A Good First Week

First of all: HAPPY ANNIVERSARY MOM and DAD! Maxine and Norman are celebrating their wedding anniversary today. Wish we were there with you guys!

Everything is well here in the Ukraine. Thank you everyone for the comments and emails!

We have fallen into a daily routine that will be what we do everyday until we are able to take Alex from the baby house. We get up, eat and plan for the day. We translate some new words to try and teach Alex during our visits. A driver comes to pick us up at 8:45 for our 9-noon visit with Alex. We play with Alex for three hours, get picked back up at noon and go back to the apartment for lunch. Run errands or whatever until 3:45. Are picked up by the driver and go back for our 4-6 visit. Play for two hours, get picked up at 6:00 and go home or dinner, computer games, a movie, fashion TV, BBC (there's not much else) or whatever. Very structured, but a welcome change from the waiting/persistence game we had to play in Kyiv. We now have purpose to our stay and look forward to what new discovery we experience with Alex and his progress. Each day we see cognitive and physical development with the 1-1 time we are spending with him, so he is doing really well. He has also began to be warmer to us upon arrival and is getting used to being with us. He is leaving his groupa and care givers more readily and giving us a hug when we arrive and depart from our visits.

One game we are playing with him is to use the photo book we have brought and teach him the names of the people in the photos. He now readily points to the pictures and identifies "Mommy, Daddy, Zach, and Lauren". He says these words with the accent of a two year old Ukrainian kid which is very cute. He refers to our furry children as 'backa' (he is trying to say "sabacka") which is Russian for dog. He has not yet changed over to "dog" or calling them by their names, but this will be a goal of this weekend. He still uses a lot of Russian words and probably will not start to really learn English until he leaves the orphanage. We are told he will quickly pick up English and will quickly forget his Russian (we are not certain we want him to lose his start with Russian).

We also learned yesterday that we have a court date on April 4th (Friday). This is where we will have our court hearing to approve the adoption and receive a decree. A very important step. After we receive a decree, there is a 10 day waiting period (we have not deciphered whether this is working days or calendar days). This period of time is required to allow the birth mother, birth father or direct family members time to contest the adoption. We are told by the inspector in their small town that they would have to be able to provide a good living environment for the child which she did not feel would be possible. This apparently "almost" never happens. Of the fifty some odd adoptions our coordinator has facilitated it has never happened, but the suspense continues.

A little about the orphanage system and system results:
You may notice we have stopped using the term orphanage in favor of "baby house". This is what the Ukrainians call these institutions where healthy babies are taken to be cared for until they are adopted. These baby houses are for children up to 4 years old. If they have not been adopted by the age of 4, they are then sent to an orphanage in the area for ages 4-10. They proceed through several of these orphanages until they "graduate" from the system at 16 years old. After that, they are on their own. It is amazing that there are so many healthy, beautiful children here that are not available to be adopted. We are not 100% certain as to the reasons, but inefficiency of the system probably plays the largest part. It is a travesty that these kids are not put up for adoption more quickly. After 4 years of age, the statistics say that fewer and fewer of these children will ever be adopted. Those that are not adopted will end up on the street fending for themselves when they "graduate". A high percentage die, and those that survive live a nightmare of a life. Only about 10-15% go on to live a normal, productive life free of death, crime and substance abuse. A total waste of human potential/life and something that angers us when we look into the eyes of these adorable, healthy kids.

We are headed to see Alex again this afternoon. Juice boxes, bananas, cheese, books, puzzles, toys and pictures in hand. Everything a growing boy needs!