Above: Boxing with Dad. Turnabout is fair play (Timur has a black eye now too). Sasha’s class bathroom: toothbrushes and sinks.
A day without crisis! We took care of a few paperwork details with Svieta. Went to the bank to pay a $2 fee for the court to review our case. To the notary for a few more stamps and copies. Then we bid Svieta farewell for the weekend. Gave her some spending money to get her home to her family in Kherson on the Black Sea (a 15 hour train ride from Kiev). Played with Sasha for a couple of hours. Note that he seems to have gotten even with his best friend Timur. Now they both have black eyes! Our boy is no pushover that’s for sure. He’s had to learn to protect himself here.
Today he finally showed some interest in repeating English words. Dog, plane. You should have heard him trying tiddlywink! Had good kisses and hugs.
Then a quick lunch of apple blintzes and off to Nastia. Lauren had a nice talk in Ukrainian with Tatiana the school director. Without Svieta around, Lauren does get a chance to practice and learn the language. Tatiana is a truly good person. She seems so concerned about us and feels badly that everything is taking so long. She says we look tired and she knows we want to go home.
A great two hours with Nastia. More games and learning. Her list of nouns is really growing. We get the sense she’s starting to understand some of our simpler sentences. And today I asked if she loved me and she said her first full sentence: “I love you.”
We told her before leaving that we would all be together. Nastia, Mommy, Daddy, and Sasha. The four of us. She started her first real conversation with Lauren in Ukrainian. It took Lauren a couple of tries to figure out what she was saying, but Nastia persisted. “When can I come with you?” Lauren explained that it would be two or three weeks more. We had to wait for documents, but we would continue to visit every day. How can you explain this to a nine year old who just wants to have a home? But she seems to understand that we are not leaving without her. We were both deeply moved and we took a long time saying goodbye. (Note from Lauren: every single second of struggling to learn this language was suddenly worth it to have my daughter ask me, her first real question to us, when she could come with us, and I was able to answer and reassure her. It was quite a thrill.)
We stopped at a bookstore on the way home and found a good English book with Ukrainian transliterations. We think she’s ready for this now. Then we lit the Menorah and had a delicious home-cooked meal of pasta. I had a couple of extra shots of vodka.
Thankfully the office will be closed all next week. The girls, including Lauren’s mother Beverly who’s standing in as our controller, have done such a great job of keeping things moving. We couldn’t be prouder or more thankful for their efforts. Bibi is off to North Carolina for the week (although we understand her 9 year old daughter Rocio has a fever today). Laura is going back to England for Christmas. And Laure is probably going to party till the sun comes up a night or two. As for Beverly, you can ask her yourself.