Kola

The dust has settled a little bit here – it’s still a kind of busy day. We can visit the orphanage twice a day, for an hour each time now. Yesterday we were there for about 5 hours. Mikola (kola for short, sorry Shelley, your name was my first pick but sig voted for keeping his name) looked a little bit tired today from all of yesterday’s activities. Today will be a little more poking and prodding for the blood tests. We talked with two u.s. drs. yesterday – one our IA doctor and our eye doctor and got encouraging news and learned that treatment for his eye may be a patch, glasses, or minor surgery and they said 2.5 is a perfect age to start and they have great success with it.

Kola has taken a liking to sig. he’s still a little suspicious of both of us but goes to sig first and likes walking outside with him. Sig was actually able to get him away from the machina! (car) and inside for lunch without the use of our translator. Today we brought a toy car remote with four buttons and keys on it. I don’t think he knew what the keys were for, but he loved the remote buttons and checking the sounds. he’s 2 months younger than Jen/tom’s Kyle (will be 3 in jan.) his height is 35" and weight is 34#s. We saw him smile with his caretaker today, but he’s still pretty serious and suspicious around us. He really likes his kids group and if we’re there during outside playtime, he’d still rather be there with them than us and if we bring something, he wants to show it to them but then get it back. There was a little tug-of-war over our camera case in the playground yesterday. He liked the Velcro and how the batteries rattled inside. Our kiev doctor said to help him learn and grow and catch up, let him follow things he’s interested in, and it’s nice to see him interested in so many things.

It’s a little hard to tell how many couples are at this orphanage since we go in shifts, but prob around 8. We hear Italian, Spanish, german (swiss), French, and 1 american couple. Usa, italy, spain, and france I think are in the top 5 for foreign adopters here. Everyone is various stages with kids there, some are meeting them, some are still connecting and learning about them while doing paperwork (like us), some have been to court but are hanging out for the 10 day waiting period (which sig will do). I hope we have a chance to meet some of them while we’re here. If all goes well, it seems our court date will be a week from today, then I’ll need to go to the American embassy in kiev and fill out paperwork before I can come home. My current return air ticket is still in play…more soon!

Happy b-day “p!” cara – thanks for the nescafe tip – it’s a great fix and about the only decaf we could find! xo bb & sb