Kid news and Aleka's adventure

August 8, 2004 Sunday

We called Vica this morning (it's pronounced "VEE-ka," not "VICK-a" btw). She said that there have been prosecutors at the NAC this past week that have been slowing things down a bit. She also said there is a "new rule" at the NAC that the paperwork has to be submitted for three days before they can be picked up again. *sigh* She hopes to be back tomorrow night, but if not then, then for sure Wed. night. I'm actually pretty thankful for the time that we've had "just us" and the kids. I was afraid they would start getting attached to Vika instead of us... She speaks their language to them afterall! It has been a really good time of bonding with the kids the best we can on our own. Since there are three of them, these extra days of delay have not been "wasted" at all... just giving us more time to incubate our relationships better before taking them out of the orphanage. I had never considered that before (as in before we traveled.) I just figured the faster it went, the better things would be. I don't think that is necessarily true in our case. It might have been extra traumatic for them if we hadn't been able to get to know them as well as we have and then taken them out. It will be hard enough already, but I don't think it will be as hard as it would have been.

This morning we attended the church service that is held on our floor every Sunday. It was really interesting, and the pastor's wife interpreted for us. We sat outside the room in the hall because our taxi was due to pick us up at 11, and we didn't want to be disruptive. It was fun to hear the singing in Russian. Very pretty.

We found the children right away this morning. They were all three together already, so they weren't hard to find. We gave them each a Zone bar and an orange. We have lots of Zone bars that we've hesitated giving to the children as we don't want them thinking that we're going to give them "treats" all the time. (Even though they are full of vitamins and protein, they are in the form of a chocolate bar, so we don't want them to get the wrong idea.)

Aleksa seemed to be feeling better today than she did yesterday. She was her usual self again at least.

Liana is opening up a little better to me, and makes more and more eye contact with me every day. She's still my toughest cookie though. (Though I'm a hundred percent sure that once Aleksa gets home she's going to be the biggest handful).

Adam didn't want to say, "orange please, Mama" so I didn't give it to him until he said it. He's *really* good at sulking, and I'm sure he has used this talent many times to his benefit in the past. He did finally bring himself to say it, though, and gobbled it down.

I have no idea why, but it is really hard for me to call the children by their American names right now. John only uses their new names, and I always use their birth names. Not sure why. Maybe because I feel like this is still their turf where everyone is still speaking their language, so I feel strange using their "new" names on them yet. There are so many changes coming down the pike for them, I guess I'm just wanting to spare them as much trauma as possible. I'm glad John is using their new names though. They're definitely getting used to hearing them.

We showed the children the pictures of the Reynolds kids today. Adam knew the girls immediately, and was really excited that we had pics of them, and that they were in America too. Liana didn't seem quite seem like she recognized them, but Adam seemed to think that she should. I don't think she really understood what we were saying to her. "These kids are in America where YOU are going to live."

Tonight was Very Interesting. Aleksa had to go potty again, and she dragged me up to her groupa's bathroom, but the door to her groupa was locked. She wasn't a happy girl. Her only option then was the Nasty Squat Pot outside. She didn't want to do that. (Don't blame her.) After dancing around for about 15 minutes, she finally had to go so bad that she took me by the hand and went over to the Squat Pot door. (Really musta been an emergency!) I opened the door, and Horror of Horrors, a man's voice started shouting at us. Thankfully he was around the corner and we couldn't see anything, but Aleksa and I about had a heart attack. She jumped/shivered with surprise and we slammed the door. She didn't ask to go back, but the next thing I knew, Aleksa was squatting behind a bush in the garden. Mama didn't blame her, and never said a word.

Major breakthroughs with Liana tonight. She help me corral Aleksa more than a few times, and scolded her for not obeying me. She was very affectionate to me, and again, her eye contact was fabulous. (Eye contact is something that those of us who adopt are kinda paranoid about. A lack of eye contact can be a signal for potential attachment problems.) She hates going back to her groupa every day, but we try to make her know that we don't want her to go back either. She's really blossomed since we first saw her.

Adam had the same argument with John tonight that Liana had with us a few days ago. "I'm you're Papa." "Nyet." "Yes, I am. I love you." "Nyet." Over and over and over again. I'm glad he's going through this right now rather than on an airplane, that's all I can say. I'm sure John will blog about this more, so I'll keep it short.

Tonight we had supper with one of the other American couples here. The one who is using the agency/facilitator that they hate. Apparently their facilitator has only done 8 adoptions in the last three years, lives in Lviv (!?), and only does adoption work while he is on vacation (hence the time at the resort, I assume). They are reallllllly upset by their circumstances and they have asked us for our facilitator/interpretor's numbers in case they want to hit the panic button. They told us that their agency back home told them to only put together one dossier, (which is ok unless the children are in different orphanages), but because of what they learned from other sources, they decided to go ahead and do a second dossier just in case. Good thing they did that, because once they got to Kiev they were told their original dossier had four documents that needed to be redone. They would have spent an extra who-knows-how-long in Kiev before they could do anything. Nightmare. But, their two children are beautiful, smart and healthy, so it will all *hopefully* soon be forgotten and chalked up to a painful labor after everything is said and done. We're really rooting for them. This is off the topic, but I have to add that this restaurant we went to was super nice, but for napkins, they gave us toilet-paper. I Kid You Not. It was pretty interesting.

That's the story for today!

Love, Shelly

Liana and Mama
Aleksa emerging from The Bush