Sunday, December 25, 2016

Baby's First Christmas

Here is my long overdue update on Aeson's homecoming.  Sorry for the delay.  He came home right as the holidays hit and everything just sort of...exploded.  They got home on Thursday, just in time for Christmas.  (Thank goodness.  I'll be honest, I was starting to panic a little.)  The homecoming itself was a little anticlimactic.  Brent had free parking at the airport so we weren't there to see them walk off the plane.  They came home late in the evening after a bajillion hour flight so everyone was exhausted.  Aeson eyed everyone warily, ate dinner and went to bed.  I took some video but it's pretty boring.  And the cinematography is crap.  Very Blair Witch Project.

Aeson woke up Friday am and really hasn't looked back.  The only major problem we've encountered are the dogs.  While he likes the IDEA of them, up close and personal they scare the schnikes out of him.  In his defense, we had ten dogs at our house over the weekend.  Only three are mine.  He is warming up quickly though and he's made massive improvements in a very short period of time.  Today he was even walking the littlest one down the driveway on a leash.  He does tend to obsess over them, though, if he can see or hear them (can't even just put them outside because he can see them through the glass of the doors) and can't focus on anything else.  So my dogs have spent a lot of time in the garage.  They've been very good sports about it, probably because they've gotten double their usual amount of rawhides and walks to make up for the inconvenience.

Overall Aeson acts like he has always lived here.  He fits in seamlessly and gets along great with the girls.  He LOVES my uncle and was really disappointed when he left today even though he's only known the man for about 24 hours.  He eats everything we put in front of him.  He sleeps through the night.  And while I have zero expectations that it will continue to go this smoothly, I hope and pray that it does.

I'll leave you with a few snapshots of our weekend.  We had a great first Christmas as the seven of us and hope your Christmas was wonderful, as well.

That's right.  We were wearing shorts and playing in the water hose on Christmas.
It's currently like 75 degrees here in Texas.  

Making Christmas cookies.  

Reading a bedtime story.
  
Home.  =)

Sunday, December 18, 2016

Thriving

I got this email this morning from Brent.  I'm not sure if he wrote it with the intention of me posting it but it reads just like a blog post so I just had to!

This morning has been interesting. Everyone woke up in a decent mood and we had a good breakfast.

Aeson (he responds to his name fairly well) made his bed and insisted on getting dressed before breakfast. He played in his room by himself today for an hour; that's a first. Caught him yesterday writing the letter A on his note pad. He has an imagination, no doubt. He uses one of the cars as a cell phone, calling God knows who. He also uses it as his key to his room.

Mostly writing his email to explain the picture included. He is watching Jake and the Neverland Pirates, usually in silence, but today he is trying to sing along. I was most surprised by him counting along with the coin count they do at the end of the episode.

Kid is going to thrive.


Thursday, December 15, 2016

Delay Fish

Anybody else here a huge Finding Nemo fan?  I love that movie to bits and pieces and thus have nearly every line memorized.  I've decided this whole adoption thing reminds me in particular of this line between Marlin, Nemo's dad, and Dory as they are out searching for Nemo.

Marlin: "I can't afford any more delays and you're one of those fish that causes delays. Sometimes it's a good thing. There's a whole group of fish . They're delay fish."

WE are decidedly delay fish.  This process has been wrought with nothing but delay after stupid delay.  Homestudy?  Took 10 weeks instead of 10 days.  Delayed.  Submission?  Took two months instead of two weeks.  Delayed.  Last trip?  Sudden change in tax laws.  Delayed.  Coming home?  Yep, you guessed it...

DELAYED!!!

Brent told me this morning that, due to Scrooge McGrinchy Pants at the passport office, Aeson's passport, in addition to being misspelled, will not be ready until Tuesday.  Which means the final embassy appointment isn't until Wednesday.  They will try to fly out Thursday but odds of getting three plane tickets booked 12 hours prior to wanting to fly are slim.  This means most likely they will be flying out Friday - THE DAY BEFORE CHRISTMAS WEEKEND WHEN EVERYONE ON THE ENTIRE PLANET WILL ALSO BE TRAVELING!  So, hopefully there will be plane tickets to be had Friday; otherwise their trip home will again be - say it with me now - DELAYED!!!

I promise I really am trying to put on my big girl panties, say, it is what it is, and soldier on.  But I am so over all the stinking delays!  And I'm not even the one stuck in a tiny apartment with a broken tv in wintry Kiev!  I just want my family home, all together, on Christmas, which, at this point, may or may not happen.  Is that really too much to ask, Ukraine???

On the plus side (there's always a plus side), Aeson has done SO well.  He has slept through the night, gotten himself up and put himself back to bed, eaten everything put in front of him and had no major meltdowns.  He has a giant smile on his face in every photo and video Brent sends me.  What an amazingly resilient kid!  And no, the irony that I just had a virtual hissy fit from my own comfy chair in a familiar environment while my son, who was just ripped from everything he knows, acts like this is just another day did not escape my notice.

Keep us in your thoughts and prayers.  And I'll keep posting incredibly cute pictures of this fantastic kid who makes all the delays worth it.




Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Gotcha Day, The Sequel

Today was a much more low key day though it ended up being no less stressful than the day before.  The two things on the agenda today were the first embassy and medical appointments.  They ran into traffic on their way to the first appointment of the day so after ALL that traveling and the late night and the stress of will he sleep through the night or wake up screaming every half hour, poor Brent and his mom had to start the day without any coffee.  I. would. have. DIED.  Or someone else would have.  It's a good thing Brent is a tougher man than me.  He managed to start the day with a smile.


