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.

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.

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!!!

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.