We didn’t head out to the orphanage until after lunch today. The boys wanted us to come later, I’m assuming because they thought we might be able to spend more time with them.
Lance was having trouble calling Hasan today, so we went outside and waited for him around the time he was supposed to be there. He actually ended up getting stuck in some snow and was about 45 minutes late.
While we were waiting I was just soaking up the environment around me. There is a school across from Hasan’s apartment and a ton of kids were out playing. I wanted to go over and play too, but figured they might think I was really weird. I watch several groups of kids building snowmen. Some of them had some really big ones coming to life. Eventually, one group of little girls joined efforts with a small group of little boys and they were really started to get Frosty all put together. Then the boys left and the girls were tired I think because they just ended up using the half-built snowmen for chairs.
Across the way, what normally happens on a school playground began to happen. Snow Ball Fight! A group of kids can’t be outside for long in all that snow without a snow ball fight! Then, parents started picking up kids and some older kids came out to walk home. Some of the older boys right away went to the snowmen the girls had worked so hard and tore it down. I just wanted to go over there and tell the to leave it alone that those girls had worked too hard on it to have them come tear it up. Perhaps they wanted to finish it tomorrow. I guess once a teacher, always a teacher! The snowman the girls had worked on was so craftily build that they boys had a very hard time breaking. It kinda made me laugh to watch them jump on it, fall off and try again.
Then some older girls began walking home. And of course, as boys do at about a jr. high or early high school age do they pick on the girls. I wanted to tell them that if they were trying to flirt that they were going about it all wrong! They were throwing snow balls at them all the way down the street. They missed more times than they hit them. They almost hit a babushka walking down the street. I was watching hoping that she would rip into them and let them have it, but she didn’t. I just knew if she didn’t that eventually the girls would turn around and really pelt them with snowballs. They were still doing this as they rounded the corner and out of my sight.
About that time, something else caught my attention. There was a newer model car that was stuck and spinning in the snow right in front of us. Then waiting on it to roll back was an old, old, I mean really old, Soviet style car. It looked like a clunker and I wasn’t sure how it could still be running. Anyway, the newer car was still stuck and this old clunker just passed it right up. I had to laugh right out loud at that. I was wishing I had the camera, but it was in the backpack and Lance had it and as talking to Nina on the phone.
As I mentioned before, there is a new law that you have to also be screened by Interpol, the international background screening company. Well, this is affecting some couples in country. Nina was telling us that hopefully our judge will not be aware of this and will not hold the court decree from us until this gets done too. We are all thinking that we are OK in this area, but you never know. This is Ukraine. She told us what she thought the plan might be for the end of the week and that hopefully we could get the boys on Friday, but by Monday at the latest. She also talked about what would have to happen to be able to get Bogdan’s paperwork started again. And, of course, it will take some money to get the locals moving. She also talked about some of the other issues we might run into getting Bogdan.
All this sent Lance into a worry fit. He was a nervous wreck already thinking about doing this all over again for Bogdan and how in the world we would find the money. I told him it would all be OK. I told him there was nothing we could do about that right now and we just needed to pray that all goes well with our paperwork here and love on our boys. Getting him to focus on our boys helped him out.
Lance had taken his computer today for the boys to play on. At first it was a mess. They both, and some of their friends, wanted to have their hands on the computer at the same time. They were moving icons all around and even deleting things from the dock. So, Lance had to stop them all, tell them to calm down, to listen to him and only one person’s hands could be on the keyboard at once. Of course, throughout our time there, he had to remind them of this.
There really was not much room around the computer and Luda, one of the girls I had visited with several times wanted to talk with me. So, I sat at a desk close to the boys and drew with her, read books, sang songs and just talked. She told me that she has one brother, but that she hasn’t seem him forever and has no idea what orphanage he is in. She then looked at me with the most precious face and said that she had never had a home and wants a home really badly. She didn’t ask me to take her home like a lot of the kids do, but she just explained how badly she wanted a home and family. I looked at Lance and whispered that I wanted to take her home. He said, “You know we can’t, so don’t even get your hopes up.”
We said bye to the boys as we had been there almost three hours and they were going to have other lessons at 5:00. Then, it was time for my meltdown! All I could see was Luba’s face and hear her telling me how much she wants a real home. As you know, I really wanted to adopt a girl. Nina had looked for an available girl younger than the boys in their orphanage, and there wasn’t one without siblings. I was trying to encourage him to ask them to look for a single girl in their class or older. He is the logical one and said that there was no way since we already had our court hearing. I knew that was true, but wanted so badly to have a daughter. Then I really melted down and told Lance that the boys don’t need me! It is much easier for them to communicate with him and I know this is true. But today, I just felt like I was nonexistent to them, which made it even harder to not be adopting a little girl. I’m really not a girly girl, but I would love a little daughter someday. After a long crying fit, I was over my meltdown and I realized that I was just acting on emotions today and that I knew that there was no way right now that they would let us adopt another child. Not to mention, we are ready to go home with our boys. It is just so hard to see all these children everyday that want nothing more in life than to have a family and a home. They know you are there to take some kids home and I’m sure they wonder why they weren’t chosen and if anyone ever will choose them for their children and if not, why not?
So, except for both of our meltdowns today, it wasn’t a bad day here in Ukraine! Luckily, we have not both melted down at the same time during this whole process, which if you think about it, that is pretty amazing!
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