Tea parties and window cleaning

Both this morning and this evening Alexandra ate a yogurt, a banana, and a cookie. I expect I am not exactly regaling you with stories of her eating but it is extremely exciting for Candace and I. We want our little one to be not so little. We are counting down the days to go home in a couple of ways...20 more sleeps or 40 more bananas. At our last visit, Candace brought a little porcelain tea set which we played with for about 30 minutes. Also, the girly-girl stuff continues...Candace put two pigtails in Alexandra's hair and she loved them. She was actually a bit upset when we had to take them out at the end of the visit. Most of her behaviour is typical of a girl her age in Canada but she does occasionally do something that surprises us. This morning, for example, I lifted her up on the window sill about five feet from the floor so she could have a look outside. I turned away for a minute and Candace told me to check out what she was doing. I looked up to see Alexandra running her tongue back and forth across the glass to remove the condensation. I am not sure if baby wipes are supposed to be used on tongues. I will have to check when I get home.

After lunch we went to a bookstore to get some reading material. Imagine a store the size of Coles with one shelf of about 20 English language books. I had hoped to buy a couple of current novels, a newspaper or two, and perhaps a magazine. Instead, I left with four books that would be equivalent to Grade 6 novels. As I go to bed the next couple of nights I will be reading "The Adventures of Ulysses", "Jason and the Argonauts", "Tales of King Arthur", and "Hounds of the Baskervilles". If it had not been for concerns about baggage weight restrictions, I would have filled my suitcase with books. Now I regret taking all of that extra underwear instead of a few Golf Digest. From the bookstore, I went to our room for a nap while Candace went shopping. We have been here for two weeks now and today was the first time I felt comfortable letting her go off on her own. I was wiped and I needed some rest I guess. Our visits at the orphanage pass quickly and our evenings end early...but the afternoons could not be more dull. There really isn't much to do in this city other than eat out or shop. Sightseeing opportuntities are limited. Candace enjoys regular afternoon naps (what a surprise, hey Perry) but I just can't seem to get into them as much.

I finally understand why the sounds of fireworks are heard so frequently. Every store carries them and their doesn't seem to be any age restrictions on their purchase. As we were walking through a large square today, we saw several young boys (perhaps 9 - 12 years old) setting off firework after firework.

Bananas!

Alexandra has a new favourite food...bananas. As soon as we arrive in the morning and the evening she goes for the bag and grabs a banana, which she eats in about two minutes. This evening it took a little while longer because she would alternate biting the banana with licking of the peeling in her other hand. A couple of other things that we are noticing with her are quite amusing. First off, she is a bit of a clean freak. She often stops what she is doing to go gather up other toys that are lying around and then returns them to their proper place. For everyone who keeps telling me how our house will be a mess once I have kids, I beg to differ. Now there will likely be two people cleaning up after Candace on a regular basis. The other thing worries me a little bit...she seems to be a girly-girl. She really likes things such as dolls and dresses and hair brushes. I need to get her a basketball and a baseball glove when we get home.

We walked back from the orphanage this morning. On the way, we spent some time searching for what we thought was a laundromat. We criss-cossed the main street checking all the stores until we finally came across this small business on the back corner of a large apartment block. It was actually a laundry service which does the cleaning for you. They told us (through an interpreter on the telephone) that if we dropped our stuff off today it would be ready next week. We decided we would wash things oursleves in the sink. Our new friends from Minnesota are moving into an apartment this weekend with a washing machine. I just hope we don't do anything to offend them before we get a couple of loads done.

During our afternoon break, I booked Alexandra's ticket for the return trip on January 12th. I had to contact the German airline Lufthansa which is the Air Canada partner in the Ukraine. They advertise their service as being in English, although I would say that Alexandra's grasp of the language is better than that of the ticket agent with whom I spoke. It took about 16 minutes to get everything worked out, and I emailed the airline afterwards to confirm my booking just in case anything was missed. I actually was worried that I was going to run out of time on my phone during the booking.

The number of couples at the orphanage is starting to dwindle. Today was the last day for a couple from France and another from Arkansas. Best of luck as you return home to start your new families.

January 12th and we're outta' here!

