Court +4

little helper - pushing a friend on the swing



Happy belated anniversary Jonathan and Tanis (May 18th)!


Well, it’s actually Friday night and we’ve just arrived home after spending a couple of hours at Marios – thoroughly enjoying our dinner and your company (your blog comments and emails :)! We just wanted to update you all to say that our tickets are on their way (to BC where the Canadian family we’ve been in contact with will bring them to Kyiv for us). My mom has spent many, many, MANY hours over the last several days on the phone and internet arranging for our change in flights and tickets. Thank you SO much Mom. Anyone who sees her, would you give her a pat on the back or even better a big hug from us please? Thanks! It is such a huge relief to know that the details are all organized and that we really and truly ARE coming home in 2 weeks!
Happy Anniversary Val and Jason (May 19)!
Saturday now…One month ago today we had our appointment at the SDA and were presented with our daughter. In some moments it feel like that was just yesterday and in others like it was a lifetime ago. It’s been quite a month. We are finding it hard to believe that we actually get to take her home with us – it feels very surreal. Somehow it feels like we are just visiting this darling little girl in an orphanage everyday and not like she’s coming with us someday soon.
It is very hot here again today – we are feeling very wilted and have little motivation to do anything besides wash repeatedly in cold water and drink cold drinks. Our apartment is sitting at 26 degrees. The train was again quite cramped today (seems to be the pattern on Saturdays). We were early enough for seats but weren’t quite sure we’d get OFF at our stop. As the train started moving on the stop before ours we got up to start making our way towards the entrance. There was a serious blockage of people in the entrance area. I couldn’t move forward or back. I could tell a couple of babushka’s were trying to make it toward the door so I figured we could sneak into their wake once the doors opened and they cleared a path (I wasn’t positive this plan would work, but had no options). As the door opened and the crush began from behind us and we muscled our way out, Darren who was holding my bag over his head, says he felt quit bad eliciting groans from several older women on our way by (he says he had to ‘reshape’ them on his way through). We have unanimously decided that today’s was our LAST Saturday train trip out to Boyarka. Next week we will take the weekend to celebrate our last weekend as only a couple.
This morning was another good visit with Ivanna. It is fun to continue seeing and learning more and more about her. Today she really wanted to play near and with her group and would get briefly upset when we took her away for periods of time (and she kept trying to go back!). I actually like seeing her with the other kids and don’t mind her spending some time with them while we are there. It’s good to see how she interacts with the other kids and caregivers. When we were around them today, the caregivers would tell her to go to us instead of them. I was sort of getting the feeling they didn’t want us to play with her near them, but Darren is thinking that they are probably trying to help in her attachment to us and separation from them. That is probably good. We are learning that she really is quite a social kid (although we still think she is introverted). She really likes to be around other children and watches them constantly (which bodes well for all the little people back home that are anxious to meet and get to know her!). We have also figured out she is quite a rule follower and helper in the groups. If other kids are wandering outside of where they are supposed to be – she will stop them or point at them and look at us or a caregiver as if to say ‘hey – deal with that’(although, like we’ve said before: we think she really likes her freedom from the wandering rule when we are around!). Today, a little girl stood up on a wooden swing when the caregiver left to go deal with another child, Ivanna pointed to the little girl and looked up at me expectantly (I told the child to sit in Russian – thanks for that word Jonathan! – which she did). Also, one of the children was sitting on a wooden swing looking rather forlorn and she went over and started to push him – she just grinned and so did the other little one. We also are discovering she seems to be quite tender hearted when it comes to other children being upset. If a child is crying she tries to comfort them or points at them to her caregivers. Sometimes when we’ve been outside and she here’s a child crying inside she tries to head in to where they are. It’s pretty dear. As far as she is concerned she’s pretty tough though. She doesn’t blink twice if she falls – just gets up and keeps on going (but she doesn’t like her hands being dirty so likes to have them brushed off!) (she’s just fine with the rest of her being a disaster with dirt – just not her hands!).
It is hard to think about taking her away from all that she knows and loves – even knowing that she’ll be with us and well loved and cared for by us and all our family and friends. I just pray that the transition is not too traumatic for her. She has absolutely no concept of what is going to happen to her in the next few weeks.
I also sooo wish we could take home more children! When we do go play around the groups, many of the kids come over and either want a hug or to be picked up or to show us something – basically they want attention (and remember this is a good orphanage where there is a decent ratio of caregivers to children and most seem to be quite loving with the kids). (D: one little girl in Ivanna’s group came over to me several times today – twice carrying a stuffed animal for me to hug along with her, once without the animal. She just hugged my leg. I’m not really used to that – I mean, when I am with kids, there are usually several other more huggable targets for kids besides me. As Shona says, I am usually a bit stand-offish with kids. And I was actually standing just outside the area in which the group was playing all three times the little girl came looking for hugs.)
(S) Many of the kids call Darren ‘papa’ (Ukrainian for daddy) and me ‘mama’ (sometimes ‘Ivanna mama’). They should be growing up in homes – not orphanages. I get quite frustrated and sad when I think about the fact that this is just one orphanage with 100 kids and there are hundreds or thousands more – in Ukraine alone. It’s just wrong.
Well that’s my soapbox for the day. I’m not sure if we’ll be very ambitious today about getting out because of the heat, but we’ll see. We do feel like we SHOULD get out and do stuff while we can here. We are very glad it is Saturday and that we have a day ‘off’ tomorrow. We are both feeling quite tired (it’s been a crazy, emotional week – was it really just Monday that all that uncertainty took place?!) so maybe laying low isn’t so bad. Anyway, that’s all for now. One more day closer to getting home…paka!