What is happening

Nothing is really happening. We have worked very hard the last few days at our church yard sale that I organize each year. It was a huge success, we raised over $1500 for our church. I got lots of good things for our new endeavour. Another foster mom, who is friends with my good friend Tina, has started accepting donations from families for clothing, shoes, etc. for the kids that are hopefully coming to Southwest Florida. I have offered to help her get the word out, sort everything and store what I can in our garage. We hope to sort everything by sex and size and then we can easily give it out as the kids arrive in to our foster system. We will also need strollers, high chairs, car seats, bikes, etc. it is just a matter of what to do with it all while we wait. It will come that I am sure of! It is amazing how the hearts of people are so big.

I keep reading and hearing how there is no real plan in place for these kids to come. Please pray that our government figures out how to allow these kids in to the US and out of the devestation that they are currently living in. From what we have been told they are working on it and it will happen but there is no system in place for it right now. The thought of how to document these kids for immigration overwhelms me. There really is no way.....I think their paper history will have to start now. It is so sad to think of.....

A new adventure for our family

It has been so long since I blogged and I had thought in February I would do my final post to celebrate Oliver's 2nd year gotcha day. However, the Baers' den is about to grow again so I decided to start blogging again. You must be wondering what we are up to if you haven't had contact with us in the last few months (I know my bad blogging doesn't help).....well, we are embarking on a new journey fostering children in our home. It is something that has been in both Don and my hearts for some time. We both feel that God has led us to this decision.

We started MAPPS classes to become parents this past fall only because one of Don's classes at the local college was canceled at the last minute. We kept looking at taking them but couldn't find the time. But low and behold we could manage it. Our intention was to foster one child close in age to Oliver (under 4) until this fall when Brynn goes off to college. Well this last week an earthquake in Haiti changed all that for us. God kept talking to me and I to him. Then the news media showed picture of all the devastated children in Haiti and I cried, stopped watching the news because my heart couldn't take it.

Well this past Saturday was our 11th anniversary. We were in Orlando visiting our parents. So, we got a rare indulgence of a night out by ourselves. We chose the same Outback steakhouse that Don picked 12 years ago to tell me that he loved me and wanted to be a part of my life forever in. I don't think either of us thought of that on Saturday but I have since. Well our conversation somehow turned to Haiti, our fostering and that Don thought we needed to do what we could by fostering more children and I was totally on board. We then went to see the Blind Side and if you have seen it I don't need to say more....for those of you who haven't, it shows what a difference a great family can make for a child without parents. Then on the news that night we saw Haitian children get off a plane at the Sanford airport with only the clothes on their backs going to foster families.

Sunday and Monday we kept talking about it and how we were going to do it. We honestly had and still have no real idea how we will manage three more kids with the trauma that they have been through not to mention the language barrier, etc. Well on Monday evening I sent an email to our social worker and asked what we could do, can we quickly go from 1 child to 3? I quickly got an answer on Tuesday, "move your furniture around and show us you have a bedroom and beds for 2 more kids and take a picture FAST." They were going to call us anyway as they are expecting a large number of Haitian orphans to begin arriving soon and need to find beds and homes for all of them. Our license was at the perfect place in the approval process to be quickly changed to 3 kids.

So a post on Facebook and an email to all the folks at North Naples Fire District and guess what?? The Lord has provided us with an abundance of love and support not to mention furniture and clothes. Don took yesterday off and we moved bedrooms around, picked up furniture and displaced Brynn from her pretty room to the den. We will get her better situated this weekend. Thank you Brynn for helping us and trying to get on the Tanya train. We are still in need of clothes, toys, car seats, etc. but I am sure it will all come together. We don't know when it will happen, ages of kids or anything. I am hopeful we can help keep a sibling group together. And thank you to my husband for believing in me! I love you! I think our 11th year of marriage has some awesome things in store for us!

