Still no Passport

We haven't heard anything today about the passport. Each day we are getting closer to receiving it, so tomorrow looks hopeful. It would be nice to be on the train to Kiev on Wednesday night. Then we would have Thursday and Friday to do the medical and go to the Embassy. Then we're out of here!

Karina is really very good considering we took her out of the only home she's known for the past four years. She has been surrounded by only children with no one on one adult supervision. She's done what it take to survive in that environment. All children test their parents. It's just easier to handle one bad behavior at a time and not allow bad habits to form. She needs to know what our expectations are and we need to know the most effective way to deal with her. I just feel like we have the disadvantage right now, since when we get out of the apartment and are around Russian speakers, she doesn't 'understand' us like when it's just us in the apartment. She has also 'threatened' to go back to the Internat when she doesn't get her way or we don't buy her what she wants. It'll pass.

Today, when we went to the supermarket, she chose a birthday card for each of her brothers. They won't necessarily care about how 'pretty' the cards are, but they'll know she was thinking of them.

I forgot to mention some of our other food experiences we've had. One day, we went to the outside open market to buy some salami or kielbasa as they call it. We chose a package that was totally sealed up, so you couldn't see what was inside. When we got home, we had a nice size chub of smoked cream cheese! I didn't know there was such a thing. When I looked closely at the package, under the price written in black marker was the word for cheese.

We've also tried a couple of the food stands. There is one chain in Kiev which sells rectangular individual pizza bread for 6 greevna, which is about $1.20 USD. (it's called Fonetti's and the stands are orange and blue) The pizza breads are very good, especially if you catch them when they are hot. We kept seeing people buy some type of kolache style buns, but bigger at our little open market. One morning we bought K one. They cooked it right when it was ordered. It ended up being pretty big. About 3 times the size of a honey bun with some type of ground meat inside. K really liked it. It was pretty good. I guess she's our very willing guinea pig to try some of these things. She knows how to order. We tried something similar today. K ended up with something like the huge whatever it was the other day and we had a similar bun with a sausage type pattie inside. It was good too. We have been very blessed that we haven't gotten sick from anything we've eaten. We just go to the local supermarket and buy cooked skewered chicken, salami, ham, yogurt, juice, butter, etc. We've found some inexpensive soda type drinks we like. At the open market we buy Ramen noodle soup and instant potatoes. The only cooking type of appliance we have in our apartment kitchen is a hot pot. I found a large package of Ramen noodles and then we went to the supermarket and bought some Italian type sauce to make spaghetti. We are going to use some of the chicken skewer chunks for our meat. We tried some cooked hamburger-looking patties from the supermarket once, but they weren't anything like hamburger. There is another blog where they posted about oatmeal and tuna. We found some tuna. It wasn't quite as chunky as we're used to and it was more expensive, but it was tuna. I also bought some oatmeal and made it for breakfast. It was very good and super easy to fix. I just put the amount of oatmeal I wanted in a bowl, poured just enough hot water to cover, covered the bowl with a plate and waited a few minutes. I then added butter and some sugar. (I really like brown sugar, but the store didn't have any) It was really good and cheap! K said she didn't like it. Then I told her to just taste a little of mine. Well, that changed her mind. I think she'll be eating some tomorrow morning;)

The City Park and Food

We went to 'the' park in the city we are in today. It is still a little cold here when the wind blows. Karina found a little boy to play with. I would guess he was 4. She loved running after him and they played on all the playground equipment. She told him to be careful at times. Then, a little girl came up and they really hit it off. This little girl was just a tiny bit taller than Karina. When the parents needed to go, the little girl gave Karina her phone number. We asked how old the little girl was and Karina said she was 8. I guess sometimes it's good when you can be any age at anytime. lol

We have been going to the local pizza place almost everyday for lunch. We've only gotten up the courage to try two different kinds, Chicken and one called 'Feer-min-ahta' The Chicken pizza's name is spelled phonetically with Cyrillic letters, so we knew what it was. I could somewhat make out the words for the other one. We looked at one called 'Kalifornia' (phonetically spelled in Cyrillic) and asked Karina what one word was. She baaa'ed like a lamb. Their idea of certain foods here is definitely different. We tried something different today. We ordered 'potatoes free', the potato word was in Russian and the free was spelled phonetically. I wondered what type of potatoes would be 'free' It ended up to be french fries, so that ended up okay even though they put garlic on them. We also ordered Spaghetti. It looks very different spelled in Cyrillic, and the dish was very different too. No red sauce. Just spaghetti noodles with melted, grated white cheese, ham chunks and mushrooms. Karina liked it anyway. We ended up ordering a 'feer-min'ata' So much for experimentation!