The day continued in the way it started - filled with hurdles and an enormous lack of coffee.  We found out that Aeson's name got spelled wrong on his passport.  Not a big deal, we'll just fix it, right?  WRONG!  Turns out The Grinch is working the desk at the passport office these days.  The woman, for whatever reason (maybe her shoes were too tight???), staunchly refused to redo the application and spell his name right.  Our facilitator promises, in the long run, this isn't a big deal so we finally said screw it and Aeson is now officially "Aison".  At least for Ukrainian passport purposes.

(Aison...Aison...does that rhyme with bison or is it still pronounced A-son...?  BTW, it never occurred to either of us that Aeson's name sounds astonishingly like A-son.  A son for the Sanders.  Aeson.  We aren't that clever.  Someone had to point it out to us.)

The second hurdle of the day came at the doctor's office.  Aeson has apparently had several recent enough TB tests and one or more of them has come back positive.  Now he obviously does not have TB (you can test positive on the skin test without actually having the disease) but the doctor needs a chest x-ray before she can clear him.  And, yep, you guessed it, the x-ray machine is broken.  The doctor is hopeful it will be working before the second embassy appointment on Friday.  Let's hope because, without the medical clearance, Aeson cannot get his visa.  Without the visa, they can't fly home.

Grr.

Despite the aggravations of the day, Aeson appears to be adjusting well.  He slept through his first night out like a champ and, from what I've been told, went straight to bed tonight.  He hasn't had any major meltdowns and he's even starting to warm up to MeeMaw.  =)



They got to spend some time at an indoor playground today and finally have some fun.  After that it was time for dinner, a quick round of Legos and bed.


Aven drew this and a number of other things for Aeson, packed them in his suitcase and made Brent promise to give them to him once he picked him up.  This is Aeson posing for photographic evidence that Daddy did what he was told.  

 The girls and I are holding up well although we miss them and cannot wait for them to get home.  God made sure today that we knew we were being taken care of in their absence.  The staff at our amazing day care gave us these gifts today.


Every staff member wrote a short note inside one of the books and tonight the girls and I read both of the books from cover to cover.  We are so very blessed to have such a loving village ready to swoop
 in whenever we need them.  They love our girls and Aeson as if they were their own.

Not much on the books for tomorrow thus far unless the x-ray machine magically fixes itself overnight.  (If y'all could just go ahead and add that miracle to your bedtime prayers this evening, we'd really appreciate it.)  They are going to try and find something fun to do like maybe visit the aquarium.  Hopefully the breakdowns continue to limit themselves to medical equipment and everyone wakes up smiling again tomorrow.  And hopefully there's coffee.

Monday, December 12, 2016

Gotcha Day

After 32 grueling hours of travel, Brent and his mom arrived in Aeson's region around midnight last night.  They spent a lovely, sleep-filled night at the Box Springs for a Mattress Motel and woke bright and early to go spring Aeson from the orphanage.  After a bucket full of coffee, one change of clothes and a handful of photo ops, they sprung him from that place forever!



Brent said the nannies cried as they were leaving which, oddly enough, made me feel good.  They loved him.  They cared for my son.  I hope that at least some of their tears were happy ones.  I hope they know that we will love and care for him, too.  Aeson shed a few tears, too, but recovered quickly.

The car ride back to town was exhausting!
After getting Aeson scanned for his passport, they had lunch at our favorite pizza place.  Maybe now the waitresses there will understand why we were there so often...


Once lunch was over it was back on that train.  Apparently it was a very long five hours.  Aeson had a minor meltdown upon boarding and wasn't interested in anything - iPad, the phone, toys - for more than a minute.  Food made it better (he is, after all, my son!)


 and Brent excitedly texted me when Aeson finally fell asleep...for 11 whole minutes.  =/

They finally made it back to Kiev and got settled in around midnight.  Aeson showered, brushed his teeth and readily got into bed without any issues.  I'm anxious to see how the night goes and how much sleep everyone actually gets.

Tomorrow should be a much slower paced day with just the embassy appointment in the morning and a doctor's appointment in the afternoon.  Everyone is stressed, tired and overwhelmed and could definitely use a restful day.  Please continue to keep all three of them in your prayers.

Here's hoping for a good second day!




Friday, December 9, 2016

Beauty from Ashes

Brent and his mom leave tomorrow morning to go get Aeson.  They're expected at the orphanage Monday morning.  In a little more than 48 hours the boy who has been an orphan for twelve years will walk out of that institution for the last time and into the arms of a family.

How is that we have had almost a year to prepare ourselves for this and yet I still feel like there are a million things left undone?

Are we ready for this?

Is he ready for this?

I've spent a lot of time in the past few weeks talking to other adoptive parents in order to try and prepare myself a little better for Aeson's transition.  It's those first few weeks home I fear the most.  A lot of people have asked what they can do, how they can help.  Honestly, right now I don't know.  I have no idea how it is going to go.  We'll take it one day at a time.

For now, please keep us all in your thoughts and prayers.

Pray for Brent and his mom to have safe travels.  I won't lie; I am not sad to be missing that 30-hour trip.

Pray for the girls.  This is going to change their lives and while it will do so for the better, I know at times it won't feel that way.

