Our Adoption: Shoes and Haircuts

With this being our third adoption of older children, certain traditions have developed. One of these traditions is to buy shoes and get haircuts within the first couple of days of their arrival at home.

When we've picked up the children from their orphanages each time, we're expected to bring all the clothing they will need, including shoes. What they've been wearing remains at the orphanage. We usually fare pretty well with guessing at their clothing sizes but not so well at guessing what their shoe sizes are. Plus, once their in America there's always the need for more than the one pair of shoes (church shoes, tennis shoes, snow boots, etc).

Since all nine of the adoptees have come from orphanages, they have tended to have what we've come to call "orphanage haircuts"--uneven, short, choppy and lacking style. This adoption seems to be the exception. These three kids were just in need of a trim.

So, on Day 2 at home, we were off on a double mission. Grandma and Aunt Jean, as well as some of the older kids came along.

We decided to give Target a try hoping to accomplish all the shoe purchases in one location. It doesn't hurt to dream. Does it?

Lissie trying to learn what Oksana's shoe size is.

Cassansra fitting Oksana for church shoes.

Throughout it all, Oksana was wonderfully cooperative. This was a gift from God; in her rural village in Russia, she'd most likely never been in a store the magnitude of a Target. The experience could have sent her into overload. Instead, she was happy and seemed grateful for each pair of shoes we picked out for her.

We left Target with Alexander and Oksana all set for shoes. Daria had a new pair of black pumps for church, but she lacked snow boots and her dream--black fashion boots with heals. We headed home to drop off the succesful shoe shoppers and to get refreshed by lunch.

Then a smaller group of us went out again--on the great boot hunt. Daria had informed us while we were still in Russia that she dreamed of owning boots with heels. We understood where the strong urge came from. With the severe cold in Russia, the women wear boots exclusively for months, and they're intended to make a real fashion statement, at least for the young girls. While we want to be careful about feeding our new daughter's lust for the world (James 4:4). But, at the same time, we know she'll get extensive use of the boots here in the upper mid west also.

Yesterday Daria used "Ringlish" to help us understand that she definitely didn't want the 5 inch heels that come to a pin point, but that she dreamed of the height of heels her mom gave up considering years ago. Nothing "sensible"!

We'd been to two stores, in addition to Target, and we'd found the snow boots. Then we walked by a small shoe store in the mall that I'd never even noticed. Mixed amongst athletic shoes were several pair of black boots. Daria tried on one pair with just the right size of heels. After trying them on and serious consideration as she paced up and down the  small store, Daria was ready to declare that they were THE boots! Just like Alexander and Oksana, she was very grateful. I was the recipient of a number of hugs and kisses and verbal acknowledgement of her gratitude. No jaded teenage attitude here!

After boot shopping, we were to meet John with the two younger ones to get the kids their first American haircuts. Unfortunately, while we were out shopping it had started to get icy so John and the little ones didn't venture out. But since we were already out, we decided to go ahead with Daria's haircut. As you can see by the pictures below, Daria got the royal treatment, including hair straigthening. This is Daria's favorite look, which mystifies Mr. Beaver as he sees his daughters first straighten and then curl their hair on Sunday mornings.

We did a lot of laughing throughout the afternoon. So in the end, we took home shoes, boots, styled hair and memories to last a lifetime.