We received some great news to start our day. Our facilitator called at 9:00 am to tell us that she spoke to our judge. We will be getting our official decree of adoption on January 9th. This puts us right back on the original schedule we envisioned when we started our little adventure. On that Tuesday, we get the document, pick up Alexandra for good, and then spend the remainder of the day in this region finishing up local paperwork. Then we head to Kiev for another day of paper work on Wednesday. Thursday will be a day off before our flight out on Friday, January 12th...as we had originally booked. The three of us will touch down in Winnipeg at about 4:00 pm on Saturday, January 13th. I cannot tell you how much I look forward to that day. Unfortunately, I will miss our home basketball tournament. Sorry girls...I am a bit tied up right now.

When we arrived at the orphanage this morning, I videotaped the walk from the taxi right up to Alexandra's area. It was really a neat experience because the caregivers allowed Candace and I to go into the main room in her wing for the first time. Usually we just wait in the lobby area. As I entered the room with the camera running about 15 - 16 two and three year olds rushed toward me yelling papa and momma. Fortunately, there was a small fence between us that prevented us from being mauled. It was both a heartwarming and disheartening experience at the same time. You wish that you could just take every little boy and girl home with you.

After yesterday when all three of us were a bit cranky, today we had some wonderful visits. This morning following some swinging and climbing, Alexandra dug in the bag found a banana and devoured it. Candace barely got the peelings off in time. Alexandra and another little girl even played together for some time before they had a little dispute over the ownership of some blocks and had to be separated. For what it is worth, I am sure Alexandra could have taken the other girl if anything had started. I will admit with some embarrassment that I felt pride in both situations -first as I watched her share with the other little girl, and then later, as she decided to assert herself. During the evening visit, we arrived as the kids were practicing for the holiday concert. It was pretty cute and I videotaped quite a bit. It is not what I would call a professional tape job...and a lot of the footage focuses on a little fair haired girl in a yellow shirt. Our day ended eating at a nice pizza shop down the street from our hotel with our new friends from Minnesota.

One thing interesting is that lots of things change for the kids once they become adopted. I am not talking about obvious things such as their environment and their new families. I am referring to more basic things tied to their identity. For example, almost every parent changes the name of the children. There's a little Anthony who was called Vladimir up until this week, an Eddie who used to be Yuri, and so on. We decided that given her age we wanted Alexandra to keep her name because she already identifies with it. All we did was Canadianize the spelling from the Russian "Olexandra". If you think about it, children in orphanages have very little by way of material possesions. The only thing that many of them can actually call their own is their name. There are even some people who change the birthdates of their children. You see, in is not atypical for there to be developmental delays among children in orphanages. As a result, it is not uncommon for a two year old to leave with a new birthdate that makes them 18 months old. For the record, weare not doing anything of the sort with Alexandra. She is 3 years and eight months and she was born on April 8, 2003. I am tempted, however, to change Candace's birthdate to December 25th to save on the costs of presents. Plus her current July 2nd birthday always seems to conflict with the annual golf trip.

Tomorrow is two weeks since we left home and exactly three weeks beforeour flight back. Let the countdown begin!

Don't the holidays end in January?

You'll be as shocked as I was to find out that Alexandra isn't always in a great mood. After another pleasant visit this morning we arrived early this evening to see her. We had to abbreviate our second session because of a meeting with our facilitator. When we arrived at her wing, I think all of the kids were sleeping. She got woke up, smiled, ran and hugged us, and then it went downhill from there. She either got up on the wrong side of the bed or she was still a bit tired. In any case, she had what I will describe to her when she gets older as her first cranky day. It was just one of those evenings where she wanted things her way, right away, and wasn't happy with any assistance. It did not help that the visiting area was as wild and loud as usual. Unfortunately, there really is no where else to spend time with her so we have to go there. While Alexandra still was kind enough to grace us with her presence by sitting on our laps or on our kneee, she made it clear that she was setting the pace for the visit. We took it in stride, although I think both Candace and I agitated her a bit just to see what her limits were. The next time that Alexandra is having an off day I don't think we should try to cheer her up by stuffing blocks inside her clothes. It doesn't seem to work. Also, if she is cranky and indicates that she doesn't want to eat something or do a certain activity, we should take her word for it. And finally, and most importantly, remember it doesn't last forever. When we dropped her off at her room, she was smiling again and gave us hugs and kisses.

We had a busy day outside of the visits. We met our faciltitator at 7:30 am for about an hour to get some documents ready. Then during the afternoon we had to visit another notary public to get them signed before heading to the local couthouse to meet with the supervising judge. We sat in his office quietly while he looked over our papers and leafed through our dossier. The only time he looked at us while we were there was when he checked to make sure our passports matched the people in front of him. Fortunately, he signed off on everything before sending us to see another judge who will be presiding over our hearing.

