Jonathan Matthies

Fun thread to read. My son Denis just started first grade. It's really amazing how similar to me he is (beyond appearance) despite the fact we share no DNA. He has my temper, my psuedo-athleticism (when I was young and I'd exercise I'd start getting asthma/coughing fits - just like he does now), and I'm instilling into him the joys of a good fart joke. Physically he looks a lot like me; and he had my temper from day 1 of his arrival. If anything eh's taught me to relax and not snap at every ###### idiotic thing the dumbass does.

It was fun taking him to school/doctor for the first time when all 3 of us have different last names. We have to carry a binder full of documents (tnotarized birth cert's, passports, blah blah) every time we go to do legal stuff. That problem almost caused customs to delay them in NY when they first arrived. I will worry about name changes and actual adoption down the road. It is more important to my parents (for legal benefits, will's, etc) than it is to me. The initial registration 'problems' have been minor.

He and I have done everything Gary mentioned to each other; and it's not even 2 years yet. I just recently started calling my wife Mom and not "Your Mom". For a while it was a mix of both, not really thinking about what I said before i said it. But now I strictly say mom, and even call out for 'Mom' and Katya answers as such. Still, about once a week he says he's going to find a new father, storms out the door... down the sidewalk, and ... into the backyard and comes back inside. He still calls me by my given name; but apparently when talking to teachers, friends, or strangers when I am not around - I am 'his father'. So that's something. I don't much care what he calls me. Hell, I still call my step-Dad by his given name; but he didn't come into my life until I was 14.

I stopped watching local news around the late 90s. By-in-large it's pointless, ratings-based drivel. It sounds a bit cliché to say that, and maybe I only thought that because I was a typical early 20s punk kid at the time. But the stance stuck; mostly because the Internet developed around that time. http://my.yahoo.com was my homepage for ... like a decade; now it's iGoogle. I have it setup to display local/national news and whatnot. I don't need the local news. Being able to find news that is interesting/important to me, right now, made the nightly news absolutely pointless.

On a side note, Twitter is fascinating for breaking news. A lot of unreliable information comes from it; but the near instant reporting and feedback on many news stories is really really interesting.

My wife puts the F in F*cking Frugal. She found all of our furniture on Craigslist, and talked the sellers down. King sized bed w/ end table + dresser, dining room table + chairs, new twin sized bed with matching desk for Denis, full length mirror for her to primp and for me to oggle her. When she moved in I had a full sized bed, a crummy twin sized bed, a hide-a-bed couch, and small round kitchen table.

All my ####### got pushed to the side/flat out tossed. But I'm grateful, because I was not wanting to go full retail on all of those purchases. And I found out that even if I wanted new stuff, it'd be pointless with the whirlwind that is a 6 year old boy. Our king sized headboard is currently adorned with about 150+ star wars stickers. I probably would have been pissed if those were stuck to a $1000+ oak headboard.

I was driving on our family ranch at age 10 and so were my oldest sons. Sergey did well but he kind of had the "I got an A in math so I am automatically a good driver" 'tude. He got over it. Pasha was just an eager young man that wanted to drive a car and learn something new. He is really a very confident and competent driver. Alla has somehow managed not to have an at-fault accident with anyone else but she always seems at the edge of the abyss. (or the right hand shoulder in mud season) She has backed into the garage door twice (open it first THEN back up, sweetheart) And has just smacked the ####### out of some bollards in parking lots. Now I know why they have bollards in parking lots.

He told me "It's OK, you can even yell at me when I make mistakes, I won't cry like Mom"

I'm going to have to drive a ways to find rural areas if Denis wants to practice underage driving. Where I live WAS rural 25 years ago; so I could practice unabated by law enforcement and whatnot. Now we're surrounded for miles on all sides by expansion. Katya drives carefully, for now; at least when Denis & I am in the car with her. Katya is still overly cautious with her driving; which is always a good thing.