Better Day

I have a better perspective today. But, I'm allowed to be down just a little occasionally, right? I'm sure a lot of my negativeness the other day was because we are missing both of our boys' birthdays. One turns 19 today.

Also, I haven't been getting as much sleep as I should. The sun comes up here around 5am. That's a lot earlier than at home. It's closer to 7am there.

We have two weeks behind us so we are that much closer to going home. I'm sure things will change this next week and once we are home, Karina will adjust just fine. She's very bright and has already taught herself to somewhat sound out English words. She just needs to get over her stubborness and let us correct her when she's wrong;)

Still Waiting on the Passport and Behavior

It's almost 5pm on Friday afternoon here and we still have no word on the passport. It's only been a week now, but we were being optimistic. We do anticipate hearing something at least by mid-week.

I had read about orphanage behavior and that children from orphanages are emotionally immature, but it's something else when you experience it first hand! Somedays our twelve year old acts like a two year old. Then in other ways she's older. She is physically smaller than most twelve year olds we've seen or known. I'm not very tall, 5'3, but by the time our biological daughter was twelve, she was getting taller than me. She did end up being about 5'7. I had read that orphanage children are physically smaller also. We decided to adopt an older child because we didn't want a younger child and along with that younger child behaviors. As soon as I think we are making progress, she digresses. I believe part of that is that we are still in her 'environment' She kind of gets the big head, because we don't understand everything spoken in the market, etc, but I do know enough Russian to get by and we got along just fine before she went to the market and places with us. I don't mind her feeling important, but it seems like when she is out around other Russian speakers, she gives us a harder time. When we stay inside our apartment and it's just us, she's usually fine. I thought she would be overwhelmed by all the things she sees and she does take everything in, but it seems like things don't over whelm her. She's never shed a tear about leaving the orphanage, but today (when she was acting like a three year old) she seemed to be trying to appear to be crying.

I've heard that this time is important for bonding, and I'm sure it is, but I can't help but think that once we're home, many, many miles from her orphanage, many of these behaviors will cease.

The Most Wanted Gift

During our waiting time for the birth certificate, we deliberated on what to bring back as gifts for the children. We tried to find things that we could buy a large quantity of, but also fairly inexpensive. I bought necklaces for special girl friends and found some Christmas lip gloss marked way down. We bought a few regular size frisbees for older boys and little frisbees for the small boys plus cars which are always a hit. When we arrived here in region, Dad decided to find some Barbie style dolls for some of the girls we met.

We came back to visit the orphanage last Sunday and were taken into some type of visiting room with a dilapidated bed that I think someone uses. Maybe whoever is on duty during the night. We were accompanied by many children. We gave out toys to everyone who was there. We also had Russian New Testaments, that we intended for the older children or at least those who could read, but we only had about 18 of them. They were gone quickly. I turned around and noticed that there was a good sized group of young children standing by me wanting something. I gave a small frisbee to one, but he didn't want it. Neither did another child. I realized that all the children standing there had been given a toy. They didn't say anything, I guess because they knew I spoke English and they didn't understand it, but it suddenly dawned on me that they wanted a Bible. Out of all the toys we brought, a Bible was the most wanted gift!

Life is Interesting

Since we have Karina with us, we have to take turns at the internet. When we both came with her the last time, she kept wanting my attention. Dad tried to keep her busy, but had to leave while I finished my internet time. She and Dad are at the supermarket while I am here. He had his turn while she and Barbie were bathing. She would take several a day, but I told her only one in the evening. We don't do that much.

I don't know if our 10 day wait will be 10 business days or 10 calendar days. Our facilitator has gone to Kiev. He always did go back to Kiev on the weekends. He didn't tell us how long he will be gone. We are going to ask him how the 10 days works and if there is a possibility we could go to Kiev to wait out the remainder of the time. Then we would be there to go to the Embassy.

