Waiting

Couldn’t sleep past 6 this morning and was too restless to stay in bed. Found Mom Thur still online so we exchanged a Skype message. As I wrote to her, I am not looking forward to leaving Ukraine, I like it here and will be sad when we are gone. But I would like to be “doing” - packing, organizing, something - but this is not “doing” time, this is “waiting” time. I really do have some things to do: pick out and fix more photos to have printed before we go; write out our questions for the psychologist for Sergei to help us with; write a note to leave with Natalya. But none of it could be done lying in bed, so I got up.
Christine’s update first. In part: “when I sat down next to Nick for the Lenten dinner and asked whether he had prayed yet, he said he had prayed in his brain. I suppose it makes sense that a pediatrician's son prays in his brain instead of his head.”

I checked out the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod’s website (lcms.org) this morning and found a short devotional from Lutheran Hour Ministries. I signed up to receive their daily devotional by e-mail. Then I went back to Bible Gateway for more resources and found “Hard Saying of the Day” by Intervarsity Press. They tackled a passage in Hebrews and essentially discussed justification and sanctification.

In honor of not leaving for Kyiv at 6 this morning I moved up to Level 2 of the workout video. Needed to do most of the modifications available today. It wasn’t as hard as it will be, because I had to/got to keep stopping to see exactly how they did each move.

Egg and yogurt for breakfast. My multivitamin tea didn’t cool down in time to drink it before we left.
Nothing really new for our morning visit except that Daniel decided to comb my hair today. He did some fishing - no string then medium string.

Some other children put on some sort of program this morning. The physical therapist came through wearing a costume dress and a floral head wreath. Three 2-ish boys were led past, and a several groups of caregivers all headed in the same direction, then we could hear piano music from that end of the corridor. When the little guys came back they each had a chocolate candy they were pleased with - and Daniel wanted. We were candy-less this morning and couldn’t help him out. We have no idea what the special event was. We finished with some close cuddling.

We picked up water, yogurt, chips, eggs, Coke, mini bagel cookies, bananas and prepackaged chocolate croissants at the Billa (where else?). Now why in the world that last item seemed remotely appealing after the fresh ones at the French bakery I do not know. We decided to take it easy over lunch and just ate a hot dog and chips at home. I do NOT recommend this diet to anyone, but we were exhausted. I thought I would be picking out pictures of Nick and Dennis to send to the social service folks in their birth town (as requested via Sergei), but I fell asleep sitting up on the couch before I went to join John sleeping on the bed. Woke up to the sound of John washing the dishes. Guess I can’t really complain about that.

We talked to Dennis and Nick and both sets of our parents before Sergei picked us up for the afternoon visit. We brought the stroller along to see how Daniel would handle the restraints. We were able to meet with the psychologist first to ask a few questions - like just what works of Beethoven and Mozart he likes (she will write them down) and how to soothe him on the way home (stroke his head).

When we knocked on the door to Daniel’s group room they already had him ready for us. They had seen us outside through the window when we first arrived, and when it took so long for us to come to the door he started to cry! The judge requested that a copy of the court decree draft be sent to the State Department of Adoption in Kyiv, so Sergei spent the next two hours just getting to the court and getting them sent by train (common means of courier services here) because the traffic was so bad. It had snowed lightly.

As for us, the upper landing was taken so we settled on the couch Daniel chose. John took him for his first spin in the stroller. He did well, although it wasn’t long before he asked to get out. He asked to ride again later and lasted longer. I offered him a chocolate candy from home. He accepted, of course, and we used up the rest of our wipes cleaning up the mess. He also ate half a banana and half of a cracker and drank some water. He does use an open cup with some help, but just like Dennis initially he has trouble regulating the rate and seems to choke on it rather frequently. Not too interested in fishing, books, crayons or photographs tonight.

While John initially kept him occupied I finished his wool socks with reinforcements to fit over and hold up to his braces. I slipped them on while he ate a cookie against John’s chest and they seem to fit fine. He did play with the wooden train while standing against the couch with John sitting on the floor behind him to support his legs. I escaped the beauty treatment this evening. John didn’t.

We left about 6:30, just missing Sergei in the building so that we were calling him on the telephone while standing behind his car. The very nice maintenance gentleman who had offered us a ride home the other day offered to keep the stroller in the garage (where it appears he also sleeps/lives) so we wouldn’t have to carry it back and forth. Daniel tolerated it so well tonight that we don’t plan to bring it back, but we thanked him several times.

We ate our microwave lasagna, an orange and garlic bread (black Ukrainian bread, butter and Frontier garlic flakes) for supper. We also tried the croissants. For being prepackaged they were pretty good.