Help a family in the process of adopting

I stumbled across a blog a few weeks ago of a family that lives close to me. I have only encountered a couple families with Russian sweeties that live here. Sad but true! Well Elizabeth and her husband have already been on trip 1 and met their darling daughter and are leaving in about 6 weeks for court. They are trying to raise the funds to complete their adoption of this very sweet 8 year old girl. She has several great fundraisers on her blog. One is for magazines, Adoptive Families is on of them. It is a pretty great fundraiser as 40% of the subscription goes to their adoption. Another is Creative Memories which she sells. They are having a dinner and silent auction on May 16th here in Fort Myers! If you have anything you want to donate, please let me know and I would be happy to pass it along. I am hoping to put together a couple of baskets for the silent auction. I can't wait to meet Elizabeth in person on Thursday, I know she is looking forward to meeting us too! So if you can please help Elizabeth & Don bring their daughter home!

Happy 2nd Birthday!

Today is Oliver's second birthday! We had a great day to start off the terrible two's. He wore a shirt all day (except when he napped I washed it) that said Birthday Boy.....he left no doubt in anyone's mind what birthday today was! He had a meltdown at the grocery store after church over riding in the car on the front of the shopping cart. I am still not sure if he want to ride in it or not. Then we went to lunch where he had a meltdown over ketchup. We came home and cried about talking on the phone (usually one of his favorite things).

We had two birthday parties, one last weekend in Orlando with two sets of grandparents while we were up for Easter and then a pizza and cupcake get together at home today. Oliver is all about trucks right now and he also loves letters, number and books! Well people kept saying what should I get him and my answer was "trucks". Well he got his own monster truck today and he is in love. The grin on his face when he saw Oliver's truck brought tears to my eyes! He will soon be all over. As I type this he is on the floor in his pj's playing trucks on the floor. He is all boy (except when he wears my heels)! Happy 2nd birthday Oliver!

Happy 1st Adoption Day Oliver!

A year ago today a really nice judge in Kirov, Russia told us we were the proud parents of Oliver Maxim Baer! In so many ways it is hard to believe it was a year ago already. In my heart it feels like he has always been my son but in so many other ways it is amazing that it is a year ago already. God has blessed us so incredibly with this amazing little man. He is the sweetest, happiest little boy I have ever met and to think God made him our son! It is just incredible.

To all of our fellow Kirov families that we traveled with I hope you feel as great about today as we do! Don and I know that God hand picked Oliver to be our son and brought us to him. There is no doubt that God made all of it happen!

I look at this picture and it just baffles my mind! Where did my baby go????? I look at my other baby, who is now 16 and wonder the same thing! Could someone please tell me how to slow this all down?????

Thinking back . . . .

This will be an odd post for me for two reasons 1. I am a horrible blogger and 2. that I never ramble on about adoption and post institutional issues we have encountered. But I thought maybe if I posted about it could help some people still in process or those newly home with their kids, so here I go .....


I frequently think about how traumatic the whole adoption was for Don and me. Here we are two grown adults who have prepared for almost a year to travel to Russia and several years of mental preparation for a baby. I can remember the culture shock that first day in Moscow, totally jet lagged and wondering around the streets of Moscow turned around, cold and really .......... pretty darn scared. At the time I don't think I would admit to it. I recall being afraid to have our map out or to speak louder than a whisper in English. If I were to travel to Moscow now, I think to think it would be so different. My good friend Donna told me time and time again to not allow myself to be intimidated but I just couldn't. It was her one big regret and I have to say it is mine too. Then we went to the train station and waited there all afternoon alone with 5 other couples and a mountain of luggage! We stood out, we screamed AMERICAN TOURISTS to everyone there waiting for the train. The sweetest lady took Fran and I to the bathroom, a whole other culture shock! Then we finally got on the train, bundles of nerves going to meet our children.


