When do we get the children?

Posting from: Khabarvosk
Local Time: 3:05 pm on Friday September 1, 2006
Weather: warm and sunny, swarming mosquitos

Today we will visit the children from 4 to 6 and then come back to the flat for a potluck with the other families; I made borsht. C&N&K and C&A&A are all leaving in the morning and we shall certainly miss them, but not so much that we won’t have fun at their garage sale this evening.

Tomorrow, we get to pick up the children and take them with us for the day. Yippeee! We are still discussing what we want to do with our time, but I’m sure we will want to show them their city. It is beautiful right now. Not too hot, clear and lovely. Perhaps we’ll go walk alongside the river and visit a museum.

On Monday we will pick them up and keep them. For how long? Until they go off to college. Monday will be our first “real” day.

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I forgot to tell you yesterday, that we were so worked up the morning of court, that we misread the clocks and arrived at our rendezvous an hour early. We were getting quite anxious that our ride was late before we figured it out.

The court process was very serious and proper. The judge determined who would respond to his questions and started with me. When he was finished with me, he turned me over to the prosecutor. When she was done with me, the judge had questions for Jamie and then the prosecutor had a few for him too. I had one more go to clarify one point. Then the child protection lady described the children’s situation and her recommendation. The orphanage deputy director did the same. Then our facilitator gave her recommendation. It all went by so quickly I was a bit dazzled, so I don’t remember so much, but I do remember the deputy director saying that children intuitively know who cares about them, and that after our visit last spring, Andy and Juliana have been asking for us daily. Some of you have seen a pic of a lady with the two children on her lap; this was the deputy director.

After court we came back to the flat, changed our clothes and headed out again. We walked over to the DetskyMat (Children’s Market) which carries a lot a clothes and some toys, but no puzzles, of course it is puzzles that we wanted. We did by a few toys to keep the children busy when they move in. I got some Audubon birdies, just like what we get at the toy store in Lynden, Mom. We also found a cute little doctor’s kit, so the Jamie can continue his training in correct bear-care under Andy’s close supervision. Bear, by the way, has a name: Meshotka.

After the children’s store caught this trolley car uptown, back to the area we lived in last time we were here. We finished our gift shopping and then went back to our old hotel, the Amethyst and had cabbage rolls, as theirs are the best ever.