The One That Was Written On A Friday...

Dave sez,

Hi! We're Cathy and Dave. Thanks for helping us celebrate National Adoption Month 2012! And, thanks for letting us share our adventures with Justin and our journey to bring Ethan Shani home. We are actively participating in celebrating national Adoption Month!

We are near the end of the second week of our process. Monday begins the third week that we've been here; it is also what could be the halfway point of our trip. Last year we were here six weeks bringing Justin home. We are hoping that sometime early next week we will hear word on our court date for Ethan.

While we are here, we are learning a lot about the culture and customs of Ukraine. Just as we did last year. When we got on the Number Eighteen bus this morning, I paid the fare with my usual, "Dva," in handing it to the conductor. She handed me the bus passes for Cathy and me. She continued talking, and I wasn't sure what she was saying as I had stuck the passes in my pocket. She waved me to hand our passes back to her. She took a step over to one of the handrails, where there was a ticket punch. She put both of our bus passes in it and punch them. She handed them back to me with a smile. There were two open seats near where she was sitting and she invited us to take them. She walked from there to the back of the bus and returned, sitting down, still smiling at me. At the corner near the police and fire station, she announced the next stop as Maidan station in Independence Square. A few minutes later, when reached the stop, she said to us as we were getting off, "Goodbye! have a nice day!"

Last night, on our way back to the apartment from seeing our boy, we stopped at a neighborhood grocery store. I put the backpack I lug back and forth to the orphanage in a locker, put the numbered locker key in my pocket and caught up to Cathy. We only bought a couple of things, so I was back over to the locker for the backpack pretty quick. There were a couple of employees standing there. A customer had come up to one of them, and she asked him for help. She had put something in a locker and taken the key, but it didn't have a numbered tag, and she couldn't remember which locker it was - because, y'know, when they're all closed and locked they all look pretty much the same! So, here's this poor store employee, trying the key is about eight different locks. Another customer comes up alongside me, and we both wait patiently, until the key was fit to the right lock. The other young store employee shrugged and rolled her eyes at the whole incident. I nearly ROTFLMBO!

I saw a farmer's market set up in the parking lot of a strip mall on our ride out to the orphanage today. It was pretty cool to see something like what we have back home. There are street vendors every where around the city, selling everything from cosmonaut and military uniforms, flags, Christmas tree ornaments, paintings, jeans, sweat shirts, fruit, pig heads - this is on top of what you will find on grocery store shelves.

We've been able to find comfort food in a couple of local restaurants. Steak fries are awesome! What's nice is that Kiev is an international city, and English is the second language after the native tongue. So, most menus come with subtitles; and the subway stops are announced in Ukrainian first, then English.

Our visits with Ethan are becoming pretty routine. We try to vary what we do. Always English first for an hour. He knows certain words, but does not recognize them yet. The alphabet and the words and sentences he's working on are all symbols to him, just as much as the Ukrainian alphabet and language is to us. He's doing well with his new full name, who we all are, but he is still struggling with the sentence, "All four of us are a family". I'm sure that will come with time, in understanding and concept. It is amazing to see what concepts are attached to English words. We use our index finger to indicate "brother", and closing a "v" of the index and next finger over to indicate "brothers" for both Ethan and Justin. We make a circle between us to indicate "family". We've been connecting the most important words into basic sentences so he can identify himself and who we all are.

After an hour of English, we either watch a family movie, play Uno or war; or, like today, we go outside for some soccer. I'm learning from last year: the object is to make HIM do ALL the running and wear HIM out. We played soccer for a half hour and he was ready to go back inside. This year, Popi did not break a sweat. I'm sure once my boys put their heads together, that will change. But, I plan to pit them against one another as much as they plan to gang up on me.

As hard as it is to imagine our visits seem to fly by as much as the last two weeks has. If this trip is anything like last year's, we are nearly a third of the way through it. It just feels like the time is flying by. Even though we are enjoying a little bit of down time, there are a number of things that will happen quickly, and nearly all at once, once we've had our day in court.

Our adventure is just beginning!