Pray that Brent and I will handle what is thrown at us to the best of our abilities.  Stress has a wonderful way of bringing out the worst in people sometimes.  I hope we can remember that we're in this mess together and to laugh along the way, even if only because otherwise we'd cry.

Finally, pray for Aeson.  This is an unbelievably difficult thing we are asking him do.  I hope somehow he knows that, despite all he's leaving behind, there are so many amazingly beautiful things ahead.

"A child born to another woman calls me mom.  The depth of the tragedy and the magnitude of the privilege are not lost on me." ~Jody Landers

Sunday, November 13, 2016

Around the World in Eighty Days

Only we did it in four.

That's right, folks, nearly 14,000 miles in four days. It was such a whirlwind trip that we didn't even bother to adjust to the time change.  We left Houston Tuesday morning and 30 hours, two airplanes and one five hour train ride later, we arrived in Charlie's region around midnight. We went to a nearby hotel to "sleep" for the night on what can only be described as a box spring.  Literally. There was no mattress. Want to know what happens to your old box springs when you set them out by the curb?  They're sent to Ukraine and disguised as mattresses. I have yet to sleep on anything resembling a comfortable mattress in the five different places we've stayed during all this.

We went to visit the next morning before court.  I know we said we weren't going to visit but our facilitator told us Charlie would be in court so we figured if we were gonna see him we might as well work out the kinks prior to, instead of during, court.  We went to the orphanage for about an hour where Charlie was less than enthused about seeing us, especially me.  He warmed up quickly enough, at least to Brent, and our visit was quickly over.  We went to eat lunch at the local pizza place we frequented a few times during our last visit and the waitress remembered us from a month ago.  We used the intermittent wifi signal to try and translate the menu and, when she brought the food over, the waitress commented on the irony (in pidgeon English) that the Americans ordered the Americana pizza.  We went back later after court for coffee and she then commented (again in broken English) on how we came to Ukraine just to hang out at the pizza place.  I took that to mean that we've been accepted as honorary Ukrainians as this point.

We headed to court which went pretty much as I expected.  The judge read through our dossier, the jurors and prosecutor asked the questions we knew they would ask and our facilitator improved on our answers to said questions as he translated them from English to Ukrainian.  I mentioned earlier that Charlie was there; because he is healthy and over a certain age, despite his special need, they ask his opinion.  We know enough Ukrainian to know he told them he was going on a car and plane ride with us and that we had dogs!  At least we know where his priorities lie.  =)

After a short deliberation, the judge said yes! and we can now introduce (drum roll, please) AESON NAZAR SANDERS!  He is finally ours!!!



I can also tell you that his 12th birthday was November 11 and, since we didn't plan on visiting this trip, we didn't have anything to give him.  Parenting fail number one.  Don't worry, kid, there will plenty more to follow, I'm sure.  Per his nanny's suggestion, we went to the grocery store and buy juice and candy for his class and we got to take Aeson (weird to call him that instead of Charlie, right???) to the store with us.  He was immediately drawn to the baby in a nearby shopping cart but was otherwise really well behaved.  I'm really hoping this is a good indication of behaviors to come.

Shortly after the grocery store we hopped back on everyone's favorite train for that five hour trip back to Kiev.  No rest for the weary!  We arrived in the city around midnight and, having just sat in one place for five blessed hours, we were of course wired and had no interest in sleeping.  We finally went to bed about 3:30 am.  The box springs in this apartment was either loads more comfortable or the previous 3654 hours of travel had finally caught up to us because we slept until almost 11:00 that morning.  We bolted out of bed so that we could meet our driver at noon.  We went to have some papers notarized and then went to have traditional Ukrainian dumplings for lunch.  They were uh-mazing in a way I cannot even describe.  After lunch our driver took us to see the sights of town.  This was one of the first times we've had to sight see and we had so much fun.  We saw the World of Miniatures museum which was an entire museum of handcrafted objects all smaller than your pinky nail.  I think the largest one measured eight millimeters in size; you had to use a microscope to see them.  One of the exhibits was an entire detailed chess set placed on the head of a pin.  It takes a special kind of crazy to be that detail oriented.  We went to the Lavra which is a monastery in caves.  We didn't get there in time to see the caves but we did get to see the inside of one of the most beautiful churches I've ever laid eyes on.  The detail was breathtaking.  I couldn't take pictures inside the church but I did take some really good pictures of the outside and the view of Kiev from the roof.



The judge would not waive the 10 day wait period so unfortunately we weren't allowed to bring Charlie/Aeson/Nazar home with us.  Brent will be flying back as soon as the wait period is over and our son will finally be able to come home!  We cannot wait.  I know we may have exhausted our share of prayers at this point but we're gonna ask for just a few more.  I will be posting a photo dump soon with all of our pictures from our visits during the first trip now that I can but until I can get that together, I'll leave you with one more parting shot of Ukraine.  


 


Sunday, October 30, 2016

Court

We have a court date, ladies and gentlemen!  We will fly back mid-November, stay just for court and then fly out again.  There will be more than one of us partaking in the free beer on the transatlantic leg this time, let me tell you.  We have to repeat that 36+ hour travel that I swear we just got back from only this time we aren't staying for two weeks between flights.  We are barely staying two days.

