Language isn't a barrier where there's love.
"Potselui mama," Dee Dove says in Russian with a hint of a Virginia accent, as she purses her lips and places them against ** her new 3-year-old son's cheek, waiting patiently for a return peck.
Since adopting Alexander Victorovich from an orphanage in St. Petersburg, Russia, nearly two months ago, Mrs. Dove and her husband, Kenneth, have depended on a combination of love, a foreign language dictionary and handwritten notes of phonetic spellings to communicate statements such as "I love you." As for Alexander, nicknamed Sasha, his mother says, "Russian, English, teddy bear, gibberish, he speaks it all."
The family was united in mid-October by a Washington adoption agency, Cradle of Hope, that assists with foreign adoptions.
The Doves, who live in Severna Park, had planned to have their own family and also wanted to adopt children, but their plans were put on hold until this year because Mrs. Dove had a miscarriage and Mr. Dove fought two bouts with liver cancer.
The Doves said they decided to ask to adopt a toddler, not a newborn, because they still can have children on their own. And so Sasha came into their lives.
"I'm sorry we lost a child three years ago, and I'm sad about it, but he was born around the same time, and I believe things work out the way they're meant to work out," said Mrs. Dove, who has been on leave from her job as a teacher at Old Mill Middle School South.
The Doves traveled to Paris and then to St. Petersburg Oct. 11 to pick Sasha up at the orphanage. "I was anxious because you hear all these stories about people who go over to foreign countries and come back without children," Mr. Dove said. "And I was worried about his reaction. But right away he was our kid."
Now, the family is getting ready for Christmas. The presents are bought: a "Lion King" tent and sleeping bag, a Little Tyke shopping cart, a Madeleine doll, among other gifts.
"We haven't seen 'The Lion King' yet because we were waiting for Sasha," Mrs. Dove said. "But I was just so taken by the story of the father and the son, and it really touched me and made me think of Kenny and Sasha, and the 'Circle of Life,' and how God's in control. We've had some tough times, but we're very blessed."