Two weeks since we left Miami today.
Today we went to visit Nastia first. We sat through a reading lesson in
which the kids were learning about the seasons of the year. It was actually
a great lesson for me (Lauren), with my burgeoning Ukrainian. Apparently second
grade is just my level! Nastia did wonderfully well, she’s a very
enthusiastic student and she does very well. The teacher allowed her to
answer a lot of questions to show us how well she’s doing. The teacher
actually introduced the lesson by saying that they were going to study the
Ukrainian language, just as Nastia will be studying the English language
when she goes to live in America. It’s certainly a topic of conversation at
the schools, and I think it helps our kids prepare themselves emotionally.
It also builds the excitement and is presented in a very positive way,
which we’re grateful for.
We also spent an hour alone with Nastia, giving her an English lesson.
She’s doing really well with her ABC’s and English numbers and we have a
lot of fun with her, teaching her English. I explained to her today (in my
very choppy Ukrainian – I might have done better talking about the seasons
…) that we are able to speak to our parents in America on the computer.
She was a little dubious but seemed to believe me. She takes great pride in
writing her name in English, in fact the first thing her teacher did was
give her a piece of paper to do so when we walked in, apparently she’s been
showing everyone. It’s pretty exciting to see her write, Nastia Gold. And
it’s adorable to hear her say it her sing-songy Ukrainian accent.
She’s such a special girl, all full of smiles and giggles and so much love.
She’s still a little shy with Michael but you can see loves him. And she’s
very happy to have a Mom and there’s nothing more amazing to me than to have this
beautiful little face smiling into mine for the sheer joy of it. It’s just
so much fun to sit together and color or eat a tangerine, I feel like we
already have that mother-daughter language where you automatically check in
with each other and I’m loving every minute of it.
We left Nastia (we hate leaving these kids!) and took the twenty minute
drive to Sasha’s school. We learned on the way that the administrator of Sasha’s school was planning to hold up our documents until Wednesday. But if we didn’t get them by Tuesday, we couldn’t get them to Kiev by Wednesday and we’d have no chance at a Friday court date. In that instance, we would lose almost a full week in the proceedings. We had to try to convince her to work with us just a little on this.
We went first to see the director but she wasn’t there. The one problem we’ve been having is with the director there who has been dragging her feet with the paperwork. There was some scandal a few years ago where she was accused of not handling an adoption properly. So she’s been very slow about the paperwork, when time is truly of the essence. We’ve already lost about ten days due to weekends and bureaucracy.
But the director of Nastia’s school has been totally cooperative so it’s
really just this tough one who’s holding us up.
She wasn’t in when we got there today so we went straight to see Sasha.
You’ve just never seen a more adorable little boy (may I kvell?) than this
kid. They were all playing outside and this extremely little person was all
bundled up in this winter jacket and hat so that all you saw were the eyes
and his precious smile. He’s still shy at first and he stands there waiting
for us to hug him. And when we do, that smile just spreads. He’s
particularly crazy about Michael (though I seem to do in a pinch) and you
can see how happy he is when we arrive. We didn’t have much time today
(this was the only caretaker so far who didn’t accommodate our visiting
hours) but we got to play cars with him. He spent an inordinate amount of
time trying to match the pieces of a toy car garage with the picture on the
cover, unmoved by Michael’s attempts to actually PLAY with the toy. It was
pretty funny, he’s so focused when he sets his mind to something. And a bit
of a milestone, when we got inside Michael picked Sasha up and gave him a
big bear hug and for the first time, Sasha really hugged back, holding on
and just loving it. He’s just opened up so much and it’s hard for both of
us not to walk around all the time hugging him. When I get the chance I
whisper in Ukrainian that he’s our boy and we love him and I can see that
little smile creeping up.
When we left Sasha (it was time for his lunch) the director of the school
had returned. We went in to see her and Sveta, our translator, told her we
wanted to talk to her. She almost smiled (she’s a tough cookie) and invited
us in. Michael then launched into a positively brilliant and moving speech
(Svieta translated) about how we were needed back in the States because we
have a small business and there are problems and not only that but our
parents need us too. But, he said, it’s not about us. It’s about the children who need to be together. And if she could just find it in her heart expedite the paperwork one day sooner (she has been saying it’s impossible to do so) it will save us almost a week in time. She wanted to know if the other school had completed theirs, and when she found out they had, she looked at us (I’m sure I looked very nervous and deserving) and said, da, she believed she could get it all done by
tomorrow! And with a quick ‘do pobachinnya,’ she turned away and we were
done.
So now, we are hoping if all goes well, that we will be able to go to court
on Friday. Which is Erev Hannukah and pretty fitting for the miracle it
will be to hear the judge declare those kids ours and walk out of that
court knowing that in 10 days, unless someone else objects, we’ll be a family. (The kids won’t actually be with us.) If that happens we’ll hopefully get back in the States by the end of the year.
Meanwhile we’re looking for an apartment. The latest find is an apartment
we’ll see tomorrow. It’s actually occupied by a man who showed us another
apartment today. We didn’t like it so he said if we wanted, he and his wife
would consider moving out of their apartment for the two weeks or so and we
could rent that place. Michael and I were trying to picture doing something
like that ourselves. What can we say? We’re not in Kansas anymore …