Saturday, May 7, 2011

Enjoying every day............celebrating the productive ones!

• Appointment #1 Update and issue of Jason's birth certificate
• Appointment #2 Application of Jason's new passport
• Jason's first playdate post emancipation
• Accessing a supermarket (equally nice: no driver needed)
• UNO

Appointments #1 and #2. Both appointments were complete and successful while traveling to two separate offices by noon today. These documents are part of the several needed to legally remove Jason from Ukraine to the U.S. We still need appointments for other documents such as a new government number, a post-adoption/pre-travel medical exam and U.S. State department filings with the U.S. Embassy (a 2-day appointment process).

Ukraine has a National holiday on Monday - Victory Day - as in WWII. The process could go quicker, possibly, without this coming and last week's holidays. As we drove to the first appointment we saw huge floats being moved to a parade route. - should be fascinating to witness another country's perspective of the war.

First Playdate. A boy from Jason's orphanage and his adoptive dad are staying across the street while they do the same appointment/document circuit. Over notary signings today we decided on a playdate. Ilya's(now Nathan's) new family is wonderful as God has blessed him with a mom, dad and 4 siblings right in Blaine, MN. The two boys were good buds at Cradle of Children's Hope and today they talked non-stop Ukrainian with lots of giggling (yes, giggling) the hour or so they were at our apartment and, I am sure, the other hour at the Boehr's dwelling. It must have felt great to speak their native tongue basically uninterrupted.


Jason and Nathan back in their orphanage days.

 Accessing a supermarket. The giggling continued on the subway. We navigated Heath Ewing's recommendation for the international adoptive parent's dream: a large market with easy access to the subway and no need for a bus or any other kind of driver. We had grown accustomed to shopping the Mi-size market by the orphanage and enjoyed the convenience. That's not a viable option when visiting the orphanage is no longer part of the daily routine. The smaller markets around the apartment easily run out of things like bread and butter plus they charge more for the same products. Truly, the market at Lybids'ka is a great resource.

UNO. When Jason was getting ready to move out of the orphanage he showed us his keepsake box: a Target shoe box filled with his only worldly treasures. A gift from a relative, a photo album of us and orphanage friends, a soccer medal and a journal of his drawings, soccer player cards and other memorabilia. One of the journal pages has 3 UNO playing cards pasted on. Don't know whose game is missing those cards! UNO was the game tonight on Mother's Day Eve:  Jason: 5   Mom: 4.