We have lost track of time!! What day is it?

We finally had the time to go shopping for the kids. We wanted to find some books to help us with language but we walked the whole shopping district and so no book store. The office supply store has a few children’s books but not much of a selection. I have to get a Russian to English dictionary that I can look us words both way, in Russian and in English. I bought one for Ukrainian but too many words are different. The toys stores here are very small with mostly baby toys. There are a few books, dolls and Lego type stuff. We found an activity book, some 3-D wooden puzzles that you could paint, (a Santa and a Christmas tree) and a Snow White sticker book. They really like stickers! We stopped at the newspaper stand and got Maxim a marvel comic book that had Spiderman cards attached. He really likes Spiderman. His favorite colors to wear are red and black.

We are sitting quietly eating lunch and posting on our blog when we look at the table beside us to see what they are doing because they are just sounding like they are having too much fun. They are all having shots with lunch, my guess would be Vodka. Must be that you can bring anything that you want to drink in with you. They were all doing well but one tall skinny guy, he was pretty buzzed. The waitress was keeping sharp eye on them. She is the grandma type. She always tells me I am not dressed properly, “where is your hat, no sleeves on your shirt, put on your coat…”

George called today. He said that Pavel and Vitaly were both in the medical building at the orphanage. I asked him if we would still be able to see Maxim and Sasha if we went to visit them. He told me to call from the medical building and he would ask to make sure. He said he was at the airport and then he would be in a car for quite awhile. I take it he was not on the way here from the train station. I hope he is here soon. Court in on Thursday and we leave to come home after that. I really would like to take the children out in public once before we leave to see how we all do before we come home.

We got to see Pavel and Vitaly. She said we could stay for 5 to 10 mins. We ended up staying for about a ½ hour. Vitaly looked and sounded good. We are not so sure he even needs to be in there. I guess better safe than sorry. Pavel still has a bad cough. It is very harsh and deep in his lungs. He was very happy to see us, he gave us both big hugs and grabbed Shawn’s arm, pulled him down beside him on a bench and put Shawn’s arm around his neck. Vitaly was a little shy. He offered Shawn his hand to shake which he did but then Shawn gave him a hug. Vitaly just turned to hug me. He had a smile on his face so I think that helped him relax. It was nice getting to spend some time with the older boys together. We could see how they interact with each other. I pulled out my book to find the words for “how are you feeling” and Vitaly was looking at the book over my shoulder so I gave it to him. He pointed to “where does it hurt” and looked to me and then to Pavel and pointed to his heart. They exchanged words and Pavel bowed his head. Both boys gave me the thumbs up to my question and then we tried to move on to something else. We attempted some Russian which always gets a laugh and then I remembered that I had down loaded some pictures of his namesake and opened them on the computer. Pavel and Vitaly both laughed and said that Ray Mysterio (from WWE) looks like superman but that we had the right person. We have to download the translator on this computer so he can read the article. Pavel showed Vitaly all of the pictures from home. He had them all memorized after only seeing them the one time. He explained them all.

Maxim and Sasha were happy to get gifts again. They sat for about an hour putting their puzzles together and painting them. Sasha just happily worked away talking the whole time. Maxim is a little perfectionist and is very independent, he wants no help. He gets very pouty if he cannot do something. He ended up breaking on of his pieces and was almost the end of his project. I cannot get him to understand that it is OK. I fixed it for him as best I could, glue would have helped. He perked right back up and finished his Santa and proudly put it on his teachers desk as a gift. They really need to get outside and burn off some energy. The last hour of the night turned into a giant wrestling match with not only our children but with others from Maxims’ groupa. I wish you could have seen Shawn. He was throwing kids up in the air, had them climbing on his back, throwing balloons and hitting each other with balloons. It was total chaos! The pictures do not do it justice. Maybe we can get them paired up with Bella and they all can burn off some energy.

Fri:  Today “grandma” from the café asked us if we were here for a baby. I guess I should say first that she knows no English and I know very little Russian. This whole conversation was held through pantomime, funny noises, and an odd game of charades. She asked about the children and was surprised at the number of children as well as their ages. She was happy to know that our daughter’s name is Sasha because that is also her name. She looked at pictures of the children, picked on Sasha’s ears, pictures of our home and asked about the weather at home. She asked about school and that no one spoke the language of the other. We talked about our older children and the animals. It seems that we have made a new friend. She wants us to bring them in so she can meet them. I hope we get to take the children out once before we have to leave to come home.

We did a little shopping for gifts for the last caregiver. We ran out of the ones we brought. We decided on perfume and chocolate. Everyone here seems to like perfume and it was a hit in the other gifts and every woman loves chocolate. Shopping is always and experience here. The people are usually tolerant of our lack of language but some really try to “talk” to us and it becomes a very fun time. The lady at the perfume counter was definitely one that was fun. We walked out laughing and with me smelling of perfume.