I remember Katya freaking a beaker every time we passed through a Police checkpoint in Vladivostok. We were never pulled over, but she did NOT want to deal with the headache of having a Yankee in her car.

Also, I pulled her over to the states on a limited budget. Admittedly, I didn't know what I was getting into. I had owned my house for 5 years before she arrived; and was doing Ok money wise. The plane trips to see her, then fly her and Denis here, the K1 filing fees, etc weren't burdensome (is that even a word?). Anyway... the process to get them here was "expensive", but it's nothing when compared to what actually happens you add 2 people into your life. Looking at my Xcel Energy bills is always comical. They show last year's usage vs this years; and in 2009 every month was triple what it was the year prior. Every usage-based bill is like that. Luckily internet is free, for now.

Indeed, conga rats to Pasha.

I have a whole decade, in theory, to wait for Denis. But he is a wild child and i think that when he can see out the dash and touch the pedals; he'll be trying to drive something. Damn boy. It should be fun, because I didn't really teach Katyas how to drive. She knew how, she just had to get some confidence and then she passed everything fine.

Is there some history between you two? Because that is a hell of a reaction for a seemingly innocuous statement from Baron555.

The only thing I have to add is that my USCIS process was easy only because of the wealth of information on this site. If I had to drudge through the USCIS website directly, this process would have sucked. But every form you need is linked to and sometimes even filled out; and if you have a question on a specific field on a form, you ask, and get an answer before sending it in.

This site is a treasure trove of info; both from the guides and from specific forums. and most people posting on this site probably had a smooth VISA process because they used VJ. The one hiccup we had was on the 6 month Green Card interview. We didn't think about brining a translator; despite it being recommended in a guide on this site. The USCIS agent slammed us 2 minutes into the interview. My fault. If I would have followed this site's advice, we would have had a perfect run.

But ###### does happen, and Baron didn't say every single case was perfect and that the USCIS was the bastion of bureaucratic achievement. But, buy in large, if you're on VJ and you did your due diligence; you get exactly what is detailed here in the user-created timelines.

My wife drives well enough, but she didn't have to unlearn any Vladivostok idiosyncrasies because she rarely drove over there. Guess I lucked out, because her friends who drove constantly had to adjust to the US. One failed the test 3 times, I think. She drives to the store and to pickup Denis from school and hasn't had any issues. But if it snowed, her #### stayed put.

She always hands me the keys when we drive, but we must drive her car. Mine's filled with dog hair because he comes to work with me every day. She did say that she wishes to drive this coming week when we ho to soccer practice. She wants to experience highway driving, and it's just a couple miles of highway travel with a nice smooth transition from the ramp to the highway. It will be perfect practice for her.

It's usually Fee-o or Tee-o around ere. Though Katya does pronounce think as sink sometimes.

The Tea Party has tainted my favorite activity. I can no longer teabag with a clear conscious. The tea party is corrupting everything!

None of the Russians in my family can pronounce my dog's name: Theo. Not the boy, not his mom, not their grandma who's been here in the US for 11 years. Poor dog!

The Speech Therapist at Denis' school says that they don't even worry about speech in kindergarten; they wait until 2nd grande and then take notice if speech hasn't corrected itself. But mom is not an English Language Speech Therapist; and she's wanting him to change. Plus I think he's just being lazy with some words (like Mnye). Poor Denis can't say thirty. It sounds like forty, and damned if it isn't confusing. Ten, Twenty, Furdy, Foordy, Fifty... wait what? He knows the difference, he just can't say it.

But he goes around proclaiming "No money, No honey!" often; so it's all good.

Could be for younger children. Our youngest was 13 when he arrived. He also had the advantage of being in school with other kids his age all day and all his classes were in English, of course. Russian is by far the most often spoken language in the house, but everyone has the opportunity to speak English most of the day.