Well, our court date is now set. It is next Thursday, December 28th. Then there is the mandatory 10 day waiting period before the official adoption decree is issued. So that's great news. However, those of you with Ukrainian connections will know that the first week of January is a holiday with New Years' followed by Christmas on January 7th. We had expected to be held up a bit because of the holiday, but we had understood that it ended January 8th. Today, we find out that the holiday in this region actually goes from January 1 -10 and the first day that the papers might be ready is January 16th. Then there would be a couple of days locally and then in Kiev to prepare the final documents (birth certificate, immigration, passport). This would mean our theoretical return might be as late as January 21st or so. Our facilitator seems to be a good judge of body language...and she could tell that we weren't very excited by the prospect of an extra ten days in the Ukraine. She went back in to see the clerk and there now seems to be a chance we could get the decree on Janaury 11th, which is a Thursday. We would spend the rest of the day wrapping up the local paper work before heading to the capital city for a full day at the Embassy on Friday, with a possible departure on Saturday. We had originally booked our flight back for the Friday, January 12th so that doesn't work in either case. We are going to have to wait and see how tomorrow goes. Again, we have been very fortunate to this point and this is the first real kink that we have encountered.

As I finished writing the last section, I wondered if Alexandra really was as cranky as I thought...or maybe it was me that was having the off day. Perhaps a combination of both. Anyway, I mentioned earlier that we had to come back early this evening to meet with our facilitator to fill out some additional forms. She is finishing them on a nearby computer while we Candace and I make this blog entry. She needs them done before she drives the 90 minutes back to the city south of us. Once we are done with this, we are going to join the couple from Minnesota for supper. Hopefully, this will help me relax a bit.

Noise, food, and coat check tags

The noise over hear is different than back home and certain sounds can be heard throughout the day. I have mentioned the techno-pop that is played everywhere...I have even noticed that almost everyone's cell phone rings with some dance mix or hip hop tone. Candace and I actually had to suppress laughter when a gentleman nearby took a couple of calls to the tune of "Final Countdown" by Europe (a band from the 80's). Other noises of notes include car alarms (you can always hear one being activated or going off), dogs barking, and fireworks. Fireworks erupt every day at all hours...I actually wonder if there is a Disneyland nearby.

Today we enjoyed our visits with Alexandra, although the common area where prospective parents meet is getting rather crowded and noisy. There are now seven couples visiting with their children including families three from Spain, one from France, two from the US, and ourselves. One of the biggest distractions results from the European passion for soccer or football. A couple of the dads usually visit with their kids for a little while before spending some time kicking a ball between them. Recently, an errant ball came relatively close to the area where Candace and I were sitting on the floor with Alexandra. Fortunately, I retained my composure and avoided any sort of international incident.

Candace continues to provide food for Alexandra and Alexandra continues to eat. Her food of choice today was ham and she ate about 20 small cubes of it. It is almost like we are sneaking the food in for her. Whenever we pull out someting to feed her, one of us sort of blocks the view of the entrance in case any of the staff enters. It seems that whenever someone is "caught" feeding their child, the next day the child has a stomach ache and sometimes is too "sick" to visit. So we are quick to move unfinished items into our bag if anyone happens by and Alexandra is helpful in ensuring that there is little left unfinished. We certainly want to be respectful of what is happening at the orphanage and we do think the caregivers here are doing their best with the resources that they have. But we also want Alexandra to get a bit thicker and we are willing to do what we have to in supplementing her diet.

Our day ended by finding a new restaurant quite close to our hotel. When we entered we noticed the couple from Arkansas and joined them for supper followed by a couple of hours of conversation. You would not believe how nice it is to have sustained conversation with someone who shares your language and cultural experiences. It certainly is something that you take for granted living back in the comfort of Canada. I have noticed that when Candace and I leave the orphanage I am communicating to her in my cropped version of English that I use with the locals. I will say stuff like "We get taxi now" and she often responds with "Good". After finishing our visit at the restaurant, it took me about five minutes to convince the gentleman who checked our coats to actually give me my jacket...despite the fact that it was one of only three hanging in the cloak room. The others with whom I was with had given him their coat check tags and received their jackets in turn. I told the valet that he did not give me a tag...he said that he had. We sort of discussed this as much as two people who speak different languages could discuss it. He finally relented when I turned all of my pockets inside out and showed him I did not have a coat check tag. As Candace and I got back to our room at our hotel, I felt a certain sense of satisfaction having freed my jacket from foreign capitivity. I was still feeling relatively smug as I reached inside the inner pocket of my jacket to pull out my room key...which I found intertwined with my coat check tag. I expect to have much more humility tomorrow when I visit the restaurant again to return the tag.

