31Oct Update

31 Oct 2008

Today was another wonderful day spent with the girls. We’ve now spent 1 week, nearly all day every day with the girls and it’s going great. They are still on their guest behavior but are defiantly feeling comfortable with us as we are with them. It’s hard to think that we, as well as them, were so nervous when we met them for the first time. We already feel like a family and our time together is quite natural. I can also tell you we are acting like proud parents and think they are the most wonderful girls we could have hoped to get. Laura, if the offer for Annabelle still stands, we’ll take her also as she’d fit right in (inside family joke).

Today was a leisurely day for us. We picked up the girls and walked to the local store for some supplies. It only takes about 5 minutes to get from the school to our flat so we were home by 11am. We had them work in some grade appropriate math books so I can get an idea as to where they’re at; I still need to work with them to really find out. When we handed them the books, they just dove in and started working on their own for quite some time. We also picked up some books on learning English and show’s them how to make letters and such.

We watched “Emperors New Groove” in Russian. Since this is one of our favorites, we were able to follow along. Speaking of movies, these are not pirated, have the Disney seals and were from a video store and were only 10 Dollars each. We’re headed back to Yalta tomorrow and I’m going to pick up some more movies for that price. We brought some of our movies along but don’t hold the girls attention when there is a lot of talking. We fully understand. These movies are region 5 so since I don’t have a hack for my computer DVD player, I use a program to copy the DVD to my hard drive, another program to remove the region code and then we can watch these with a DVD player on the computer. Works great and I don’t have to have the DVD in the drive to watch them.

Today was a milestone day for me. While watching the movie, the older one sat next to me and snuggle up with me. What a wonderful feeling. They’re bonding with Virginia very quickly and just slower with me. The culture here is different (duh!) and I believe they were close to their mother and not so much to their step father. I haven’t trust myself at them and figure they will come around in their own time. I always showed them small signs of affection like putting my hand briefly on their shoulder or kissing them on the head. After a couple of days, they quit pulling away and accepted these gestures of affection. Of course I would want my hug on greetings and goodbye’s, but those are expected by both parties. My biggest fear was a severe case of Reactive Attachment Disorder but I can say that these girls have no signs of it and are already attaching, strongly. They are no longer overtly worried about their peers stealing us. The younger one which had a larger issue about this asked us if she could bring her friend to our flat and play. As much as we would’ve liked to, it’s prohibited. We felt bad for the little girl who probably didn’t understand why she couldn’t come along. I no longer worry about any bonding issues with these girls as we’ll all strongly bond; that I have no doubt.

We played a few games here in the flat. Twister was a challenge at first since we didn’t know the words for right and left; hand and foot were easy to find out. It’s quite interesting trying to communicate rules when you can’t even say right or left. We have plenty of music on the laptop so they love to dance and horse around while it’s playing. We feel the younger one will always be young at heart and reminds me so much of my youngest niece. She loves to play rough and is always laughing. I have this one picture of her and Virginia together (the older was being the dedicated photographer as was I) on the waterfront in Yalta. They were playing model for us and the younger one busted herself up with her antics. When she goes into a full blown laugh, her eyes are close and she has an ear-to-ear grin; she laughs with her whole face. Every time we see the picture, it crack us up. The older one doesn’t play nearly as rough and not very often. She prefers to make up Virginia or herself or to play calmly (much like my nieces her age). We’ll have our hands full with these two, but in a good way.

Our paperwork is also moving forward. Irina was in Yalta all day waiting for the conclusion to be signed. I guess there is no mayor in Yalta right now so the standin has to sign the paperwork. At first he wasn’t going to since he doesn’t know anything about these matters and was going to make us wait until Dec. 7th for the newly elected official to sign. ARGHH!! But he relented and yesterday Irina came home with the signed documents. She also applied to the court and hopefully get our court date on Monday. As mentioned before, this area is difficult so we don’t expect to get a court hearing until the following Monday. Our return tickets were originally booked for Dec. 9th and it looks like we just might make it if we only encounter small glitches. These are all if’s.

Back to Yalta on Saturday with the girls. Irina needs to mail the documents to Kiev and she found jackets for 100rgh ($20).

On many travel blogs, I read where the prospective parents were glad they brought lots of books and movies to kill the boredom of waiting. We may have had paperwork/officials problems, but we haven’t had any time to read of watch our movies. Last night, we went to be by 9pm because both of us were wore out. I usually have to sneak in some time for these updates because we are so busy. We’ve been blessed in our process because we get to spend so much time with our girls and thankfully it doesn’t look like it’ll slow any. Their normal school resumes on Monday so we will have time during the day till about 3pm when their classes end. Maybe only then will be have time for these things, but I just as soon have the girls and be all worn out instead.

We think we may have to build a playground in our back yard. They love the seesaw and swings not to mention the big spinning thing. They may look old (which they are) and decrepit, but they are built solidly and are holding out just fine. Virginia and I play most times on this gear with the girls. You should see the looks we get from the locals as though we must be insane to play like that. I’ve yet to see any fathers actually engaging their children in play so I’m thinking it’s another one of those cultural things; but that’s not going to stop us from playing with the girls because we’re just having too much fun.

It’s going to feel wonderful to hear children’s laughter in the house again. The only time we heard this was when Virginia’s brothers family visited (they have younger kids) and it always made me feel like it was a home. When they left, it always got quiet again and I went through withdrawals afterward (I came from a large, noisy family). I can’t wait to hear it again with our girls and especially when we ALL get together there again. Some of you may say it’ll get old for me, but I never tire of the sound of laughter. There’s truth in the saying “Laughter is good medicine”. It’s good for the heart and soul. Just think of how good you felt after a good laugh and think what a better place the world would be if people laughed a lot more. I don’t think I’ve heard any laugher on the streets here and that is SAD!

Virginia’s input:

Although I don’t now the name of most of the food items as they are written, I have tried many things and enjoyed them all. I worry that the tastiness of much of the things I have eaten might have long term consequences (weight gain), but our companion Irena tells me that we are so busy and active that not a chance. All the people we have had to deal with directly in regards to the adoption have been very helpful. Some things are slower and harder in this region for adoption, but it is the nature here. The girls are bonding well with us and vice-versa. They were on fall break this last week and contrary to usual practices at our stage of the process we were permitted to take them on outings off property for the day, each day. This has definitely put us further along in respects to bonding with each other. We have also been quite fortunate that they weather here in Crimea has been extraordinarily warm and sunny. We have gone into Yalta many days with no jacket on and just a light sweater, shed half way through the day. We don’t expect this may last much longer, but will take it for as long as it lasts. Chris even had to buy a couple of short sleeve shirts to wear, hard to find this time of year. It was + 28 Celsius yesterday and our landlady’s mother was going for a swim in the ocean, (the water is pretty warm it was + 17 Celsius yesterday), and the ocean is perhaps a ten minute or so walk from here, (rough life, I know).

Cheers for now so I can finish getting ready for Yalta to post this.

Chris and Virginia

Note: The girls are 9 and 10. FYI for those about to travel, the dollar got as high as 7:1 the other day and is hovering around 6 right now.