Alla is/was a Russian language teacher and is very particular about how the language is used. She is always correcting Pasha and I (ad nauseum) She is one of THOSE mothers.

Katya has started to harp on Denis' pronunciation of Russian words more so in recent weeks. When he first came over he was saying "Satchi" to me all the time. She didn't correct him until I started saying the same - incorrect - word to both of them. The word he wanted was Smatri (look at this). He still can't say it, but she let him go for a good 6 months with saying Sa-tri. We would both try to correct him; but it has yet to stick. Now he's being corrected more frequently for common mis-pronunciations like Mnye, Smatri, and others I can't think of right now.

His grasp of the English language is such that we can harp on both languages, with me doing english and her Russian; and force him to fix his silly little errors.

min-oo-yet or Min-oo-eet? I'm horrible at pronounciation. Luckily the 6 year old is just as bad. Neither of us can say Ti/Mi/Vi properly. I say Tea and she just laughs at me. I can hear how she says Ti, but it sounds like she's choking on some phlegm or something. I can't replicate it.

The only dirty word i know is sooka; and that's because Denis calls everyone a sooka. Or at least used to, now he say ###### idiot a lot because I can't stop myself from saying it when I'm driving.

It's snowing right now in Denver, not much; but enough to make the day miserable. That and I spent her IWD fund on saving my German Shepard. So Katya gets a crappy Walmart photo book. At least she doesn't have to work today.

Nope, Russians do not like their beer at all.

I just wish I had a huge 17" laptop instead of the 10 inch netbook. It would have made the picture even better

I really want some blini now. But every time they make it I tend to just cookie monster the stack in 2 minutes.

Glad everyone is ok. That's my biggest fear with Katya driving right now; with our snowiest months incoming. She never really drove in Vlad before coming here.

At Denis' Parent Teacher Conference, the interpreter provided by the District asked if I needed help translating what the teacher was saying as well as Katya. However, when I was asked to deliver some documents to the Russian Doctor's office; I was greeted with a Hello instead of a Zdrastvyasdsaasdsa. (I'm not going to bother spelling that word)

Alla wanted nothing to do with Russian when they first arrived. English only! Pasha learned very quickly and now speaks as well as any teenager and better than most and with little accent. NOW Alla uses Russian at home and 80% of the conversation in this house is Russian now, but now that they both learned Emglsih well and have PLENTY of English use every day, Alla did not want Pasha's Russian learning to stop at age 13. I don't blame her, I agree. But at first it was "English Only" Alla is now finishing her Masters as an ESL teacher and that is the rule there also...English only.

One of Katya's biggest concerns was Denis 'losing his heritage' for lack of a better phrase. Denis is smart as a tack, we just had a PTC meeting Thu. where the teacher reiterated that. I'm hoping this past year has shown her that Denis can do both languages and thrive. I don't know how/if we will teach Russian more 'book smarts' like grammar or what-have-you; it's not on the radar yet. But I know I won't be stifling his Russian; nor will I let anyone else try to do so. I want to see him develop both languages further.

Many conversations I have with him revolve him wanting something. He'll ask me in (increasingly less-broken) English; and I usually defer to mom. This is immediately followed by him screaming in Russian asking for the same thing; followed by an English response of "mom said Yes!" even when I heard her say no. Damn kid.

I think it's ok to watch/read in Russian... gives the brain a rest. Having friends who speak English is a far better way to get better at the language IMO, but I know it can be difficult to find.

Yeah. Katya's friends are all Russian. They all speak English well enough to talk to any of the husbands without hesitation, Katya included. But that's in a relaxed environment. Get her in a different environment, her comfort level goes down; and her understanding still fades.

I'm lucky my local King Soopers has some good quality Roses. A dozen for $12.99. Probably a ripoff, but cheap enough I don't grumble when I buy them. That and they last for a few weeks every time. Gorgeous flowers, they bloom spectacularly. For better or worse, flowers are about the only thing I have bought for Katya recently. I just wanted to do more than just flowers for IWD.