And, no, we STILL don't get to bring Charlie home yet.  We have a 10 day wait period once we pass court and, given the inevitability of weekends and holidays, that 10 days often turns into more like 14 days.  Sometimes the 10 day wait starts the day of court; sometimes it starts the day after.  Some judges will count weekends as part of the wait; some won't.  Some courts will even completely waive the wait period; odds are (per our facilitator) ours won't.  So we will have to make this lovely journey one. more. time.  Yea...(insert sarcastic jazz hands here)...

However, once we pass court I can start posting pictures and other personal information about our beautiful boy and, let's be real, that's what y'all are all really waiting for anyway.  So I look forward to introducing him to the world soon.

Until next time...




Monday, October 24, 2016

Home

After 36+ continuous hours of travel, we made it back home.  We took a five hour train ride from Charlie's region back to Ki3v, arrived at 10 pm, drove to a hotel near the airport, slept for about three hours, hopped on a shuttle, took a three hour flight to Frankfurt, flew 10+ hours back to Texas and finally drove the hour and a half home.  We got home at 4:30 pm and left the house an hour later so that we could get the girls to their soccer games.  We got back to the house at 8:00 and crashed about an hour later.

Unfortunately there was no rest for the weary and we hit the ground running the next day.  Real life was calling after almost two weeks away and we were back to work Friday morning.  Needless to say we are both still a bit jet lagged and reeling from the trip.  We are, nevertheless, SO happy to be home.  We missed our girls, sleeping in our own bed and Mexican food.  We are impatiently awaiting a court date so that we can plan our second of three trips.  This trip should hopefully be a short one (there just for court) and while we are dreading the travel and subsequent exhaustion, we are anxious to be one step closer to bringing Charlie home.  We took his measurements during our last visit so that we can make sure we bring appropriately sized clothes when we pick him up.  He will have to change at the orphanage as the clothes he currently wears belong to the orphanage, not to Charlie.  They'll be passed onto the next boy.  It makes me sad that these boys don't even own the clothes on their back.

Though they will be fewer now that we are not in country, I'll definitely be posting updates as news comes in.  In the meantime we will be sleeping as much as possible and brushing up on our Uk@inian language skills.  Thanks to everyone for the continued thoughts and prayers; we couldn't do this without you!

Tuesday, October 18, 2016

Day 8: We Celebrated with Cake

We went and visited again today.  Charlie was pretty indifferent and uninterested.  We brought all of our toys today since this was going to be the last visit and told him he could take them with him.  He ended the visit early by packing up what he wanted (which wasn't much) and then told us to call the nanny.  He did give us a each a big hug and kiss as he left so we ended on a good note.  Our biggest concern today was that, without our facilitator, Charlie wouldn't understand why we weren't showing up anymore.  We had planned to address this with our facilitator when we spoke to him later.  The orphanage, however, had already considered this and called to say they wanted our facilitator to bring us back so that we could tell Charlie what was happening.

I cannot begin to tell you how happy this makes me.  The orphanage didn't have to care.  But they do.  I honestly feel like they do.  I know that nothing can take the place of a family but if I have to leave Charlie somewhere until we can get him home to his family, I'm glad it is this place.  He isn't tied to a bed.  He isn't malnourished, beaten or drugged.  Most of the fears I had going into this have thus far been unfounded and for that I am thankful.

All our bags are packed and we are ready to go.  Eager to head home but sad to say goodbye, even though we know it is only temporary.  We made one last stop at the grocery store to pick up supplies for our last homemade meal and, on an impulse, decided to top off the festivities with cake.  =)


We thank you so much, U, for your hospitality.  We'll see you again soon.

Monday, October 17, 2016

Day 7: A Change in Routine

We didn't visit today.  I think both Brent and I were glad.  We all needed a small break and change in the routine for a day.  We did go to the orphanage but spent the time convincing the director to sign off on our paperwork.  We sat for two hours while the director postulated about every possible what if, from stubbed toenails to alien invasion and what Charlie is supposed to do if he's left by himself in each of those situations.  When we finally told him, well, it's survival of the fittest, he picked up his little pen and signed whatever we asked him to.

I'm kidding.  But only about mouthing off to the director.  Our facilitator told us on the car ride to file our paperwork that the director really was worried about every possible scenario.  Don't get me wrong.  I'm glad he was worried and not just eager to pass this kid off to whoever walked through the guard gate but is the zombie apocalypse really a valid concern here???

We went into the city to file our paperwork and got back to the apartment late this afternoon.  We'll go visit tomorrow; our goal is to somehow make sure that Charlie knows we are coming back for him.  Then we'll pack it up, take an evening train back to Ki3v and fly home!!!  All that will be left to do is wait for a court date.  Here's hoping for speedy processing...


Sunday, October 16, 2016

Day 6: Meltdown

(I will preface this post by saying, in the grand scheme of things, today really wasn't that bad.  But, in our little world here, today we all hit rock bottom.)

Charlie had a meltdown today.  We had expected it and could see it coming so we weren't surprised when he fell apart.  We were stuck in that same little room AGAIN and weren't allowed to go outside AGAIN.  It's the weekend, there's different staff and it seemed like a different schedule so we aren't sure if we were interrupting something fun but at one point Charlie got up, waved and said, poka (bye) and walked out the door.  Now he didn't put on his jacket and hat prior to doing this so he really had no real intention of leaving.  He was just testing us.  He was testing us for the entire two hours. At one point he hit Brent with something and, very calmly but firmly, Brent took it away.  Charlie did not like that.  He had a small temper tantrum and the whole time I just wanted to tell him, trust me, Buddy, I feel exactly the same way; I totally get it.  Because truth be told, at this point I want to have a hissy fit, too.  We are all so over all of this it is not even funny.  We bought six bottles of beer on the way home (which cost all of $2, by the way) and I'm almost positive we are likely to finish them all tonight.

