Wondering about the boys

Eating Ukrainian food

Happy Birthday Michael and Oliva! Wish we were there to celebrate you second birthday with you!

The past few nights I have had trouble sleeping. Between the beds being almost as hard as bricks here, saxophone players, diarrhea spells in the middle of the night and wondering about the boys we will visit on Monday, I haven’t slept but a few hours each night. There are so many things that keep going through my mind about these boys. We do know that they both have been in the orphanage for eighteen months. So that would make the older boy around 3.5 yrs old when he entered the orphanage and the younger boy about around 18 months old when he entered the orphanage. Since the baby orphanage only goes up to 4 yrs old, the older boy transferred to the older children’s orphanage once he turned 4. That means he has been separated from his brother for a year now. I wonder if they remember each other (possibly the older one remembers his younger brother). I wonder if they remember their biological mother and if they do if they will accept me as their mother. I’ve read a couple of blogs where the children thought their biological mother was coming back for them to take them home and when the family adopts them the child was upset with the adoptive mother for a while since they were mad at her for taking them out of the orphanage because they thought their biological mother was coming for them.

From what the psychologist told us that each of the orphanage directors told the boys was that a Mama and a Papa will be coming for them soon. Okay, that was it for me. My eyes welled up with tears and I just wanted to ball like a baby, but here we were still in the office in the SDA and I had to fight back my emotions and maintain composure. As we were walking out of the SDA, Alla and Valentina wanted to make sure I was okay since we agreed to visit these boys instead of a girl. Here I am still trying to keep from balling regarding these boys that they thought I was upset since they weren’t girls. I told them that health is more important than gender and if these boys are okay and we decide to adopt them, I was kidding them when I said, “Maybe we’ll come back for a girl another time.” They both laughed.

Andrew and Daddy playing in apartment

It will be interesting since these boys are speaking in Russian already to see how we will bridge the communication gap. We have a children’s book called, The First Thousand Words in Russian”. Each page shows a picture of a room in a house, school or outdoor setting that has different objects pointed out and it has the Russian word written in the Russian alphabet along with the phonetic pronunciation underneath it so we can help teach the boys English by pointing and pronouncing it in Russian and then speaking the word in English. I’m sure if all goes well on Monday and there are no surprises with their health, that I will be calling on my friend Boris to help me with the language barrier.



Inside underground mall - Fish tank

We’ve been telling and preparing Andrew for what to expect on Monday. This morning we told him that we will be visiting the boys and they will possibly be his brothers. He’s been expecting a baby, therefore, we told him that these boys will be better than a “baby” brother because the boys will be right around his age so he will have someone to play with. He then interjected and told us how they can learn how to skateboard with him (don’t know where that came from since he doesn’t have a skateboard….I guess from seeing the older boys on the streets of Kiev skateboarding and doing tricks). We told him that they will be doing just about everything together. He seemed happy about that and then I told him that it’s very important for you to help Mommy and Daddy and share his toys with them. He was a bit apprehensive about sharing his toys, therefore, I took him back to last Christmas when he gave away a bunch of his toys to a boy that didn’t have any toys. I told him that these boys do not have any toys of their own either, that is why we bought them a couple of small toys to give to them on Monday. After hearing that Andrew seemed more willing to share his toys with them as well as his Mommy and Daddy.