My boy gets spoiled to death. He got a used Xbox360 and a PS3 for Birthday/Christmas (Dec 11 birthday, so the 2 occasions almost combine). Now the pigfucker won't stop playing games without a fight; but it's a nice battle to face. Can't forget the mountain of Legos, which I am also glad to have. I still love Legos.

My wife has a part-time job working with my aunt doing clerical office work. It's a nice start. Katya can read English just fine, and can understand quite a lot, especially if you talk slow ; but the rigors of a 'real' job are a bit daunting for her. Working with family is nice, because they are willing to email her requests or repeat things for her that other jobs might not. Her language confidence will grow.

I've had family tell me; and I'm certain I've read the same thing here: I should have made her go cold turkey and 'quit Russian' altogether. No Russian TV in the house, just American. I haven't done that, and won't do it; simply a personal decision on my part. But, because I haven't done it, Katya's English hasn't grown the way our son's has. Granted, a child is a sponge and learns quicker than an adult. But still, he's been thrown into the shark pit that is kindergarten without his consent; and he's better for it already. We play those godforsaken Lego games and I can ask him questions filled with English slang; and he'll answer me in English just fine. With all that said, Katya has realized that she may need to tone down the Russian language shows and start watching more English language shows. I haven't yet asked her why the change; but if she's wanting to do more American stuff; I've got Netflix ready for her.

Until she's comfortable with her English, she'll be stuck in 'menial' jobs. She has a better education than I do; she should have more potential for work than me.

Yeah I'll be going for something toned down for her now; but I was really planning on doing something nicer for her this time around. There's always next year.

Katya had a little Chihuahua dog and a cat when I first met her via email. The dog was sadly run over by a drunk driver before we even contacted each other via Skype. Her cat was left at home with her brother. I had 2 cats and a dog when she arrived. The dog is too big for her, and for our 6 year old boy Denis; though he's sprouting like a weed. The Siamese cat only like me; but luckily the other mixed cat warmed up to her. Her cat in Russia died last year; and it was rough on her for a couple days. I'm glad my mixed breed was there to help her be being the cute and affectionate cat that he is. He tries to sleep on her head far too often; it never ends well.

A year after being here, she finally decided she wanted a small dog. We ended up getting a MinPin/Chihuahua mix. I never thought I'd like a small dog; but he's a charmer. My Siamese is not afraid of him, is almost as big as him; and they constantly fight. But it's been 3 months and the dog yelps less and less as it learns that no one fucks with a Siamese. My 80 lb german shepard learned the Siamese cat lesson early on. What a jerkass cat; but I love him.

It is really really comical to watch Katya yell at the little runt in Russian. She doesn't raise her voice, but the dog instantly flips over on it's belly and/or cowers in place when she starts to berate him for pooping on the carpet. Often times she can't finish the rant because he's just so damn adorable when he's cowering.

I was planning on buying some things for Mar 8th; which is why I finally popped back into these forums. But then our dog went and got sick and now I'm broke. If only he'd waited a week; or better yet waited until next payday. Katya is going to have a shitty IWD, which is the one thing i did not want.

Katya has now driven twice now, once on back roads to Target and then tonight to the local 24 Hour Fitness, right after rush hour. She drives a bit fast, as fast as I do; which could be a bad sign. I drive 8-10 over the posted limit, constantly. But I've also been driving the roads in Aurora, Colorado for over 15 years. I'm a little afraid what she'll be like once she has her own car and is comfortable.

Katya never drove in Vladivostok. She had a license, but her crazy #### friends did all the driving for her, so I am told. When I visited her, she picked me up at the airport and drove me the 45 minutes home; but she looked timid. The rest of my visit, her friends treated me to the destruction derby that is driving in Vladivostok. Freaking nutjobs over there. I'm glad she doesn't have those bad habits to break.