Our Morning Root Beer

When you have a child or children who have experienced a traumatic past, things creep up that surprise you...we had such an incident this morning.

We had to stop by Dominick's shop to drop off our muddy boots for him to pressure wash clean, and as we were inside there was a six pack carton of root beer in brown bottles with one left in it sitting on a table. Angela spotted it and the look of shock on her face, and Olesya's as well, was enough to make me cringe. She shouted out "Papa...Vodka!! No!" and yet smiled an uncomfortable grin at the same time as she didn't know what to do with this. She had no English word for beer or other alcohol.

Dominick and I both jumped into action, quickly opening the bottle and insisting it was like cola, not at all alcohol or Vodka. How sad it was to see her and Olesya both sniff the bottle carefully as they inspected it to make sure it was not alcoholic. They cautiously put it up to their lips, and then smiled widely as they discovered it really was soda and not beer. Angela quickly tried to explain that the brown bottle in Kazakhstan was "vodka" and that was why she jumped to conclusions. She was slightly embarassed...and yet really liked the taste of root beer and how it foamed up over the top of the bottle. You could almost see the relief on both of their faces as they relaxed and didn't have to worry about Papa drinking.

Can you imagine what horror that would bring for them? If they came into a new family where alcohol was an issue? Thank you God for us never finding an alcoholic drink that was palatable.

And maybe...just maybe...today was another step in trusting us, as we reassured them again that we don't drink ANYTHING and we all laughed together over a morning root beer.

How heartbreaking that our precious daughters live with the memories that can be innocently triggered by the sight of mere brown bottle.

I am so very sorry girls, you are safe here...I promise.