What's in a name

The Marsh family has officially begun month 2! They keep telling us that once you've gotten through the first two months, things really start to click. The boys continue to adjust well to their new lives. We are still dealing with a few minor health issues and one major one: we think they may have cracked their mother's rib cage!! Since we returned, it has hurt pretty bad, and the boys seem to have some kind of radar in their little elbows that finds her sternum every time they get picked up. Ouch! We hope the doctors provide a miracle cure since Daddy has returned to work full time this week.


Thought it would be fun to share with everyone the story of the boys' names. You see, Daddy is actually the fourth Curtis Marsh. So, how do we incorporate four generations of family history and not make one of the boys feel left out? The plan began to materialize when we looked over all of the wonderful family heirlooms that have been passed to us with the initials, C-N-M. How about giving both boys the initials so they can equally feel a part of the family history?

Once the decision was made to create two CNM boys, we also wanted to give them some kind of lasting connection to their Russian roots. Lots of adoptive families keep their children's Russian first name as their new middle names. We weren't lucky enough to get two boys with Russian names that began with "N," so we decided to search for new Russian "N" names. Well, Nikolai was easy. It is a well-known Russian name, and one we liked very much. But even the Russians we asked couldn't come up with another! We did hear about Nikita, which is used for both men and women in Russian (like Nikita Khrushchev), but really seems to be only for women here in the U.S. We turned to the internet for common Russian names. http://www.doukhobor.org/Russian-Masculine-Names.htm



Imagine our amazement when the original CNM middle name appeared on the list!! The name “Naum” has been in the Marsh family for five generations, and somehow it was lost on us that it had Russian roots. How cool is that? So we had found our two Russian middle names, and even got to use an existing family name for one of them.

Now, it was easier to find two American names that we liked beginning with "C." Carson and Conner were at the top of both our lists. One day, we thought it would be nice to learn what each name meant. Amazement once again! We discovered that the origin of the name Carson is son of carr, and carr in old english is "marsh!" http://www.babynamenetwork.com/

So things really started fitting in to place. We could give one boy the first name that turns out to mean son of Marsh, and the other boy would get the middle name that is a family name with Russian roots. So, that's how we got Carson Nikolai and Conner Naum.

Hi from the Marsh family! Things are getting better each day, and some of the struggles that made the first days so difficult are becoming distant memories. Yes, there are still a lot of whimpers and whines, but we actually got photo proof of the boys holding hands and looking angelic...

The boys are still eating everything we put in front of them. Here they are staring at the kitchen waiting for Mummy to bring out the vittles. We've learned to minimize the whining by preparing all the food that we can before the boys know it is time to eat. Conner entertains us each morning by proclaiming, "I like bananas!"

We are pleasantly surprised at some of the things the boys are not messing with in the house. The picture above shows the cat's food just to the right of their favorite pre-meal hangout. The first picture shows the antique gas fireplace and the indoor fishpond in the living room. These are all things we hope they continue to ignore!

Carson's first American birthday! He decided to invite only Conner and his parents to the party. Here he is licking the icing off his plate. The boys haven't had much supersuger in their diet, so they got a treat of a small cupcake with icing and sprinkles. The cupcakes were finger-licking good, so we were uncharacteristically messy. Loved it!

The boys are so grateful to friends and family for the fantastic gifts they've received since coming home. Here, Conner is sporting a custom made towel sent by Mandy Mancini, a long time friend from the Marsh's lake house. They use them at night when we do our new ritual of bath, book and bed. With the new ritual in place, the boys have been going to sleep at 8 p.m. and waking at around 7 a.m. with minimal or no late night interuptions.

The boys got dressed up last week to get a family portrait done. Believe us, we would not have attempted a family portrait so soon after returning home with the boys, but the church is doing pictures for their directory, so last week was it. The boys did quite well, but we still have to teach them to smile before the flash goes off, rather than after...

So, we're starting our fourth week home, and starting to get into the groove. The boys still take 120% of our energy, but they are beginning to enjoy their new parents and their new surroundings. All four of us are learning how to communicate with each other, and learning how to teach and respect boundries. We watched some of the video we took in Krasnoyarsk, and it is starting to feel like a long, long time ago. We hope it feels that way for the boys too!

A quick look back

The new Marsh family has survived the first two weeks, and today we celebrate Carson's birthday! Now we officially have two two-year olds. Holy cow... We also have recovered some pictures from the broken camera, thanks to Grandpa Bailey. Thought it would be nice to take a quick look back at some things we almost didn't get to show you. (and some pics from Grandpa)




Day one at home. This is breakfast on Aug 26. The boys are bewildered, just like their new parents. Mealtime has been a relatively peaceful time of the day for us, as long as we have the food ready for them before they discover it is mealtime!




Here is the crew that met us at the airport. It is a nice shot of both grandmothers meeting the boys, and the Parrack boys in the foreground. They are our Kras Connection! The Parracks were just highlighted in a news story about the new clinic in Kansas City that specializes in international adoptions. Carson and Conner had an appointment there yesterday and got a clean bill of health, with the exception of a parasite that Carson brought home from the orphanage, and some possible asthma issues we need to explore with Conner.

We'll resist the temptation of showing too many pictures of the hotel room, but can't help showing off the potty. Conner is great about telling us when he needs to go, and we wonder how much of that had to do with this classy KU potty he used while we were in Russia.

We are beginning week three as a family of four. It has been a tough two weeks, but we are seeing some marked improvement in the way the boys treat us and vice versa. We are beginning to really communicate and our schedules are becoming better set. We have been pretty selfish with our time to this point. Just hoping to instill upon these little guys a strong sense of family and help them truly understand what it means to have parents. All the while, trying to figure out what it means to BE parents!

Hangin in there

We have survived the first week of being home! The boys are doing exceptionally well, although they are draining the life out of their new parents... We have decided that the 10 day waiting period would be better served after coming home instead of before. That way, both the parents and the children could recover from the travel separately and then have a better time together as a new family.



These pictures were taken at a great park that is two blocks from our home. It is right next to the big Lawrence outdoor pool, which sadly closes after this weekend, so we are resisting the temptation to take the boys there. Especially Conner, who loves water so much that he'll walk into the bathroom at random times of the day, strip naked and ask for a bath!

The CNM boys survived their first trip to the doctor. They were given four immunizations and had a significant amount of blood taken for tests. Yuck! It was heartbreaking to hold them down for all those needles. But they made it through, and were given high marks from the doctor for everything except for Conner's size. He is a little bugger, but we were reminded that it doesn't mean he'll stay that way. He is so food-focused, that we can't see him staying small for long!

As evidenced below, the boys are getting along well together. They are bonding so well to us and each other that we have great confidence they'll not suffer some of the attachment issues we've heard are common for orphans. Today, they were goofing around and gave each other four or five spontaneous hugs. It was awesome.

Now, Mom and Dad have had a rough week, for sure. There are days that we ask ourselves what we were thinking. We know that all parents ask themselves this question on occasion, but we would argue that few parents get such a whacked out learning curve. We feel like we skipped Parenthood 101, went straight to the graduate level courses, and didn't fulfill any of the prerequisite courses in between.

We've gotten lots of support from friends and family, and we have needed every bit of it. We can't hear enough that as soon as we've discovered the right daily schedule, and as soon as the boys understand the rules, things will get better and better. For now, it is just about all we can do to make it through each day and keep the memories of the daily adorable moments like the spontaneous hugs, Conner helping clean up the whole house, Carson realizing that getting his diaper changed isn't a horrible thing (for him), and many others.