Some new firsts?

August 3, 2004 Tuesday

This morning we went to the outdoor market again. We bought new toys for the kids. For Adam and Liana we bought little generic lego sets that made a car and boat. They LOVED them. *whew* They were cheap too, like $1.50 each at the most. For Aleksa we got her a cooking set with little plastic spoon, fork, knife, plate, pots, etc. She was thrilled with it, and tried to put all the parts in her dress to carry it all around. She made dirt stew, and served it up, one plate for Papa and one for Mama. She didn’t want Mama to touch it though, and she told me, “Mama, ni trogay Pa-Zha-Lu-Sta” (That’s, “Mama, don’t touch this Pull-Eeze.”) How do you spell Handful? “A-L-E-K-S-A.”

Adam wouldn’t come to us this morning. Kept running from us and we had to chase him all over the orphanage grounds to get him. Not sure what his problem is, but I think he needs some one-on-one time with us, which is *really* hard with two very demanding little girls in the mix too. I had him sit on my lap while he ate his banana and gave him lots and lots of hugs - only after telling him that he can NOT be running away from us, “harosho?” (“ok?”) I feel really bad that he isn’t small enough for us to be carrying him around like we can do with the girls yet. He needs lots and lots of TLC. He wouldn’t give me a hug or kiss to day until I gave him like a hundred. We have a lot of work to do in the bonding department with all of them. Hard, hard, hard with three at once.

Speaking of bananas, after they were done, I put the peelings aside (we forgot to bring a bag for them). Adam snuck over to them and gnawed at the inside of the peelings for the longest time getting every little bit of fruit off of them. He’s very grateful for any food he gets, but always wishes for a little more.

Little Aleksa gave me a bit of a heart attack today. She said, “Mama, hachu pissit.” Uh-oh, Aleksa hassta go potty. Where’s the potty? So, I just asked her. She kept directing me until we were finally at her groupa at her potty. *whew* So glad she talks… and isn’t shy about it! No problem! No toilet paper however, so Mama was a little mortified, but very thankful for the sink with soap.

We got back with the others when Liana told me that SHE had to go potty too. I asked her where HER potty was and she pointed to the shed-like place on the grounds. Ok… so here we went. I opened the door and was horrified to see my very first Ukrainian Squat Pot. Good thing she knew all about these, because I still didn’t quite get the visual even after having seen pictures of them from our adoption group. First, Liana showed me how you take the board off the toilet, (EEEEWWWW), which exposed a nasty, nasty, nasty porcelain hole in the floor which you stand over and go. Liana did it like an old pro though. No tp in sight there either. No soap in the sink, but at least there was water. Scrub, scrub, scrub. *shiver* What further mortified me was the fact that Liana had thrown off her shoes back at “our bench” where we’d been playing, so she had to actually step on the porcelain. Just trust me; it wasn’t clean. Mr. Bubbles, WHERE ARE YOU????

Vika has to go to the kids’ birth village today to get some paperwork. She won’t be back until really late, so we’ll get to go to the orphanage solo tonight.


Just got back from our evening visit. Major testing of Mama and Papa tonight by our little Liana. She dropped her peanuts in the dirt and another little girl picked a bunch of them up. I let the other little girl keep them, but Liana wanted them all back. Oy, did Mama get in Trouble. Liana got all hyped up and cried and cried. I held her and told her I loved her, and she kept saying that I DIDN’T love her and that she didn’t love me. It didn’t matter, I kept holding her and stroking her back and telling her that I loved her, etc. Papa took over after a while (Aleksa had to go potty again), and through her tears she told him that she didn’t love him and that he didn’t love her (over and over again.) Papa and Liana got into a little fight over that and I’m pleased to report that Papa won. Papa was *very* firm with her and kept saying that he DID love her, but was very, very, very gentle with her, etc. and after a while of going back and forth, she came around, and by the time we left, she gave us both nice hugs and kisses. John called Misha “Adam” at one point during the argument, and Liana said “That’s not Adam, that’s Misha.” Adam told her that he WASN’T Misha, that he was Adam. She started to chill out after seeing that Adam was on our side and that he trusted us (at least at the moment!) John and I knew that she absolutely needed to lose that argument no matter what, and we were thankful that the taxi was a little later than usual. It was a pretty good break through with her.

I mentioned the little girl who picked up the peanuts. She made me cry. She soooo badly wanted us to love on her too, and give her special treats. And we just couldn’t do it for our own children’s sake. If we go loving up all the children, ours won’t think that we love them any better. Very hard to explain, but very true. I had envisioned coming to Ukraine and playing with and loving all the children at the orphanage. Now that I see how fragile things are with our own children, I know I really can’t. I so wanted to hug that little girl and tell her that some day her mama and papa would come for her too. But that may be wishful thinking. She’s probably about seven years old, and her chances of being adopted are almost up; very ironic since her name is “Nadia” which means “Hope.” Not a whole lot of people come all the way to Ukraine spending thousands of dollars to adopt older children. They want their money’s worth, so they go looking for babies. What will happen to this little sweetie? I’m going to be haunted forever by these sweet little faces….

Adam and Mama
Liana biting her lip
Aleksa cooking