Category Archives: First Adoption

First Adoption

No Camera and James

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You all are going to be mad… I forgot the camera today!

James from Reece’s Rainbow came by and played with us today. He was waiting for his grandmother to visit, as I could understand. And she never showed up. 😦 He is a very cute little boy. He and Ilya are buddies and were wrestling and throwing things at each other– having a lot of fun like little boys do. He seems like such a sweet little boy. I know there is a family out there for him. Who is it?!?!

I’d be happy to tell any interested mamas and papas more about him. He is about 6 months older than Ilya and is about the same size, maybe even a tad bit smaller than him. 
The boys got pretty crazy. It was all a bit overwhelming. Lena just sat on my lap for awhile and we watched them. She clearly gets overwhelmed when things are a bit crazy… just wait til you get home and meet the dogs, Lena! 
For past few days, the kids have had a new game, running up the hall away from us. It is a bit exhausting and really just no fun for us grownups. I am really ready for “gotcha day” when we take them out of the orphanage. 
I should have clarified yesterday… I am not homesick, just ready to go home. That might not make sense, but you know how when you go on vacation, you reach a point where you’re just ready to go home? Like that. I was totally exhausted today and I have a sore throat right now. I am missing the comforts of a grocery store with 30 different kinds of orange juice and the deliciousness of American comfort food. 
Adoption, First Adoption

Please

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Today’s visit was just another normal visit. Lena was still being a bit more irritable than usual, but she was much better than yesterday.

Ilya is very cute with the girls. The girls were playing a rather trying game of running up the hall away from us today, to get us to chase them and pick them up. Ilya took it upon himself to bring them back a few times. Lena would respond to him going to get her and running back herself, but Ilya may have literally been trying to drag Olivia up the hall at one point. I think she was laughing, but someone intervened.
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Ilya learned a new word today. “Please”. He gets very demanding during our snacktime. “Caka, Caka, Sus, Sus, Caka”. I was telling him “please” in Russian, trying to get him to say “Caka, please”. Well, he wouldn’t say it in Russian, so I thought I’d try English. And then he said it… “please!”. All of the grownups just burst out laughing and he was sooo proud of himself. Huge smile. I think speech is a struggle for him, and he can be shy about it. After that, I asked Lena to say please when she wanted a cracker and the little copy cat said “crackers cheese!”

Lena sat on my lap for over a half hour eat crackers. Constantly. Ilya and Olivia got up and played. She watched but she was totally content to keep eating as long as I handed over another one when she said “crackers cheese!” I don’t know how many crackers she ate, but it was a lot. I am not sure if it was out of hunger (certainly a possibility) or a security thing, wanting to know that there was food and she could have it. Eventually, she slowed down and I put them away. I think she may have kept on eating if I had let her, but I was able to put them away without much fussing.
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I hate to sound whiny, but I am ready to go home. There are lots and lots of things which I am missing. Two and a half weeks is a long time to be gone and it’ll be at least another two before we’re home.

First Adoption

She’s 3!

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Today is Lena’s 3rd birthday. Happy Birthday, Lena!
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Apparently she was a very easy two year old, but she has officially started the terrible 3’s. No, I am not kidding. She was a different little girl today. Hoarding all of the toys, getting very upset whenever someone took one. We think that she may have been very hungry, because she ate about 10 crackers at snacktime and seemed a lot better after that. Until they came to pick her up that is, then she broke down into full-on crying and screaming. She calmed down and helped clean up the toys. That is only the second time we’ve seen her really cry. And the first time we’ve seen her really be protective of toys.

This is when she was in a bad mood, hoarding all of the toys the could find!
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We told her happy birthday, but we don’t think she even knew it was her birthday until Sasha came by and wished her a happy birthday in Russian. Sasha told us how to say it so that we could tell her too. She just lit up when Sasha wished her a happy birthday!

