For a moment I thought we were in a Disney movie. Must've been one crazy dream...anyways, the morning ritual takes place as usual - coffee, toasted Nutella sandwiches and we're ready to start the day. Since the fruit went over so well yesterday, we decide to bring more oranges, some dried apricots and fresh jelly donuts from the bakery next door. As we're getting ready, Katya our translator calls and tells me the papers are ready to sign so we need to be at Natasha's office at 2pm today. Yeah - a break from the normal day here in Punxsutawney, Ukraine! Don't get me wrong, we love seeing the kids - but wouldn't it be nice to get them home so that we can all get our lives back (like our lives are ever going to be the same...).
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9:45am, like clockwork, Gregori is waiting outside to take us to the orphanage. He really is a great guy, even if he drives like a mad-man. You can tell he cares about us and thinks we are doing a great thing for these boys. I just wish I could communicate with him!
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The boys greet us with their usual excited faces and we head out to the usual play area. The dried apricots and the donuts are a big hit; in fact Max has lost all interest in the oranges as he shoves apricots into his little mouth, two by two, while clutching four or five spares in his hand, marching around the playground.
He's like Jekyll and Hyde from when the visit starts to when it has to end. David is much more stable in his emotions, but we just chalk that up to the fact that he's a year older - or maybe because he's David, Jr!
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Our morning session ends relatively nicely and we ask Gregori to take us back to Camellia's for lunch. Another fabulous meal - I order the French chicken with fries and a Tuborg, while Emma orders a couple salady-type appetizers, a mushroom omelet and a Tuborg - all for less than $12! After lunch we walk back to the flat, stopping to buy some more bananas, oranges and a special treat for the boys - grapes!
Ar 2pm we walk across the street for our appointment with Natasha and Katya. She has the 'request for adoption' forms ready for us to sign, so we drive down the road to get them notarized. These are the documents for the local government and orphanage officials stating our intentions to adopt Max and David, and then next Wednesday we will return to the SDA office in Kiev to sign and notarize the formal request for all three boys. At that time we will set up our return date in October to finalize the adoption and bring them all home. Natasha has arranged for us to visit Vanya on Sunday, so we make plans to drive the hour or so to his school so that we can see him one more time before we leave.
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Gregori is waiting at the flat to take us back to see the boys at 3:30, so we rush back to the flat, run upstairs to grab all the fruit, etc. and head back to the orphanage. The weather is a bit chilly today so the boys come out dressed in warmer clothes, without their cute little caps. But David comes out in the most bizarre pair of multi-colored shorts that you might see a clown wearing at the circus. Pretty funny outfit...we wonder if it's their little joke to see how we react.
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We head over to our usual stomping grounds and pull out the grapes - OMG, what a treat! They love grapes and cram them into their mouths by the dozen (don't they feed these kids here?). Mmmm, grapes - pure sugar!! We'll pay for this later...but for the moment, the kids are happy eating grapes, bananas and an occasional apricot. But then Max spots my bottle of Coke in my backpack and starts to open it. No more sugar for you young man - especially Coke with caffeine! I take the bottle from him and all hell breaks loose and he goes into one of his temper tantrums. We try to calm him down by changing the scenery - let's go to the swings! But on our way, they stop at one of the baby play areas and start happily playing with chalk and a bowl of washing water used to clean the playpens, etc. Max starts to drink the dirty water and we tell him "Nee Nee", take it away from him and he goes off again - just as the nurse responsible for that area comes strolling along with her band of waifs. She takes one look at the mess we made and starts to scold us (in Ukrainian of course), telling us to stay in our own playground, shakes her head at the little mess we made and passes judgement on the way we are handling Mad Max during his latest episode. You can just see her little Commie mind thinking, "crazy people - we have ways to control that behaviour..."
Emma feels horrible about the whole episode, but who really cares what they think??!! We finally get things under control and retreat to our original play area, feeling like we've broken some unwritten rules about where to go and how to play with the children. Note to self - too much fruit and sugar is not a good thing... |
5pm comes and we take the boys back to the office, with Max in Emma's arms, fighting all the way, and we leave the orphanage feeling like we've done something wrong and that we are terrible parents. Gregori watched the whole scene and senses our pain as we climb back into his taxi. He tries to cheer us up while I explain to Emma that we shouldn't feel bad. We are not going to treat our kids like they do in the orphanage, and life will be a lot easier (at least a bit easier?), when we have more control of our environment. We climb up the stairs to our flat, feeling a bit sad. Nothing a toasted ham and cheese sandwich and some red wine can't fix! We climb into bed and look forward to our visit with them tomorrow, as well as our trip to see Vanya on Sunday.
Good night all you Western Capitalists!
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