Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Boy we have a lot to be thankful for this year. The boys are so precious and over the last two days their personalities are starting to show.

Each morning we spend a couple of hours with playing with Evan (3 yrs old) at the baby orphanage since our apartment is within walking distance to where the orphanage is located. It is so sweet when they groupa leader calls Evan’s name he comes running toward me with a big smile on his face. He practically knocks me down once he throws his arms around me and then kisses my cheek. He then runs up to Andrew and hugs him and then runs up to Papa and hugs and kisses him as well.

We take him down to the teacher’s room to play with him since there is an Italian couple playing with their son that they are adopting right outside Evan’s groupa room. Evan seems to really enjoy riding the bicycle and playing with cars, trucks, balls and play cell phones. He is already starting to understand me at times. He understands when I ask him if he wants more banana or cookie or cheerios. He’ll respond by saying “Da”, which means yes. I have him sit on the sofa next to me when I give him some snacks. When I put the banana, cheerios or cookie up to his mouth to feed him he practically swallows my hand with it. After he takes the food from my hand he will sometimes lay back to lay down on the couch to be silly. The past couple of days when he does this I will put my hand behind his back to lift him to sit up and when I do I say,”Up”. Today, all I had to do was say the word “UP” and make a motion with my hand and he sat up without me lifting him up.

Sometimes there is a teacher in the room that knows a little English with us and occasionally she will chime in and tell Evan what the English word is for dog, car, cat, cookie or whatever. She gets him to repeat the English word which is good. He will repeat the English word clearly.

We all are bonding well with Evan and him with all of us. It’s cute to see Andrew and Evan play so nicely together. Robert and I are very conscious for not giving Evan too much attention without giving Andrew some attention as well. We notice a difference in Andrew’s behavior when we do. Once in a while when Evan runs up to be to hug and kiss me, Andrew will be embracing me at the same time.

On Tuesday when we visited with Steven (5yr old) this was the first time we got to play together. Monday we only met and briefly played with him for about 15 minutes. After our meeting with the boys on Monday Alla took us to a toy store to purchase some toys for the boys. Since Steven requested toys he could build with, Alla and Robert bought him some Legos toys that were a bit to advanced for him not knowing what age the toy was for.

When we first met with Steven on Tuesday, Robert broke out the Legos and Andrew, Steven, and Robert all jumped into the project. Both Robert and I were surprised to see how Steven was putting the race car together so precisely. After about 30 minutes of putting the car together, Steven completed about putting half of the car together. He seems to be a perfectionist since when he or Robert couldn’t figure out how to complete the car he started crying. Alla jumped up and tried to figure out what was wrong but he wouldn’t say. We figured it was because he couldn’t complete the car so we changed activities. We were a bit concerned and found out later that he wanted to be with his group since they were doing Christmas activities. We also remembered how Andrew acted on our second day of meeting him. He was crying for about 20 minutes and we didn’t know what was wrong.

The next day we brought some fun activities for Steven and Andrew to do. We remembered in our first meeting that Steven likes to paint, so we brought our paint brushes and wooden Christmas ornaments to make with Steven. Well the painting was a big hit and Steven seemed very happy to be painting. He was talking to us in Ukrainian from what Alla says. It’s so precious to see and hear Steven talk in Ukrainian to us. I’m not sure what he is saying but we just agree and say “Da, Da” or yes, yes…..like we understand. I hope he is not asking us for a BMW for Christmas or something like that since we are agreeing with him. Once he finished with his ornament he wanted to paint another one. So we let him paint one more. We told him in Russian, “Bravo” and “Duche dobre” which translates to Good Job. He was much more animated today and much more relaxed and himself. After the ornaments we played some ball and Velcro tennis ball.

We also showed both boys our photo album. We have pictures of our home, bedrooms, living room, kitchen as well as pictures of our family and friends. One of the orphanage workers that speaks some English was helping us to explain to Steven who everyone was in our family. When we got to the picture of Evan and Steven’s bedroom the lady explained to him that this will be Steven’s and Evan’s bedroom. Steven smiled and seemed happy about that.

Steven is a very active boy and loves to play ball and Velcro ball. Andrew, Steven, Robert and I all had fun playing ball with each other. Robert and I were so glad to see that Steven was having fun and bonding with us all especially after Tuesday.

We celebrated our Thanksgiving with our first Perogies with sauted onion since we’ve been here, ham slices and bread and butter. Whooo Whoo!.