Here is Lena with her new phone that we gave her as a birthday present…
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I think Lena has worked her magic on Ilya and now he is wrapped around her tiny finger too. At snacktime, while Aaron was getting Ilya’s snack for him, he said “Olenuska!!!” (which is a nickname that they call her from her full name Olena) and he said something in Russian to her, which we took to mean “it’s snacktime!”. He asked for some juice awhile later after snacktime, and without any prompting from her, he asked Aaron to get Lena some juice too! When she went to the bathroom, he took “her” book (which is really Olivia’s)… the book she had been obsessed with and ran and hide. We thought he was just being naughty, but turns out, he was having fun with her. When she came back and found him hiding, we heard them both laughing and he gave her the book back right away. It is so nice to see them not just getting along, but also having fun together.

Olivia and her family are the ones who I mentioned joined us yesterday for visiting time and will probably be with us for the rest of our stay. I didn’t want to mention it, because I wanted to let them update their blog and not spoil the surprise!

Here are Lena and Olivia sitting nicely together, playing with their phones. Of course, they switched phones. This was pretty adorable. Olivia got up at one point and Lena was yelling at her to come back.
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Here is a video of the girls playing with their phones together. This is when Olivia got up, obviously, and hammed it up in front of my camera…

And here’s Ilya, trying to get in on the girls’ phone playing. They think his phone is too outdated to join in.

I managed to get this cute photo of Ilya today…
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That boy hardly even slows down… See what I mean?

First Adoption

The Phone Walk

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Our visit today was quite a bit different, as we have another family joining us now. It is nice to have company, but also difficult to share the same small space. We have developed something of a routine with Ilya and Lena and they were a bit confused this morning, as to why it has changed all of a sudden. I am sure it must be even harder for the other family, just getting acquainted with their daughter and having the distractions of four other people around!

Ilya fell and hit his head today. He jumps around like crazy on those foam blocks. We try to keep a close eye on him, but he is really something. The block he was on was just about 6 inches high, but he still starting crying. I went over and picked him up. I sat down on the couch with him and he just snuggled up to me, thumb in his mouth. He stopped crying and just sat there for a few minutes. He let me comfort him and kiss him. It was a bonding moment for us and a little lesson on what mamas do for him. I would describe him as independent for the most part… he acts like he doesn’t need our help, so it was nice to see the other side of it today. And he was completely fine… back to jumping on the blocks 15 minutes later.

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In case you don’t know, we’re celebrating another birthday tomorrow! The birthday of a certain sweet little redhead. We don’t think we’ll be able to do much for her birthday (because of the orphanage rules), but we did get her a special toy. A little phone which talks. “Priyet!” (“Hi!”). “Paka!” (“Bye!”). I think it plays some music too. We knew it would be the perfect birthday present after she stole someone else’s new phone today.

Here is Lena’s special I have a musical phone walk…

Here is a not-very-good-video of Ilya. I did not get any good videos or photos of him today… he is hard to catch!

Some of you have asked me what the orphanage looks like! This is the building…
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They also have large grounds with a lot of playground equipment, a bit of which you can see here…
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We’ve had a lot of people ask how we get around here, which I’ll tell you about in a post soon. Anything else you want to know about?

First Adoption

WOOOHOOO!

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The celebrating begins!

Reed Ilya and Scarlett Lena will officially join our family. (in ten days that is!)

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Court was very quick, easy and totally freezing. Sasha said it was her quickest court trip! They didn’t even ask us why we want to adopted when we are so young. Which we were totally anticipating. No questions about why we want to adopt or why Ukraine or anything. WOW!

Sasha said it is very possible that we will be home for Christmas. She hopes to send us to Kiev for our last 2-3 days on Monday the 20th. We would really like to be home for Christmas.

I have a special request… tomorrow is Aaron’s birthday. He is very happy to be here adopting and excited about being a papa/father/zaza. But, he admitted he’s still a bit homesick for red velvet cupcakes. Will you all wish him a happy birthday, please? He shares his birthday with his sister Rachel, who has been extremely supportive throughout the whole process… please wish her a happy birthday too!