First day together

July 30, 2004 Friday

This morning we did a lot of running around getting paperwork in order. We went to the notary, city hall, etc. quite a few times. Who knows what all we did, but we do know that Vika works hard for her money. We officially petitioned the city/court to allow us to adopt the children, and it was a good thing we had the childrens’ names picked out because Vika gave us about 3 minutes heads-up to have them ready for the document she needed to submit.

There are train tracks near our hotel. We’ve had to stop for a train almost every time we have crossed the tracks so far. The trains, thankfully, are very short though, so it doesn’t take long.

The taxi driver and I say, “ni hooligan” to each other every time we see each other. She’s a sweetie (I was showing off my Russian last night on the way to get Misha, and oh how she laughed when I rattled that one off). (It means “Behave yourself,” btw).

We went to the orphanage around noon and finally had all three kids together. Misha was so happy to be with his sisters again. He gave them each hugs (un-provoke). He had told us last night that he missed them and hadn’t seen them since June. Long time, poor kids.

We broke out the balloons today and the LOVED them. We got our first real smile out of Valya and Misha couldn’t contain how happy he was. Zena was thrilled just to have attention of any kind. When we first got there, some other kid had hit her and she was crying. I picked her up and she clung to me really tight and quit her crying. I think John caught that on video. When I squatted down to put Zena down, a flock of little kids rushed over at us and started digging through my purse. They found all the treats and I had to take them all away from them. It was pretty scary. I’ll have to really watch my purse there from now on. They’ll empty it in no time flat. The kids literally flock to you like birds. There is a little Roma girl there that has burn scars on her face and she kept wanting me to take her hand and love her. She had short hair, and since everyone was in undies, and nothing else but maybe shorts today, I thought she was a boy. Nothing girly about her. She is a pretty sick girl. Skin and bones. Distended tummy. Hard to come in and see, especially when she keeps finding me to ask me to pick her up.

We didn’t stay long and were off again. The orphanage can’t write up one of our letters we need because they are out of ink for their computer. So, they asked us to buy them some. We did. There was a cute little Xerox shop in town. Vika had to make photocopies of our dossier anyway, so we did it there. In all the shops, offices, hotels, restaurants, etc., there are potted houseplants in the windows and sitting around everywhere. They are very proud of their plants. I love that! Outside the Xerox shop thee is a single sunflower growing wild along the path and it is all fluffy, like a double sunflower. Or a sunflower with no brown middle. All fluffy petals and all bright orange. Beautiful. The shop-worker pointed it out to us.

Our trip to the orphanage this evening to visit the kids was a disaster. We made the mistake of staying outside with the rest of the children. Ours became wild animals. They ran away from us, got moody with us, etc. They fought with each other, etc. Vika had to drop off some paperwork somewhere, so we were all alone with them with no way to communicate. Vika was only gone 20 minutes but John and I got a taste of what 3 kids who were overstimulated was like. Not a pretty sight. Valya got mad at both of us and wouldn’t come to us at all. Kept running away. She sulks too. Gonna be interesting! Little Zena is bossy. She kept telling everyone to Go Away; including one of her caregivers. I assume that’s what she told her caregiver, because her caregiver looked shocked, and started laughing and then turned around and walked off. Who knows exactly what she said, but it was obvious that she wanted her Mama and Papa to herself.

We came back to the hotel and made a game plan for tomorrow. Calm activity away from the groupa. Lots of holding the kids, hugs, kisses, etc. of all three children equally. We’ll see how it goes!