It's time to go home, y'all.

Brent's 2 cents ( I don't contribute much) - the tantrum lasted all of 2 minutes.... but it was the longest 2 minutes of my life. I have ZERO patience for misbehaving.  I know he was testing me, but he was obviously not testing Mary, and that was hard for me. I get it, I am the new figure in his life, he is used to being around around women so she is not the novelty. Yea me...the novelty, the focus of all his curiosities and boundary testing. Sigh, this is WAAAAAAYYYYY outside my comfort zone. I got through it, I kept my cool and we ended up with a high five, handshake and a hug. We don't speak the same language, but we have figured out that those gestures are our way of saying "we are cool."
So I guess I can bump my patience scale up to 0.5/10.

Closing note: Brent is my hero.  I am not sure where he is stashing his cape on this trip but I have never been more in awe of him in the 10+ years we have known each other.  He has had more poise, more patience and more confidence than I have ever seen him have.  He's amazing.  Lastly, with what Charlie is capable of despite almost 12 years of orphanage-ing, he will definitely be force to reckon with once we get him home.  It's hard but oh so worth it.

Saturday, October 15, 2016

Day 5: Groundhog Day

We had another good visit today though they still didn't let us go outside.  The nanny said it was too cold.  I wanted to tell her that he is dressed in tights, jeans, an undershirt, a regular shirt, a sweatshirt, a ski jacket and a winter hat.  Nuclear weapons couldn't penetrate that, much less the cold weather.  But whatever.  We'll stay inside in this tiny little room with nothing to do.  =/

Charlie had a verbal explosion today.  He was not only speaking in complete sentences but he also used multiple English words that we have been working on all week.  Now mind you that we still don't understand 90% of what he is saying but at least now we don't understand in complete sentences!!!  The nanny allowed him to walk with us to the gate again today and when we got there the nanny told him it was time to say bye so he could go eat and nap (between the words we are picking up and the pantomiming we are starting to at least get the general idea of what people are saying).  He very obviously told her, no he was going with us, in a car and then on a plane.  We were very excited that he was so excited to come with us.  Hopefully this means Gotcha Day and the trip home will go smoothly.

It's beginning to feel a bit like Groundhog Day here.  The days are all the same and though we've been here less than a week it feels like a month.  Today we got up, ate breakfast, got dressed, did a load of laundry, drove 30+ minutes to the orphanage, visited Charlie for two hours, drove back to town, ate lunch, walked over six miles, went to the grocery store and walked back home...and it was only 4:00 pm.  Yesterday we watched like three movies.  Don't get me wrong, we adore Charlie and love spending time with him but it is time to go home.  Fortunately we got our plane tickets home booked last night so at least there is an end in sight.

I'll end with a some pictures that we took on our walk around town today.  We found some very pretty spots and great photo ops.






Friday, October 14, 2016

Day 4: Nyet

Nyet.  It means no.  We said that a lot today.  Charlie's favorite activity, as I said before, is playing on our phones.  But we don't want to spend the entire two hour visit playing on a phone.  It's not something we like to do with the girls and not a precedent we want to set with Charlie.  Though we did pack some toys, we weren't sure what his interests would be exactly and we had to pack what would fit in our suitcases.  On top of that we have been stuck in one small room filled with nothing but gym equipment that only kind of works.  Add the two together and that makes for some very long visits after four days.  Nevertheless we came armed today with a game plan that we were gonna stick to, darn it.

And the minute we walk in the room...Charlie asks for the phone.  =/

We told him no.  He did not like that much.  He was definitely testing us today to see if we meant what we said.  Anyone that knows us knows that we do and, once he saw we weren't giving in, he decided to see what else we had brought with us.  We ended up playing for quite awhile and let him have the phone for the last half hour.  Our facilitator was here today so he went over our family photo album with Charlie so he could explain in more detail who everyone was.  We did ask, since the weather is supposed to be nice, if tomorrow we could venture outside.  We were given a tentative yes so I'm really hoping they allow us to play outdoors, even if it's just for half an hour.  We walked to the local toy store and bought a soccer ball and some puzzles so that we would have new things to do over the weekend.  We've also brought the snacks recommended by the orphanage and while he loves the juice, he has no interest in the bananas.  Charlie's teacher allowed him to walk with us to the gate today - further evidence that they are preparing him for things to come.

I asked our facilitator today on the way back to the apartment what he thought of the orphanage.  We are the first family to adopt from this place so he had never been here before.  He, like us, was pleasantly surprised at the conditions, especially considering how rural the location is.  This has been a huge blessing as I had steeled myself for some really horrible things and we haven't seen any.  We hope that, by sending pictures and letters of Charlie blossoming at home back to the orphanage, they will be open to listing other children there so that they, too, can find families.  Currently Charlie is the only child there who is available for adoption and there are 120 boys and men who live at this institution.

Our facilitator took us around town for one last sweep of the shops after our visit.  We wanted to have someone who could help us pick out good local foods and such to cook over the weekend.  We took a long walk around the town and took some pictures along the banks of the Dnieper River.