Karina didn't come away with much from the orphanage. On Thursday, when we picked her up to take her to the passport office, she had a group of girls around her saying 'Goodbye'. She didn't realize that we had to come back to sign papers for her release. She was coming with us that day, but we still needed to give out the gifts we brought her friends and teachers. Apparently, adoptive parents don't give parties. Maybe because it disturbs their routine or maybe because there just isn't time with all the passport preparation and such.

When we picked her up, she was carrying a bag of clothes, a Barbie and a stuffed animal. We had given her another Barbie plus many hair clips, purses and other things, but apparently she gave all those away and had the Barbie we gave the other girl we were going to adopt. Only one pair of jeans out of those clothes were what we had given her.

She hasn't acted at all like she's missed anyone. No tears at all. On Friday, we did run into the other little girl that we came to adopt and Karina immediately started giving away the hair clips she had on. I guess she thinks we will buy her more.

Meals in our apartment have to be done just so. Karina likes to arrange all our food so that it is pretty. Tonight, she made us some instant potatoes and did all the plates of food by herself.

Day two with Karina

This is Karina's second day out of the orphanage. We spent the morning at the passport office. They kept finding mistakes like one letter wrong in her name on her new Russian birth certificate. They also kept needing more copies of the documents and even one time, the orphanage director had to come to the passport office. We were finally called in to view which of the two photos we thought should be on her passport. She wanted the one with the serious look and of course, we wanted the one with the slight smile. I think we won out because the passport ladies wanted the smile one also.

We ate lunch at the pizza place for the second time. We decided we were going to do the ordering today because yesterday we let Karina order since she speaks Russian and can read the menu while it takes me a long time to figure out the sounds of the words. She ordered the most expensive pizza they have, which really isn't that expensive compared to what we're used to plus chips. She also wanted a chocolate candy bar and ice cream. We said no to the candy and ice cream.

She was also telling the taxi driver to come back tomorrow to take us somewhere we think it was back to the orphanage since we have gifts for her to give her friends. Dennis had to call back and tell him not to come. So much had to be done for the passport application and signing her out of the orphanage that she wasn't able to give them out yet.

Now, we have to wait 10 days for the passport to be done. We'll have to ask when we can leave for Kiev to go to the American Embassy and then we're headed home.

The Day

Today has been a long day and June and Karina are at the apartment. June must be tired to give me permission to do a blog entry. Karina spent her last night in an orphanage. Today she was a big part of the family and we spent most of the day trying to get the passport. No problems, but we have to go back tomorrow morning.
This evening we went shopping and I watched my wife of twenty six years and our new daughter pick out girl things for the shower and lots and lots of food. Karina requested one of almost everything in the store. In the store we were approached by a man with very broken English. He lives in America and Ukraine is his homeland.
He asked if it was an adoption, and when I said yes, He thanked me. It has been an interesting day.
Dennis

Wednesday, March 19 -- Arrived in Region

We've been traveling since Sunday morning. Twenty five hours flying and 14 hours on the train. All that plus losing 7 hours has made me lose track of time a little.

This has been our first opportunity to get internet access.

We arrived in region this morning. After dropping off our luggage, we went to the orphanage. We saw a friend's little boy that is being picked up in a couple of weeks. They are at the same stage of the process as we are. We went into the director's office and our daughter was called in. She was shown her new birth certificate with her new name! We then took her for passport photos. After we dropped her off at the orphanage, we then went to sign the passport application at the notary's office. Tomorrow morning, bright and early, we will pick her up and all go to the passport office. THEN, we get to keep her with us from now on!!!

Of course, she was ready to go right away, but the orphanage director wants us to sign some papers tomorrow after the passport application process is complete.

We are all so ready to be finished with this and now it is days away!

I wish we could post pictures, but we don't have the ability to do that until we get home.

Monday, March 17 -- Arrived in beautiful...grey, rainy Kiev!

Kiev has changed in the two months since we left. It is much warmer and rainy. But that doesn't matter one bit. We are here to pick up our daughter!! :)

Back to Ukraine, finally!!

Well, the day we have waited for is almost upon us. It only took two months:0

We received word that our facilitator has the new birth certificate and it is apostilled. We are leaving Sunday, March 16 to bring our daughter home to America!! Or as she says it 'damoy America' This means 'coming home to America' in Russian.