No pictures...but lots of memories

Well...I have been taking all kinds of pictures and videos with our new Sony Handycam. I can't wait to show you them all...when we get home. Yes...unfortunately, I will not be able to post any until I get back. I took what I thought were all of the accessories thinking that everything would plug directly into the camera. Would you believe the only thing that does not is the USB cable for linking to a computer. The thing I left back home was the dockingf station that includes the USB port. I can't believe my oversight. We just picked up the camera prior to departing and I thought I read the instruction manual thoroughly. My new plan is to befriend someone with a camera to email me a picture. Take my word for it...Alexandra is a beauty.

Candace has been on a mission to fatten her up giving her all kinds of food. She just reminded herself that Alexandra only has a small belly. The little one is really learning to communicate, especially when it is to tell us that she does not like a particular food or drink that we are trying with her. Candace says she is fussy like her father (that's me remember). Oh well, she can have whatever she wants.

Things are going really well for us. We arew getting lots of rest at night and our days consist of waking up, visiting, eating, sleeping for an hour, visiting again, eating, coming to the internet, then going to bed around 8:30 -9:00 pm. One of the facilitators came to town today to visit with the lawyer. We are now meeting with the local inspector on Wednesday where we will receive our court date. Our facilitator assures us that it will be next week. It cannot come soon enough.

Today we had a wonderful lunch at a fancy restaurant called DaVinci. We had tea, a side dish, and a surprise double order of steak each (my English and hand language lose something in translation I guess). Total cost $15.50 for everything. I cannot get over how low the cost of living is over here. We also met another American couple from Arkansas who were very nice.

Alexandra was fantastic today...she was singing and swinging and playing and sharing and hugging and cuddling and laughing. It probably is difficult for some people to imagine the type of connection that the three of us have already...although I bet anyone with children can understand. Despite just meeting her for the first time of Thursday we are totally smitten. I think it is worth noting that Candace and I started this process back in November 2004 so we have spent a lot of time preparing to meet her. My new favourite pastime is telling Alexandra that I love her...and I do it in Russian as well just in case she doesn't understand me. I say "Ja lyoo bloo teenya Alexandra".

It's Sunday...I think...

The title references the fact that it is difficult to keep track of what day it is over here. Each morning I have to check the phone because there is nothing else to reference. We aren't in our regular schedule of working Monday to Friday then having the weekends off. We don't have newspapers or English speaking tv stations to keep up on things. While we have only been over here for eight days, I find myself already missing things back home. Of course I miss our the comfort and security of our house and the accessibility of our friends and family. But it is the little things that throw you off the most. How I miss bathrooms where I know innately how to operate the appliances, and where the toilet paper is manufactured from soft paper products. How I miss restaurants and grocery stores at which I can tell what I am getting just by looking at the item or reading the description. I took a bite of a hamburger patty recently that was actually liver...that sure was tasty. And last night I brought home what I had hoped were chicken balls only to find out that they were some kind of breaded, deep-fried vegetable that I am not sure we get back home. How I miss not listening to electronic dance music which is played everywhere...in the cabs, in the hotels and stores, in the resturants and elevators, and of course, in the internet cafes. And finally, how I miss those two icons of Canadian society...those things that we often take for granted but are so important to our daily existence in Canada. My dream now, beyond bringing our daughter back home of course, is to be sitting in a Tim Horton's enjoying a steeped tea with a donut while watching one of those familiar and reassuring faces of the meteorologists on the weather channel.

I slept from 8:30 pm to 6:30 pm. I had to get up because sleeping that long is apparently hard on the back. I decided to come down to the internet cafe to check my email and catch up on the news, and let Candace sleep for a little while longer. The teenage boys are still here playing the online game, although the ones that have been eliminated this round are sleeping at their workstations. I can't imagine this experience without an internet connection. It has enabled us to stay connected with everyone and everything back home.