Our facilitator offered to buy some bus tickets for us so we could travel into town over the weekend and check out the local fare but we were terrified we'd never find our way back on our own.  Our last visit this trip will be Monday and we hope to fly home mid-week.  We've truly enjoyed meeting and spending time with Charlie but we are ready to go home.

Please continue to keep us in your prayers as we wrap up this trip.  Pray for a safe trip home.  Pray that Charlie has been well prepared for our absence and doesn't think we've abandoned him.  Pray for our girls at home who miss us as much as we miss them.  And pray for my poor mother who is holding down the fort and probably needs a really large, stiff drink by now.

Thursday, October 13, 2016

Day 3, Part 2: Visit Numero Dos

Today's visit with Charlie was just as great as yesterday's.  He was very happy to see us again and it was obvious that the orphanage staff had been prepping him for what lies ahead.  They were referring to us today as Mary, Mama and Brent, Papa whereas yesterday we were just Mary and Brent.  Charlie also kept repeating that Brent was going to take him on a car ride and then on an airplane.  We took the cue and helped him draw things out on paper since a number of things are still lost in translation verbally.  This is a really good development because, remember, the orphanage staff were very skeptical of us yesterday.  Our visit yesterday must have convinced them that we don't completely suck.


As you can see from my Louvre-worthy artwork, Charlie should have no doubts about his journey home.
 Brent told me my stick figure looked like one of the Minions...

Though we came prepared with lots of toys, Charlie's favorite thing to do by far is to watch family videos and look at family photos on our phones.  The ones he likes best are the ones of the girls playing soccer, swimming and riding horses.  We had to eventually tell him it was time to put the phones away or he would have spent the entire two hours playing on them.  It was rainy and cold today so we were unfortunately stuck inside but still managed to play a little indoor game of catch and volleyball.  Kid's got an arm.  We had to tell him to tone it down at one point as we were afraid he was going to break something with the ball he was throwing and kicking it so hard.

I again took lots of photos and videos that I wish I could post.  I tried to get some purposeful footage of Charlie doing specific things so that I can show it to his future educators and therapists and they can get a better idea of what he knows and can do.  Which is A LOT.  He's amazing.

We will visit once a day until Monday when hopefully the director will decide we are as amazing as Charlie is and give us his paperwork so we can set our court date.  I will be posting updates in the meantime.  Until next time...

We Interrupt This Regularly Scheduled Program...

...to bring you a sappy blog post.  Just one, I promise.

I dedicate this post to my incredible, handsome husband.  He has been my rock and an extremely willing companion throughout this entire journey.  When I am hungry, tired, fussy, overwhelmed and/or frustrated, he is calm and collected.  When HE is hungry, tired, fussy, overwhelmed and/or frustrated, he simply smiles and goes with the flow.  99% of what we are doing here is so far out of his comfort zone that you can't even see it with the Hubble telescope yet he has never once expressed anything other than support.  He's learned more of the language, planned more of the trip and thought about more of the details than I ever even considered.  Charlie LOVES Brent and wants to kiss him, hold his hand and wallow in his lap and Brent is so gentle with him.  I am thankful every day for all that Brent is and does but I can honestly say I have never loved him more than I do now.

I couldn't do this without you, babe.  I hope you know that.




Day 3, Part I: Brave

Today we felt brave.  Yesterday...not so much.  Our facilitator dropped us off at the orphanage and had to leave to take care of another client.  So we didn't have anyone to translate for the remainder of our first visit.  Once we left the orphanage (thankfully our facilitator had arranged transportation home) we were hungry and decided to stop in the only restaurant in town for pizza.  We honestly tried to read the menu using our amazingly remedial knowledge of the language and even tried Google translate.  It just was not working.  We had to call our facilitator and have him relay our order to the waitress.  Afterwards we tried to go exchange money at the bank but they didn't understand us either.  Our final stop was at the grocery store where we wandered for a half hour or so and came out with our leftover pizza for dinner.  We ended the day feeling good about our visit but generally overwhelmed and discouraged.

But today!

Today we met our driver and again went to the orphanage without a translator.  We had another amazing visit which I'll post about later and our driver took us to exchange money.  We came home for lunch and, after Face-timing with the girls, the weather cleared up nicely so we put on our big girl and boy panties and trekked into town to the grocery store.  While it took us an hour or so, we came home with all the makings for homemade chicken soup and grilled cheese sandwiches.


We had to improvise as there was no can opener.
This is why wine is essential in any situation; the opener is multipurpose.
 And let me tell you...it smells good!   


CHEERS!!!




Wednesday, October 12, 2016

Day 2: The Big Reveal

We had our DAP meeting Tuesday morning and it went very smoothly.  Very quick.  They gave us baby pictures of Charlie in exchange for a picture we brought so now I have a few pictures of him as an infant and toddler.  Such cute, chubby cheeks!

We met up with two other families who also had DAP appointments that morning and were part of the Reece's Rainbow team.  One of the families was even from Texas!!!  It was so good to hear English and words like y'all for the better part of the day.  We all had lunch together and then went our separate ways to each of our respective regions.  We had a SIX. HOUR. CAR. RIDE to our region.  (But I'm betting that is nothing compared to the one of the other couples who had a 10 hour overnight train ride with their three year old to their region.  That is the stuff my nightmares are made of.)  If you've never driven in U, it's an experience you won't soon forget.  They pay no attention to silly things like speed limits or sides of the road.  And the roads are full of potholes so if you aren't swerving around the car in front of you at one gajillion miles an hour, you're dodging the Grand Canyon sized potholes that threaten to swallow your tiny Eastern European car whole.  It was like a six hour roller coaster ride.  Thank God for Dramamine.

