First day of our Waiting Period ~ Day 16

This morning we met with the Golling’s to walk over to the market. Spen is more of an agenda based shopper, he’s not much for just aimlessly wandering. We found some candies to take with us to the orphanage today and I bought some more embroidery floss to take. Here are more pictures of our apartment.  This is the stairwell to the apartments.  It doesn't exactly have what HGTV refers to as 'curb appeal' but it works and is actually one of the nicer places around.

The highlight of the market trip was finding a dress I thought was cute. I would have just passed it by, but the woman at the shop spoke some English and asked me if I liked it. She told me what she thought my Ukrainian size was as she pulled it off the wall. “Here, try it on” she said.. Hmmm. Have you ever been to a flea market? There aren’t really dressing rooms. It was pretty chilly too. I wasn’t prepared for what happened next. She escorted me up to the clothes and held up a little blue sheer-ish sheet for my privacy. “There, now you try on.” Hmmm… Alright, whatever. I suppose this is one experience I will only have once. Spencer was laughing at me the entire time. He thought the whole situation was hilarious. She held up a small mirror and said, “What do you think?” I had no idea what to think to be honest. I couldn’t really see what it looked like. I trusted in the husband and the nice Ukrainian sales lady. 200, gryvnias later I am the proud owner of a pretty tight darling dress. Spen just laughs at me randomly when he thinks of it. Very funny.  I got a few pictures of the egg section of the market and the fish market.  It's just so different from anything I am used to seeing.

After the market we headed to the orphanage to see the kids. Today would have to be the craziest kid day by far at this orphanage. The teachers and care givers have mildly successfully allowed us some privacy with the kids we are here to adopt. Not today. There were so many kids! We would pull out a pack of gum, or a bag of treats and the only imagery I can offer is feeding a tank full of hungry goldfish. There were swarms of kids and hands grabbing at you to get a piece of trident.

Victoria was so different today. She seemed very happy to see us. She had things she wanted to do when we got there and games she wanted to play. We had her friends Tanya and Masha there for most of the day.

We pulled out the origami paper and Spen taught a few little classes to no less than 10 kids on how to fold a crane, then a frog.  We bought some board games to take to play.  We got out the Russian version of Finger Twister and had quite an audience.  We got one game in and it was distributed for all to enjoy!

My favorite part of this game is the spinner.  Very simple, very cheap, yet it works just fine!

It didn’t take long for our cards and our games to disappear. Oh, well. I suppose we will have to go shopping again. I should have brought more face cards. I only thought about card games and they really love their face cards.

These children LOVE being played with. They love any kind of affection or attention. There are about 4 kids I would take home with me if I could. I adore them. One little girl I mentioned earlier, Karina – she’s actually 10, not 12 – just hangs on me. She doesn’t like the other kids to be anywhere near me.

She’s darling, but I feel so sad when this darling little 6 year old girl, Roxilana, just wants my arm around her. She squeezes my arm so tight so that I won’t let go of her.

 Karina doesn’t like me including other kids in our fun! We made friendship bracelets and tomorrow I will come with pre-cut bracelets so I don’t have the fighting kids begging me for string. Vika and Masha kind of secluded themselves. They kept watching and laughing at me being mauled! The little boys just hug me and draw little hearts. They are such little flirts. We were flipping little kids around and they just loved that. It was such a crazy day. It is going to be so hard to walk out of that place the last time. I am tearing up just thinking about it. I will miss these sweet kids. The only thing I just will never get used to is that dirty smelly sock smell! Sometimes it really just about knocks us over. It’s sadder than anything. We can’t stand to notice the condition of their shoes or clothes. It really is just heart-breaking. Spencer just isn’t himself around these kids yet. He is typically the center of fun around so many kids, but here is too emotional seeing all they need and knowing we can’t fill that need.

It was difficult to really have much quality time with Vika with the crowd we had today. Tomorrow, Spencer wants to start our visit with English lessons. We have Yana now interpreting for us, which is fabulous. She said she would love to help Vika start her English. I’m not so sure Vika will like that. Maybe if we can get her friends involved too she’ll try it. We’ll see.  You can see Yana on the left.  Vika was once again annoyed by the site of my camera!  Oh well!

After our visit we went to dinner with the Golling’s and went to the mall to get more cards and a few puzzles. I think we may need to have some time with Vika in the cafeteria area where we are a bit more secluded. Who knows what each day brings though around here!

We were able to skype with our Ezra for a long time tonight. It was so great to see him. Man, I miss that kid! Today at home was Ethan’s poetry tea party at school. My dad called us so we were able to hear him recite his monster poem. It was definitely a highlight of my day to not completely miss his program.