We got our court date! (And visiting day #6)

Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Visiting Day #6

FIRST THE GREAT NEWS! WE GOT OUR COURT DATE! HOORAY!

We will have court one week from today on Tuesday, October 4^th at 1600. J YAY! That puts us on par to be home the week before Halloween. We hope. We would love to have the 10 day wait waived (or at the very least the ability to get the 2 day passport)! But we aren’t sure. We will need to ask Tatyana what she thinks. So, if you are a person who prays, PLEASE pray for a successful court proceeding and an understanding judge. We are the FIRST PEOPLE EVER to adopt from this village and institution. We can use all the prayers we can get.

It is getting very hard to get up in the morning; mainly because it is getting COLD.  The low tomorrow night is 5*C. That is 41*F. Yikes. So, we have been staying in bed as long as possible in the morning. We meet Alexei at the street now too. It’s easier for him not to have to come back to our alley. His driving is SO MUCH BETTER! I’m not thrilled to not have a seat belt, but there isn’t much I can do about that.

We made it to the institution in just about 40 minutes today. Today when they brought him to us he recognized us! We got a big smile and then he wandered over for a hug. The nannies that were standing around were all smiling at that!  Sterling was so much happier today! I don’t think he felt well yesterday at all. He still had a runny nose but his demeanor was back to his happy little self. We got some cute pictures but not tons and we had a lot of fun playing today. This may be the best visit we have had so far. He is really starting to “play” more and he is using the bus now too. He knows to roll it but it seems like he has a hard time with his coordination making his hands do what he wants them to do. He is much better about not throwing things too. J That makes this Mama happy.

So handsome!

Why yes Mama I LOVE the taste of grass...(This is now a game - he will pick grass or leaves from the ground and look at us because he knows we will fish it out of his mouth - then he laughs...)

He looks so much older in this picture.

I was rolling the bus at him and he just couldn't contain that giggle!

More bus rolling. I love this grin.

The bus fell and he went after it. In just 6 visits his mobility is SO MUCH BETTER. Today he stood himself up from sitting to standing on his own. We have never seen him do this until today. Which means that he knows how to but has regressed. Makes you wonder what else he can do...

We are still working on the straw. He can use the little ones with the juice boxes but he sucks with his tongue. Katina got him this cup and it is PERFECT for kids with DS. It has a REALLy FAT straw that forces his tongue back. I'll get it started in the morning to get the juice in the straw and he has figured out how to get it out little by little but his muscles really need some work before he can really suck up this straw. But I do LOVE that it forces his tongue back. I've also started putting my hands on his face while he does it so he can feel where his mouth should be. Mind you he giggles after every sip - apparently this is hilarious! :)

He LOVES his fox (IKEA). You pull the tail it makes music. Lots of fox snuggles today.

Yep - this is Sterling. He is getting better about putting things in his mouth but stuffed animals still go in...

The anti ground sitting nurse wasn't there today so the nurse that was gave us a blanket and we could sit on the grass again! YAY!

His hair is getting longer again and you can see how blonde it is in this picture, I SO HOPE they don't cut it before we leave. But that's a long shot.

After about an hour he gets tired. Today straddled my leg and put his chest on my thigh and laid his head on Brian's thigh and then just laid there. Too cute.

After our visit Alexei dropped us off and we headed out to run some errands. First we went to the bank to exchange money. That was interesting. The first bank we went to told us no. The lady sent us to a bigger bank next door. The lady there told us no too. We heard that on Friday this country passed a new law that banks are not allowed to change money over without a visa permitting the individual to be in the country. The trouble with that is, you don’t need a visa in this country if you are here for less than 90 days. So, we were in a bit of a bind. We called Luda and she translated for us and also explained the new rule to our cashier. It took about 20 minutes but we ended up leaving with our grivnas. Last night, we ran out of minutes on our modem so we had to go add more time for our internet. That took us to two different places. We waited for a bit at the first MTC store to be told to go to the other store down the street (We were at the phone store and we needed to go to a place that could help with the modem.) Then we waited for a customer service agent at the MTC store for about 20 minutes (luckily they had wifi!) Once our ticket number was called, we had to attempt to communicate with the agent. That was fun! LOL – we ended up calling Luda to translate AGAIN and when he found out what we wanted  (and that it was easy) we had a good laugh. He showed us how to use the digital kiosk to add minutes on our own and he almost died when we put 200 grivnas on our account (that amounts to $25.) After that we went off to find the real supermarket. We walked a mile in the opposite direction we normally go and no luck. So, we just went back to our normal market (boo!) On another note…some of the food here is ridiculously inexpensive. We bought an onion today…for what comes out to be about 15 cents. No lie. We really want to find a bigger grocery store though. This little market doesn’t have much in the way of selection and some of the stuff it has stresses me out (for example the eggs aren’t refrigerated…) So when we got back home to working internet, we looked up the directions to the Billa Supermarket. We think it might be too far to walk (about a 30 minute walk – I think) so we are going to see If Alexei will drive us.

We are not going to see Sterling tomorrow. L It is supposed to be cold and rainy and that means that they will keep us inside. Neither of us particularly likes the idea of driving with Alexei in the rain without seatbelts either. So tomorrow will be a laundry day and chore day (and a sleep in day – I need to get those in while I can!)

I’ll probably do a short post on what we do, but it won’t be exciting. Unless we can get Alexei to take us to the market…then we might have some stories. J