John's Blog
Thursday, July 29, 2004
Thursday
NOTE: This entry and the next two are out of date order, but since I am putting them all up at the same time, I wanted you to read them in the proper order (from top to bottom for these 3).
Thursday, July 29, 2004
Shelly wanted me to write my own blog entries, without reading hers first. That way, you can all get my view of things. That sounded good, even though there will be some repeat information.
Where do I begin? There is so much to talk about. 3 children! Woohoo! And they are all wonderful. I thought that it would be difficult to find 2 mostly normal children, but here we are, trying to adopt 3 children who will be in very good shape a few months after we’ve been taking care of them! (And they are in pretty good shape already. We will give them the nutrition they need, love they require, and whatever else is useful in helping them grow to their full potential.)
Yesterday, around 1:00, we first visited Liana and Aleksa (I misspelled it as Alexa in the link to the pictures). The second they walked into the director’s office, we were in love. Liana was very shy, and would hardly even look up at us. On the other hand, Aleksa was as bold as could be, and quickly claimed Shelly as her private possession. (BTW, we are still calling them by their birth names, Vallia (Valentina), Zena (Zenaida), and Meesha (Mikhial).
When we went to leave the director’s office to visit with them in a separate room, Shelly and I weren’t sure where we were going. Liana was holding my hand, and decided that we were leaving the orphanage (or at least walking outside the building). About the time that we got out of the building, one of the workers called us back in and showed us what room to go to. We visited for a while, and got the pictures that you saw of them. Liana loved the camera, and pushed buttons and played with it for a good while. Aleksa just kept on hugging and playing with Shelly.
After going back into the director’s office with them, the director (very nice lady, perfect person to be a director), asked them if they wanted us to be their mama and papa. Liana simply nodded with a straight face, and Alexa happily said agreed. This was a real mood booster! Liana was sitting on Vika’s lap (our translator) when she realized that we were leaving. Vika said that she started to tremble! Vika and the director calmed her down and made sure she knew that we were coming back. When we hugged them both before we left to get Adam, Liana (still looking down) said, “Come back, Papa.” – I think I need a new heart.
The trip to get Adam was long and winding. Several of the roads were under construction in several different places, so it seemed that we were constantly slowing down and speeding up. I thought it would take us much too long to get there, but we made it in only a little more than the expected time. Toward the end of the trip there, we drove through very rural locations, complete with goats, cows (we almost hit one, and Shelly squealed!), horse-drawn wagons with loads of hay, fields FULL of sunflowers, etc.
We arrived at Adam’s camp, and got out. The receptionist from the director’s office (she had to come along) gave the official papers to the director of the camp, and Meesha came running out, smiling. We didn’t have much time, so he said goodbye to his favorite care-giver, Irina. Then we piled in the car and took off (and waved at the now-infamous cow, which the woman taxi driver fondly remembered had scared Shelly). Most of the way back, we just tried to sleep. But, we did stop and get some fruit-filled bread and some drinkable yogurt with pineapple and peach in it (good stuff). Adam liked to play with my Pocket PC just like Liana did, but the batteries wore out, so we had to put it away rather quickly.
Well, that’s the novel for Thursday!
Thursday, July 29, 2004
Shelly wanted me to write my own blog entries, without reading hers first. That way, you can all get my view of things. That sounded good, even though there will be some repeat information.
Where do I begin? There is so much to talk about. 3 children! Woohoo! And they are all wonderful. I thought that it would be difficult to find 2 mostly normal children, but here we are, trying to adopt 3 children who will be in very good shape a few months after we’ve been taking care of them! (And they are in pretty good shape already. We will give them the nutrition they need, love they require, and whatever else is useful in helping them grow to their full potential.)
Yesterday, around 1:00, we first visited Liana and Aleksa (I misspelled it as Alexa in the link to the pictures). The second they walked into the director’s office, we were in love. Liana was very shy, and would hardly even look up at us. On the other hand, Aleksa was as bold as could be, and quickly claimed Shelly as her private possession. (BTW, we are still calling them by their birth names, Vallia (Valentina), Zena (Zenaida), and Meesha (Mikhial).
When we went to leave the director’s office to visit with them in a separate room, Shelly and I weren’t sure where we were going. Liana was holding my hand, and decided that we were leaving the orphanage (or at least walking outside the building). About the time that we got out of the building, one of the workers called us back in and showed us what room to go to. We visited for a while, and got the pictures that you saw of them. Liana loved the camera, and pushed buttons and played with it for a good while. Aleksa just kept on hugging and playing with Shelly.
After going back into the director’s office with them, the director (very nice lady, perfect person to be a director), asked them if they wanted us to be their mama and papa. Liana simply nodded with a straight face, and Alexa happily said agreed. This was a real mood booster! Liana was sitting on Vika’s lap (our translator) when she realized that we were leaving. Vika said that she started to tremble! Vika and the director calmed her down and made sure she knew that we were coming back. When we hugged them both before we left to get Adam, Liana (still looking down) said, “Come back, Papa.” – I think I need a new heart.
The trip to get Adam was long and winding. Several of the roads were under construction in several different places, so it seemed that we were constantly slowing down and speeding up. I thought it would take us much too long to get there, but we made it in only a little more than the expected time. Toward the end of the trip there, we drove through very rural locations, complete with goats, cows (we almost hit one, and Shelly squealed!), horse-drawn wagons with loads of hay, fields FULL of sunflowers, etc.
We arrived at Adam’s camp, and got out. The receptionist from the director’s office (she had to come along) gave the official papers to the director of the camp, and Meesha came running out, smiling. We didn’t have much time, so he said goodbye to his favorite care-giver, Irina. Then we piled in the car and took off (and waved at the now-infamous cow, which the woman taxi driver fondly remembered had scared Shelly). Most of the way back, we just tried to sleep. But, we did stop and get some fruit-filled bread and some drinkable yogurt with pineapple and peach in it (good stuff). Adam liked to play with my Pocket PC just like Liana did, but the batteries wore out, so we had to put it away rather quickly.
Well, that’s the novel for Thursday!