I remember walking in to the Kirov City Baby Home and the smells that hit me, sour cabbage cooking, a musty odd smell. The heat of the place and it was so run down but clean. We were taken in to this room full of cots to wait to meet our children. It was such an overwhelming experience......I didn't feel like I was me, it was I guess like having an out of body experience. I was worried about Brynn at home, was everything going ok for her and Michelle? I just cannot explain how I felt. I was so tired but excited, scared but for no real reason.......Then we got to meet this terrific little guy and my heart melted. He was so sweet (and still is most of the time), I knew we were doing the right thing, no doubt. We had a couple of crazy days in Kirov and I never really slept the whole time on that first trip. I could count on my fingers the number of hours I slept that week.


We raced back home to get ready to leave again. I felt like I was in such a fog with horrible amounts of anxiety running through me. I will admit to a glass or two of wine before lunch that week. I was just trying to get through it. I was so worried about Brynn and her being left home but there was just no way to take her with us. I had so much to get ready and I was so exhausted. It was such a crazy time! Then back to Russia we went and I am not sure the fog lifted until we were home with Oliver for a month! Sad but true......


Now for the reality of it all for Oliver.....that is what I think most about! It was so hard to handle at 36 and 49 years old with all of the adult rationale that we have. I cannot imagine what it was like for Oliver. People speaking strangely to him, couldn't understand a thing being said (even with Don's attempts at Russian), strange places, loud noises he has never heard. Remember he had never been out walking, to a store, to church, on a train, in a car, on a plane, etc. ever before! What a traumatic experience for an adult much less a 10 month old that cannot understand what is happening. And then we were feeding him strange foods, using funny bottles, etc. I know he did remarkably well but now I understand more than ever why you are encouraged to stick close to home the first months. We had Oliver baptized and a shower a little over a week home. I wonder what the heck I was thinking! He was passed around that day and had loud music in the background, was paraded around our church........

Oliver still has some ongoing issues with loud noises, rooms full of strangers, speech, eating, GI problems, some delays with motor skills, walks on his tiptoes with an odd gate, etc. One thing that I see most often in him is his inability to handle large amounts of outside stimuli......loud noises, crowds, music......his responses are becoming more and more appropriate. I try to not read too much in to it all, just count our blessings he is doing so well and that eventually he will overcome all of them......he is a sorter, by this I mean he is always moving things around in a very organized fashion, he sometimes fixates on the sorting chore at hand. Concerning but to most people not very remarkable. I wonder if he will have OCD someday, it all seems odd. I wonder what caused him to be this way, was it being institutionalized the first 10 months of his life? was it being overstimulated those first weeks with us? is it just the way God made him? is it really nothing and I am over analyzing all of it? He is a very happy little guy and I feel so blessed to be his mother! I don't say this all to alarm anyone or scare anyone out of IA adoption but just what runs through my mind on a regular basis!

And then we have the reality of it all for Brynn, Michelle and Stephanie. All of a sudden they had this person in their lives that we were dictating to them was their brother and they must love him. We had our struggles on that front but I am happy to say we have three daughters who love their little brother very much and couldn't imagine life without him! The end result of all of this is so fantastic but has had its challenges and will continue to. Wouldn't change a thing but my mind still wonders about it all!

The month of December

All I can say is that we had a wonderful month! Christmas was great, first time at home in 9 years! Oliver loved the kitchen Brynn got him and all of the other great toys he got. I am still trying to recover the house. I really need to clean out the toy boxes and get rid of the baby toys. He is now all boy but still a little lover......

This past weekend was a milestone in his life, he has been with us longer than he was in the orphanage! To me that is huge, he is over coming his developmental delays and attaching to us more and more each day. I really don't think we have anything to worry about in the attachment department.

We had fun this past Saturday meeting up with our fellow travelers at the Florida Aquarium in Tampa. Oliver and Evan are so different in size but so similiar developmentally. Evan is two months younger than Oliver but they seem to be pretty much doing the same things. Look back to my post in July where we had seen them this summer. The boys have changed so much!