Another couple mentioned how they ended up in a situtation in which they were sort of accused of shoplifting because the wife had a new pair of jeans that still had some sort of security device attached. Well, yesterday Candace and I had a somewhat similar experience involving a five dollar hair dryer that we picked it up on one floor of a store. There must be a lot of shoplifting over here. Everytime we enter a store I notice that shoppers all seem to get their own personal security guard following them around within ten feet. Everything in the stores is dust free however, because these "undercover" security people pass their time dusting items as they watch us out of the corner of their eyes. We took the hairdryer down to the first floor of the store looking for a cash register. Finally, we asked one of the workers how to pay. He did not understand us initially but then he took us back upstairs to a salesperson. She wrote up papers for our purchase and we then had to take them to a round booth in the corner that I thought was a currency exchange. Then a new lady printed out a form that we had to sign then bring back to the first lady. She checked our form, then took us over to a table. She opened the box, took the hairdryer out then plugged it in, I assume to show us that it worked. She asked if it was okay, we said yes, then she proceeded to do the same with each of the accessories that came with it. So they put a great deal of emphasis into both store security and salesmanship.

We went down to visit at 9:00 am. We went right up to he Alexandra's room to pick her up. Then one of the ladies led us down to a big play area the size of a classroom. I don't think the kids in the orphanage get to visit this spot because she looked pretty amazed once she entered. I think it is a space just for prospective parents to meet with their children. There are mats and giant balls and toys and even a slide. Being teachers, Candace and I spent an hour or so having her work with blocks and books and colouring. Then two other couples (from Spain and France I think) came in with their kids. They focused more on running and bouncing and screaming. I could tell Alexandra was interested so for the last hour we ran and bounced and screamed. About every 10 minutes I had a 30 second rest...boy she has lots of energy. She has an incredible attention span...whether it was building with blocks or connecting legos, she could stay on one activity for a very long time....at least until she has mastered it. We found out the visiting hours are actually 9:30 - 11:30 and 4:00 - 6:00. The kids at this particular orphanage are 0 - 4, so they have lunch and then a nap from 1:00 - 4:00. Alexandra really started interacting with us today and she is starting to talk quite a bit...although still in Russian. She seems to understand what we are saying to her and I think we have made the move from "mama and papa" to "mommy and daddy". As we were leaving, she said her first words in English. I told her to wave and say "bye bye" and she did just that. It was pretty exciting. Then as I carried her back to her room, Candace started the humming and on queue she started her Russian song again.

Candace and I returned to the hotel and had lunch. She had soup, rice, bread and a coke and I ate eggs, ham, and pancakes with tea. The total price was $19.50 hyrvnia or $4.90 USD. We were amazed at how cheap it was until the waitress failed to return with our change. I guess whatever you give them they keep.

Early in the afternoon, we tried another new activity as parents...we spent two hours visiting the local stores to buy Alexandra some clothes. We bought a dress, several shirts, pajamas, a snow suit, and some other odds and ends. We wanted to buy her some jeans and shoes but we forgot to take her measurements so we thought it best to wait. The shopping thing was alot of fun. We even returned the first ski suit when we found a better one at the next store. We want to make sure that we are happy with our purchases because we will not be returning anything. When we visited Alexandra later in the evening we gave her a snack before the fashion show began. It was really cute, she was looking in the mirror the entire time. The final outfit that we left her in during the visit was a blue overall dress with a pink turtleneck and pink tights. She looked really sweet. The funny thing was as we began playing around she kept looking out of the corner of her eye at the wall sized mirror to check herself out. There were several families in the visiting area today...two French, one Spanish, and fortunately one that spoke English...a couple from Minnesota. It was great to see all of the new families together but it was also really loud. We are going to go a bit earlier tomorrow to have some quiet time. Alexandra is really nosy too and she seems to want to keep tabs on everything else that is going on around her. During the course of our visit she said a few new English words. She was able to point at our picture and say "Alexandra", "mommy", and "daddy". I think I yelled to Candace when I heard her say "mommy" the first time. Later she said "Winnie Pooh" which is good considering what her room at home looks like. When we got back to the hotel Candace and I had supper...Candace made sure we got change this time. Its funny...we are played out from spending time with Alexandra today. Its not just the playing and the running that does it...the whole bonding thing is wonderful but it takes alot out you. Remember, we are new parents so everytime she does something it pulls on your heart strings. That being said, the only thing we want to do is go to sleep so we can get up and visit her again. This is the second time in my life that I have experienced love at first sight. Nothing beats it!