrast, suggest that the system itself has the energy, the smarts. Religions implore us to abide by It's Rules.

Now I don't mean to disregard the system. Nature (like the train tracks) seems specifically and elegantly designed to facilitate it's inhabitants. All I'm saying is it has No Brains. The Designer had brains, though. But what a great combination. A brilliantly-designed giant grid that grows and adapts. The little thinkers interact with it, try to learn from it, adapt it to their needs.

Ouch. My metaphor broke.