Another day...

(Our internet connection is quite stubborn!! This is our update from yesterday...Monday)

We are setting into our daily routine. We walked the 2 blocks to the orphanage at about 10am. We are never sure where to find Emma everyday since she is not located in the areas that we are allowed entrance. We are able to walk pretty much anywhere on the first floor and we usually search for someone to ask for "Yana". We sign a register and then they go to get her for us. She usually arrives in shorts, no shirt, and a floppy hat. Because it is so hot, most of the kids we've seen are dressed without shirts on. We haven't had any interaction with any of the other children (except the little girl being adopted by the Greek couple). We are able to see them in the distance, playing at another play area. We have one of the play areas to ourselves and we spend our time playing on the monkey bars, swinging or playing hide-n-seek. Today, after playing for awhile, we sat down at a little table and took out some papers with some translated phrases on them. Emma would laugh at our pronunciation of these phrases but she would act out whatever we would say (ie...are you sad...she would make a sad face. Are you happy...she would smile etc). She has already started calling us Mama & Papa. When she wants us to lift her up to reach one of the bars, she will say "something something something Mama". She also likes to look at the little photo album that we made for her showing our house, family, school and friends. Any of the pictures with Lucas in it she will point to Lucas and say "brat"...that means brother...she's not actually calling him a brat! haha. She seems to be getting much more comfortable with us. She let me nuzzle her a little bit and her hugs are becoming much less reserved. We are trying hard not to favor one over the other and there seems to be no resentment between the two. Lucas does sometimes get a bit frustrated when she doesn't understand him but it is short lived and soon they are off running around playing together. We tried out her new name today to see if she liked it and she kept referring to herself as "Emma baba". We're not sure what she means by the "baba" (which is a form of Grandma), but perhaps we're hearing her wrong. She smiles when she says it so hopefully she likes it. When it is time to leave she starts to walk towards the other children and will turn, wave, cast her eyes down and walk away. I can't wait until we can take her home!! When we walk back to the apartment, Lucas always says "When can we go back to the ortinige". I think he's finally beginning to realize that he used to live in an orphanage too and he likes to talk about when we came to Ukraine to adopt him. This trip has done wonders for his comprehension of his story and he seems quite proud of the fact that this is "his" country. We're so glad we made the decision to bring him with us.

Today we have run into our first paperwork snag. Luba and Ruslan were off trying to gather the appropriate documents that the judge had requested prior to granting us a court date. She had to travel to 2 different towns in order to achieve this. Upon return she visited the judge and got our tentative court date of August 13 (yep…that’s 2 LONG weeks from now…sigh). Luba and Ruslan left Nikopol at 4:30 to head back to Kyiv to submit the documents to the SDA to get permission from them for us to adopt. She cannot submit them until Wednesday, as they only accept these documents on Mon/Wed/Fri. They have 5 days to sign the appropriate permission documents then we can go to court…but…our judge is requiring that we wait 7 days after the SDA approval (there are reasons that we can’t go into). After court, we will have to wait the mandatory 10 days until we can be issued the official court decree, then obtain Emma's new birth certificate and passport. Sooo...we are here for awhile. Other than the heat, we are very comfortable. We have plenty of movies to watch on the laptop in the evenings and many places to explore on foot during the day (between visiting the orphanage).

On a good note, we are enjoying some the most fantastic fruits and vegetables from the market. The tomatoes are to die for but unfortunately Lucas doesn’t share our enthusiasm for them. The grapes are spectacular and we are going to try some of the other fruit on our next visit to the market. Yep…that’s what we’ve been reduced to…raving about the fruit!

Well, that’s all for today. I’m afraid our posts may get a little boring due to the lack of anything new occurring. But, we’ll keep it up…so you’d better write back…we absolutely LOVE reading your comments.

Love from Nikopol
Lisa, Chris & Lucas

PS: Tracey, Chris wants you to tell Dad that “Apparently, lightening can strike twice”.