We got to our new apartment somewhere between 10-11 pm and the first thing I did was jump into our GIANT bathtub and relish in the most lovely hot water I have ever felt.  We have a tankless water heater in this place.  We had like five total gallons of hot water in the other place so I opted out of doing anything other than a quick sponge bath in Kiev.  Here's a quick tour of our beautiful apartment:

The amazing tub.

The equally as amazing shower.



My handsome hubby.  Who is sitting on the couch in heaven because he figured out how to connect his jump drive with 7000 movies on it to the tv so we have entertainment.  In english.
Our facilitator picked us up this morning and we drove the 30ish miles out of town to the orphanage.  The country side is beautiful!  Hilly and green with lots of trees in all sorts of colors since it is fall.  The orphanage was very nice, as were the staff.  We met with the director, assistant director, medical director and one of Charlie's teachers.  No one has ever adopted from this orphanage before so the staff was understandably a bit skeptical of us.  Once we got through the initial questions they took us to the classroom where Charlie was sitting, coloring.  They introduced us to him and y'all, it was love at first sight.  Well, for me anyway.  Charlie was WAY more interested in Brent.  And Brent's beard. And his hat.  He slowly warmed up to me.  That seems to be fairly typical though.  The kids are always initially more into Dad than Mom.  Any thoughts on why from the experienced adopters reading this???

We walked down the hall to the gym and Charlie held Brent's hand the entire time.  I couldn't stop smiling.  Though we had brought some toys Charlie was most interested in our phones.  We went through the photo album we brought with him and then showed him some pictures and videos.  We visited his room, saw where he slept and met his groupa and friends.  Charlie was so proud to introduce us and started to get a bit jealous when we interacted with the other kids.  We went back to the gym and hung out with him for another hour before it was time to leave.  He is everything everyone said he would be - sweet, affectionate and SO smart.  We are smitten kittens.  We will be visiting once a day for the next three or four days and then will hopefully get the director's approval early next week.

We took a lot of pictures and videos this morning but unfortunately I'm not allowed to post any pictures of Charlie until after court.  So the pictures of our bath tub will have to do for now.  =)  I can't wait to see how tomorrow's visit goes!

The Flight There and Day 1


We made it!  We left on a Sunday and arrived on Monday.  It was a quick eight hour flight to Amsterdam and, after a short layover (AKA coffee break), we had a two and half hour trip into Ki3v.  Brent has never been to Europe so watching him discover all the cool stuff they have on trans-Atlantic flights was pretty fun.  Free movies!  Free food!  FREE BEER!!!  =)  For those of you who don’t know him, Brent is six and half feet tall and 200+ pounds, so sitting in a tiny airplane seat for that long is difficult for him.  He did have the forethought to upgrade our seats to economy comfort which, though not first class by any means, did give us lots of extra room on all four sides and made the trip much more bearable.




I get extremely fussy when either hungry or tired (and Lord help you if I’m both).  I am a bedtime snob meaning it has to be just the right amount of recline/dark/noise or I can’t sleep.  I also get air/carsick so you can imagine what a hoot I am to travel with especially for long periods of time that span both meal and bed times.  I was prepared however!  I started our flight with a healthy dose of Dramamine and combatted the hangry/nauseous by eating something every single hour of the flight.  That included not only the meals and snacks they gave us on the plane but also multiple sticks of dry sausage and an entire bag of Riesens.  Which is approximately 36 more Riesens than any one person should ever eat in one sitting.  I passed the time in between meals by obsessively chewing gum and drinking water like a fish.  The perpetual round the clock eating schedule, however, left little time for sleeping and I think I finally passed out the last hour and a half of the flight. 

My dad was a seasoned traveler in his day, having flown back and forth to Africa once every other month for number of years.  His piece of advice for combating jet lag was to take quick nap when you arrived, force yourself to wake up and then stay awake as late as you could.  Even if that meant you ate dinner and went to bed at 7 pm, odds are you’d sleep well that night, wake up at a mostly normal time the next morning and look!  You’re already on your new schedule.  And that is exactly what we did.  Our driver picked us up at the airport, took us to exchange some money and buy a few groceries and then dropped us off at our apartment.  I took a short nap while Brent watched a movie and, after four phone calls and two trips down the world’s tiniest elevator, we figured out how to work the front door so we could get something for dinner.  

Hello, tiny elevator!  Brent is literally touching both the door and back wall with his shoulders.  It's that small.  But a fantastic alternative to walking up seven flights of stairs with three suitcases and a hella heavy backpack.


Our driver had made several suggestions on our way in about which restaurants were good/easy to order from so, in keeping with our adventurous, jet-setting ways, we had a fabulous local meal of…hamburgers and French fries.  Sorry, people, but I’ve just been on a plane for over 15 hours and have slept for about two minutes.  You’re lucky I could move the hamburger from the plate to my mouth.  Adventurous was just not in the cards last night.  At least we didn’t go to McDonald’s...
Brent caught me mid-chew.  My cheeks aren't really that fat.
After dinner we came home and attempted to watch a movie.  Brent woke me up half way through it and suggested that maybe it was time for bed.  We both got a decent night’s sleep (Brent never sleeps well no matter where he is) and woke up feeling good and ready to go this morning.  So thank you, Daddy.  I promise I really was listening all those times you tried to tell me stuff, even if it didn’t look like it. 

