Shifting Gears

Major events of the day: Countdown to Court 1 of 6, Meeting a lot of kids and welcoming a New Arrival

It's hard to believe all 14 days of our bonding period have already flown by. We're now transitioning into waiting mode while we count down the days until court.

This morning brought a little rain, so we lounged around the apartment catching up on correspondence from work, emailing friends and family. The rain stopped around 11 and by noon the sun came out and dried everything off. A couple days ago we did some movie-swapping with Masha, so Bill started “Hidalgo” and we watched it right until it was time to head out for our visit with the children. The “Other 22 hours” as another family called them go by relatively quickly because we spend the time sleeping, walking around the city, grocery shopping, writing for the blog, and especially now that the number of daylight hours has decreased.

Despite the earlier rain, it was very pleasant afternoon when we went outside to wait for Masha and Sasha, probably around 60 degrees. Today will probably be the last “warm” day we have for a while. Projected highs for the rest of the week are upper 40s. We’re ready for the cold weather, but won’t miss it once we head home!

First order of business this afternoon was to tell the children that we have now moved into the next phase in our adoption process: the countdown to court. Tuesday, Oct 23rd won’t come fast enough! We won’t see them tomorrow due to conflicting schedules, but will definitely make up for that over the coming weekend. Tomorrow will be the first day since we met the children that we are not going to visit them. LG started to get a bit teary eyed when she heard this, but the tears quickly dried up when we told them we’ll be there on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and finally early Tuesday morning so we can all go back to the apartment to change for court. Monday will also be a new adventure: we will bring them to the apartment to shower and make final wardrobe selections so they’re squeaky clean and properly attired for court on Tuesday. We’re sure LG will like using Cathe’s soap and shampoo! Side note: Bath day occurs once a week and happens to fall on Tuesday for our two.

Masha brought the teacher’s record book so we can see the children’s progress. Students are graded on a 5 point scale (5 = excellent down to 1 = unsatisfactory). In the last two weeks, all of their grades (except LB’s Kazakh) have improved, confirming what the caretaker told us yesterday about LB and LG putting more effort to their school work. Overall the children’s grades are 3’s and 4’s, with a several 5’s scattered in (no 1’s or 2’s). While telling the children that we will help them make improvements, Masha looked away when she overheard a child telling a teacher in the room that school doesn’t matter because family is more important. How does one respond to this? Fortunately our kids are eager to please and will have the benefit of both academic success and family.

After reviewing progress reports, LG wrote a note to her soon to be friend, Kate, back in Tennessee. Cathe had fun translating LB’s letter to J.D. last night and will spend time later this evening doing the same for LG’s letter. Masha gave Cathe a 5 for her translation efforts. We asked LB to draw a picture of what he liked the best about our time together over the last two weeks. He drew a picture of our Central Park venture last Saturday when we visited the amusement rides.

After the serious part of our visit, we broke out the Uno cards. (LG rejoiced that there would be no flashcard drills today). Cathe noticed a new face at the door and invited Nadia to come play Uno with us (we have gotten good at asking for names). Nadia was a quick learner and won the first game. By the end of the second hand, we found out that this was Nadia’s second day at the RBS and she is separated from her other siblings. From the bits and pieces we surmised that the RBS is her third orphanage.

After letters and drawing, LB dove into his favorite activity: playing on the computer. Meanwhile, LG took control of the camera and got busy. Today’s digital photo tally: 111 pictures. Just as LB and LG got into their favorite tasks, the room exploded with activity. LG got a little "reminder" that there are other people to take pictures of (I think she took about a dozen of this teacher because LG really likes her).


Today was a “Sibling Reunion Day” sponsored by Antares Orphans. There were siblings visiting from two different orphanages. They were passing out stuffed toys, gathering coats, and Boris, the local Antares coordinator, was busy taking pictures. No doubt he will have duplicates made and pass them out to the siblings who have been separated. They were also reviewing artwork for next year's calendar... Seeing activities like this are by far the most difficult for us emotionally because we feel that a child should not have to be without a family. Children are very fortunate if they get to stay together since they are often separated due to space limitations or significant age differences. If Cathe had her way we would leave all our worldly possessions behind and fill our suitcases with more children to bring home.

We were very proud to see how well LB and LG interacted in a group setting. In the midst of chaos, they both stayed focused while involving the children around them. Another great visit!

This evening we went back to the Italian restaurant for dinner with our friends Hilton and Suzanne. We also got to meet a new arrival to Petro, Elizabeth from Richmond. As conversations go, we were discussing foods that we have discovered our children like or don’t like since Elizabeth is also adopting older children. Somehow we figured out that she and Cathe both have Polish ancestry, so foods will be similar. We also discovered that she and Cathe are Michigan natives. Go Blue! (Cathe’s input there)

We again relied on the Italian we knew to order. Bill threw caution to the wind and ordered Rigatoni, a dish none of us had tried yet. Cathe played it safe by the Penne pasta she had last time. It was all a little different than we’re used to back home, but very tasty. This weekend we plan to hunt down the German Restaurant or maybe head back to the Slovenian Inn. We certainly can order Rouladen or Schnitzel, hopefully without the Russian translation now that we have figured out the right hand gestures and animal sounds to entertain the wait-staff but still get what we’re expecting!