Wednesday August 18, 2010

 

It's almost like the movie Groundhog Day now. We get up, make breakfast and wait for mad Gregori to take us to the orphanage, where we sit and wait until the kids are brought out to us. With every visit, the greetings get warmer and more familiar. I guess that's why we're here! I think they know that we are now going to be their Mama and Papa, probably because it's the story that all orphans are told - "someday your Mama and Papa will come and take you away from here". 

They come running up to us with excited hugs and Ukrainian phrases. Wouldn't it be great if we could understand what they're saying? Altho, I suspect it is some form of baby talk as Katya couldn't understand what they were saying either.

 

Today we try the calm approach and I think they can sense it as well. First stop is the original playground where we calmly play on the slide and see-saw. We open the storybook we brought to try a little English lesson, which they actually enjoy while sitting on my lap to describe the pictures, as well as the building blocks with numbers on them. Emma tries to get David to repeat the numbers in English, but he appears a bit shy to really try it - or it might be because his mouth is filled with cookies. Later, they sit calmly on the bench together eating cookies while we sit and watch in our stable parental manner.

 

David then suggests we go over to the other playground where the bigger merry-go-round and swings are, as well as the big-boys slide that hasn't been used in months, with branches hanging above the slide. They love the swings and attempt the big slide (after I break off the over-grown branches). It is a much cooler morning as you can tell the weather is changing with rain in the forecast. Soon they are quietly playing in the sandbox while we enjoy the cool breeze watching them build sand castles and quietly playing with each other. A very relaxing 30 minutes as we sit and watch these two lovely future Dannemillers at play.

At 11:45 the drama of taking them back starts all over again, but this time Max is starting to get it. They walk back to the office, kicking the ball back and forth to each other. This new idea of calm playing turned out to be quite nice. We say our good-byes, return to the flat for lunch and begin to make plans for what will happen in the next week or so.

As stated before, the original plan was to spend five weeks in country, take care of the legal paperwork, U.S. passports, etc. and return with our children in mid-September. But as it turns out, Vanya won't be available until early October and they won't split the kids up. So during our lunch break I check on what we can do to change our return flights from 9/18 to possibly sometime next week. KLM tells us that the earliest we can leave London to come back to Vegas is August 29th, unless we want to pay an additional $2k. So, August 29th it is! I make the change in the booking, but I can't pay for it over the phone - I need to come into their Kiev office and pay in person. Now the question remains as to when we should buy our flights from Kiev to London and when we should leave Kirovograd. After speaking to Lesya, she tells us that we have an appointment with Natasha the lawyer this Friday 8/20 at 2pm to sign the official notarized papers for the local authorities to adopt Max and David. We will then return to Kiev for a meeting with the SDA on Wednesday 8/25 to sign additional notarized papers for the SDA, formally requesting the adoption of all three boys and to set up our appointment in October. She also mentioned that we will get to see Vanya this weekend at his orphanage, which is about an hour from here. I asked if there was any way to bring him here to see his two brothers, but of course that isn't possible.
So I book our flights from Kiev to London for next Thursday the 26th, so that we can have some time visiting Emma's family and possibly Doug and Terri Sheperdigian - our friends in Weybridge. Then we will sort out our travel plans for coming back in October after we get confirmation from the SDA on our follow up appointment. Our coordinator and social worker back in the USA, Alla and Ruth, have been notified of our current situation and have already started the process of updating our home study to allow for three instead of two, and everything is being re-submitted to the US Immigration Service for visa and passport processing. It's all falling into place! Now all I need to do is figure out how and when we will get from here to Kiev next week. One small complication is that Tuesday is the Ukrainian Independance Day, so everything will be shut and travel will be difficult. We might need to leave here on Monday and spend three nights in Kiev, which might be nice to spend Independance Day in Kiev with Emma's friend Katya.

 

After all these plans are sorted out, we have our usual toasted ham and cheese sandwichs (I love those, but Emma's getting tired of 'em), and we get ready for our afternoon visit with the boys. The cold front has passed through and it starts to rain, so our afternoon session is spent indoors in a different playroom with all kinds of new toys, bicycles and balls of all shapes and sizes. We even have a couple basketball hoops like you would see at a carnival - you know the ones, where the hoop is too small for the ball to actually go through! Max finds a baby stroller with a doll about as tall as him. He is so cute as he takes on the role of nurse, pushing it all around the room while David and I play 'manly' games like ring toss, basketball and soccer. It's much cooler, but the humidity is quite high with the moisture in the air. Our afternoon session comes to an end with a very peaceful stroll downstairs to the office without a temper tantrum. Yeah!!!!

 

Another day of visits come to an end, so we head back to the flat, do our usual evening routine (why are we so exhausted?). Reading, writing and internet - but we skip dinner and call it an early night. Good night Kirovograd...