Pavel (Ray) was waiting for us with Maxim and Sasha tonight. It was a great surprise. He looked good and sounded much better. They played with the computer mostly, it seems the be a real hit with all the kids in the orphanage. After dinner Pavel came to see us a little late but he had Vitaly with him so it was another nice surprise. We got hugs all around and then they walked us out to the gates. Vitaly seems like a good boy. We gave him our address and e mail address so hopefully we can keep in touch. We want to invite him to visit the US sometime so the kids can see him again.

I called George tonight to find out when he would be coming back to Kerch. He said that he will have all the translated documents on Monday and then will be on the train putting him here on Tuesday. He said that he has all the paperwork translated that he needed for Russia and is just waiting on the court decision so that can be translated and sent for the birth certificate to be issued. This is good and bad news. Good because now we know it can be done, bad because it has taken too long to figure out and get the process moving so the children will not be coming home with us. We will have to return after Russia issues the birth certificate and it arrives at the Kerch City Building. Court is on the 23^rd and we hope to fly from Simferopol on the 24^th direct to Kiev. We have tickets to fly out of Kiev on the 24^th and we should be home for Christmas dinner. We want McDonalds and a Mountain Dew, maybe a Hinkley’s doughnut and people who can understand and speak English. Merry Christmas!!

Sat:  We have officially lost track of time. We thought today was Sunday and was pleasantly surprised when talking to Cheryl that it is actually Saturday! That is good in that we get to spend and extra day with the children, bad because it just feeds into the whole theory of us not knowing what is going on. We get to do the day all over again… Groundhog’s day?

We are really getting frustrated with not having a translator. It is one thing when we cannot communicate in a store or a restaurant but not being able to talk to a caregiver or our children is getting old. Sasha’s caregiver is trying to tell me something about Christmas, I know they are working on a play and I think she is telling me Sasha is going to be the Snow Princess. This is a big deal here (bigger than Santa Clause). The problem is she is describing a crown and a flowing blue dress and I am not sure if she is just getting me to understand who she is talking about or if she is describing a dress for me to buy. We cannot seem to get the other to understand the main question. Or like on the day that Maxim runs into our room and is crying, grabs his coat and leaves. No one knows what happened or where he went. He had still not returned when it was getting close to time for us to leave so I started asking if a caregiver could help me find him. He was in his room crying in his bed. Vitaly, Pavel, Nicholas (a friend of Vitaly) were all in the room with him trying to get Maxim to talk to them. We were not able to talk to him and no one in the room could understand that we wanted to know what happened to make him so upset. We could not get him to even let us hold him like we did the last time he was upset. We had to leave with him still laying in bed crying. When we left we still not have a clue what happened and he had been in his bed crying for about ½ hour. We are very unsure of his personality and we are trying to figure him out. “will the real Maxim please stand up” He has a fine line between having fun and anger with few warning signs. He starts getting angry fast. If the anger is interrupted by anything the anger turns to tears. I know he is going through a lot and has come from a troubled past, but this is a personality that is going to take a lot of patience and work to help him see his “warning signs”.

While playing around in the room we keep calling Pavel… well, Pavel. At some point he stands straight up, puffs out his chest and points to himself and with a huge smile on his face says, “Ray”. I guess that finally answers that question! It was really funny but you probably had to be there.

Sunday we got to go to a Christmas play that the children put on for the Orphanage Director (maybe it was him). He made a big speech at the beginning but as we all know I did not understand and we had no translator. The play was awesome!! I wish we would have know where we were being taken because it was the best show of customs, native dance, and the odd blend of pagan and Christian celebration that we have seen since we were here. We did not have our camera!! Some of these children are very talented and I can not believe the show they put on. I am so glad we were able to get a hold of our driver and stay late and go. They are such beautiful children and they all have been through so much but they still all shine.

Sunday night Vitaly and Nicholas visited with the children. They had a blast and we got some pictures of Vitaly. Vitaly was watching the children deep in thought as Nicholas played with them. Vitaly mostly held them and had them set on his lap. He was very quiet tonight. I think he thinks we are taking them with us when we leave this trip and he is trying to say good bye and spend some time with them. He also keeps sending them to us to do things like hug us or tickle us, I think he wants to see how we interact. We had a good night, playing football (soccer) with a stuffed soccer ball, picture searches on the computer, wrestling around and such. It is a very small room for 4 adults, 1 teen and 2 children to play. I wish there was something we could do to help Vitaly. We are going to have George talk to him when he returns on Tuesday and try to tell Vitaly that if he wants to come to the US we will look into a visa for education and what it takes to get him to the US after he is released from the orphanage. We gave him our email address and home address so we can stay in contact. We have been told he does not want to come to the US but maybe for a visit to see all is well with his brothers and sister and to see America.

Shawn’s family called tonight. They all were together to celebrate Christmas. It was nice to hear from everyone. They just passed the phone around so that Shawn could say hi to everyone and catch up a little in their lives. It made us feel like we were there as best as we could be from 5,000 miles away. They invited my Mom and little Shawn for dinner which was very nice. It made my Mom feel like she had family to celebrate with even though she was away from home. Thanks guys!! We took a picture of us right after we got off the phone so we could write our memory of the night in our journal and add the picture.