Our apartment in Ki3v is really pretty nice with a full kitchen and wifi.  Brent even mostly fits in the bed.  It did take us about 12 hours and four more phone calls to figure out the wifi works better if you plug it in…jet lag, people.  Jet lag.

We just got a call from our driver telling us he’d be here in about 15 minutes to take us to our DAP appointment so it’s time to wrap this up.  Wish us luck!!!  I'm posting a bunch of photos below of some views around town.  Our apartment is right off Independence Square.  There's even an underground mall beneath that glass dome in the middle of the road.  Pretty cool.






Sunday, October 2, 2016

A Shout Out To My Village

We leave in just over a week.  ONE WEEK!!!  It seemed like an eternity when our facilitator called and told us we'd be leaving for U. in five weeks.  Time flew by like it has never flown before and here we are.  As we start packing and are tying up all the loose ends I am reminded again and again how lucky we are to have such an amazing village of people supporting us in this crazy venture.  Because without you, Village, this could never have happened.  So thank you, truly, from the bottom of our hearts.

Thank you to my mom for whole-heartedly agreeing to abandon her own life and come live ours for however long we are gone.

Thank you to my aunt, uncle and mother-in-law for offering to fill in the gaps so my mom can occasionally have a day off.

Thank you to friends and family who contributed to our adoption fund; y'all were so amazingly generous.

Thank you to my associate for being so understanding and supportive of this adoption even though it means she will be working every day until I get back.

Thank you to co-workers who, having only known me for three months, jumped head first into fundraising and have excitedly supported me from day one.

Thank you to clients who barely knew me yet contributed dollar after dollar to our adoption fund.

Thank you to our beloved day care who takes such amazing care of our children and, with this adoption, us as well.

Thank you to clinic staff who helped make our home town fundraisers possible.  They bought more tickets for things I'm sure they didn't really need, yet they did it because they love us.

Thank you for the countless number of friends who have told me to leave their numbers for my mom so that they can help transport kids from school, daycare, soccer, gymnastics...

Thank you to the mom who offered to be available for us whenever because, as a stay at home mom with four busy kids of her own, she's "not doing anything all day."

Thank you to the mom who is willing to pick up my child from school and cart her to gymnastics every week.

Thank you to the beautiful friend who, while battling cancer and going through chemo, took the time to make an amazing knitted blanket for Charlie because she'd made one for each of the girls when they were babies.

Thank you to my closest friends who have called to check on the status of our adoption and listened like it was the first time every time I complained for the 100th time about something.

Thank you to our local relief veterinarians who went out of their way to help us find someone who could fill in at the clinic.

Thank you to our amazing community for already welcoming Charlie home even though he isn't here yet.

Thank you to our children for being so beautifully excited about their big brother.

And thank you to anyone else I may have forgotten to mention.  Again, we cannot thank everyone enough.  This has been the most beautiful example of love and generosity I've ever experienced.

I will be posting updates here and on Facebook as we travel so stay tuned!






Saturday, September 10, 2016

WE HAVE TRAVEL DATES!!!!!

FINALLY!!!

We will be traveling early October to go get our son!

I feel like I should be more excited.  I've had friends tell me, I thought you'd be more excited.  I am excited.  But I'm excited in the way you're excited about Christmas.  Generally, you're super pumped up about the holiday in general.  But more so when it is December and it's appropriate to hang up your holiday decor (unless you're Hobby Lobby.  In that case it was apparently appropriate in August.  Whole other soapbox...don't get me started...).  Our dates are five weeks away.  Well, closer to four now, but still.  We've been waiting so long for this that it is hard to get outwardly excited when we still have ANOTHER WHOLE MONTH TO WAIT.  And since we've had so many delays and so much down time, we are already prepped and ready to go.  Not much to do except wait.  Again.

In addition, we are feeling a little let down by the fact that, though Down Syndrome is an expedited special need (meaning they process your paperwork first and fast and give you travel dates sooner), for some unknown reason Charlie's file was marked as regular processing.  So we were expecting something to happen much faster and it didn't.

Nevertheless we truly are looking forward to finally meeting Charlie and bringing him home.  I will be posting updates on the blog as we make final preparations to leave and also as we travel.  Keep us in your prayers and stay tuned!

Monday, August 29, 2016

Charlie's Room

It's finally finished!!!  In the midst of the Great Room Swap we decided to get the flooring replaced upstairs in what is now the big girls' room.  The carpet was gross seven years ago when we moved in and, gasp, would you believe it did not get any better since then???  =)  Once we started moving all the furniture it became very obvious that the carpet had long ago exceeded its shelf life and needed to go.  So we ripped it up and replaced it with some very nice wood flooring but in the interim, all the furniture and everything else up there was stuffed into Charlie's room.  So it was impossible to put the finishing touches on his room or take nice pictures until the big girls' room was done.

BUT!

It's all done now and both rooms turned out beautifully.   I present to you Charlie's Room!





Now we are truly ready for our travel dates and I'm going to be waiting even more impatiently which I did not think was possible.  And yet...