Day one of our 10 day wait!

So, first day on my own!
I cleaned my little apartment and showered then Constantine and his wife, Natasha came and picked me up around ten. (See Elliana? I'm being good!) I packed a lunch for Alex and I and brought all the English books and games and I’ve decided to leave all this stuff in the faculty room where we play. It’s silly to lug it back and forth everyday.
Alex came running at a full sprint when he saw the car pull in and Julia came right over too. We went inside and the kids played Lego’s while I talked to Straders on the phone. They wanted to hear about court as their court date it Tuesday. They’re in Kiev and will take the Monday night train back here and arrive Tuesday morning and head out again that night. It's a sticky business-adopting from two different orphanages miles and miles apart. I told them they could come and freshen up at my place. Then Julia wanted to talk to Bill & Leslie-I have no idea what she said-I hope they were able to figure out more than I did.

(Note about Lego's. The helicopter Lego set we bought Alex is pretty difficult to assemble and keeps falling apart when he tries. At one point today he threw the whole thing on the floor and said “Crap!” Indicating that this Lego set is crap. I almost burst out laughing. Remember my post a few days back about “This toy is crap”? He’s obviously got that word down. He also has the word “patience” down as I’m always telling him that and slowly stroking his cheek. Apparently he needs to work on” patience” with his “crap” Lego set!)
Then the kids talked me into going to a computer café? All I understood was 3 grynva’s for one hour on a computer. We started walking and then plans changed and we went to the park which is about a mile away. (Seriously-a mile!) It was down hill and a beautiful day. We stopped at a place selling what I thought were scones/donuts-without holes. They smelled wonderful. Unbeknown to me, they’re filled with various things. Mine was filled with potato, Alex’s was filled with cabbage & tomato sauce and I wasn’t sure what Julia’s was filled with. The kids were pantomiming a bird and then the bird pooping. The filling did look like bird poop but I was sure they were teasing me until I realized the bird wasn’t pooping (thanks to Julia doing a bird in a nest pantomime and then pooping and holding something) it was an egg! Hers was filled with boiled egg-chopped up. They were actually very good. I think they would have been better with apple filling or pudding as the dough was very sweet and it was sort of weird to have potato-cabbage or egg in them but I’d eat it again. At least the potato or egg one! I think I’d pass on the cabbage.
I am learning that you can put cabbage in just about anything and make salads out of everything and anything. My world has been opened to combinations of foods. Watch out kids when I get home!
I’m also wondering if I’ll ever be able to go back to skim milk? I’m getting really use to this creamy dairy.
We made it to the park and it was pretty lame. There were little kid rides you pay for and a little kid playground but not much for bigger kids. We walked for awhile enjoying the sun and good weather and then we headed back.

Alex & Julia posing on a rock on the way to the park.

This time up hill. We stopped at a lovely, large grocery store where I found baking soda. I’ve been wanting to make chocolate chip cookies as I have ½ a bag of chips left over from the fudge ingredients my sister sent. I’m going to use butter instead of shortening and white sugar instead of brown as I haven’t found either of those things but I forgot to get flour so I guess I won’t make them tonight. Maybe I’ll wait and make them with Alex after the 14th?
I did get Alex a new computer game. It’s a Spiderman game and the other game we bought is going to mysteriously disappear. (Although rated for 12 years and up-it’s very graphic and violent-a man beats up people with golf clubs & car jacks cars!) And I found a lovely shop that sells tea-pots. I’ve so wanted a pretty tea pot but there was no way I was going to carry it back to the school and Alex-like Austin-was so impatient when it comes to shopping for this sort of thing. He kept calling for me to come look at some toy or another. I’m trying really hard not to buy him everything he asks for but he asks for such small things that it’s hard not to oblige him. But “nett” I must not let him think this is what life is like in our family!
I did buy Alex more dried fish snacks. They are seriously gross. Imagine an aquarium fish-filleted in to slivers and dried. Here’s a picture but you truly don’t get the totally experience because you can’t smell it! Bleak!

Now, we’re walking up hill with a bag of groceries. (Good-my cardio is so lacking!) Alex holds my hand or leans his head against my shoulder. I love that!
We get back to the school and have lunch and Alex is so appreciative. I just packed bread, ham slices and some sort of roasted garlic/red pepper spread-I’m hoping its cream cheese and not pig fat like the appetizer we had yesterday. (I did like the pig fat until they told me that’s what it was!) I’ve decided it’s just better not to know what I’m eating. Like the catfish issue. (My apologies to those that like catfish-I was actually picturing carp in my head when I wrote that post then James clarified what species of fish I was actually talking about. Personally we don’t eat catfish either but I do realize that many people do and I shouldn’t have been quite as repulsed-except I really don’t eat farm raised fish-I watched a documentary/expose once and had you seen it-you too would not eat farm raised fish either!) I also packed chips and fruit and brought him his favorite…tomato juice! I asked if he would say the prayer and he did. I understood the English "thank you" and the rest was in Russian-that' s okay, God understands every language. I was just glad he was willing to pray and he didn't let his lack of English hinder him and went with his native tongue! He was so happy about the little lunch I packed and showed me how full his sticking out belly was and kept giving me a thumbs up sign.

We studied English. At first Lex told me "No-America!" like not now, I'll study in America. Hello? Now is the perfect time-we have nothing better to do! I told him 10 minutes and we got out the books where I showed them a picture of an item with the word and then they repeated the word and looked for the item in the bigger picture of all the items. Julia really gets into it and after 10 minutes still wanted more so I told Lex he could play and I'd just work with Julia-he kept coming over and seeing what we were doing and showing us what he knows. He actually got in about a 1/2 hour of English studying. I told him 15 minutes tomorrow. I'm hoping to raise it 5 minutes each day until we get to a good 45 minutes. He'll be speaking English before he knows it!
Then we went out and played in the yard. I don’t know where all the children were. We were out for at least 2 hours and the only children that surfaced were three teenage boys that sat down and had a smoke while we played soccer. I told them through my excellent charade skills and fluent Russian “smoking (me pantomiming smoking) nett dobray. (Not good)”. I even offered them M&M’s if they’d put out their cigarettes but-no takers. How sad. I don’t think these boys could be more than 15. I don’t think they’re orphans but students of the school. I also saw at the grocery store a group of very attractive young boys-maybe 16 years old-each buying extra large can’s of beer. The other vice here is the pornography. It’s everywhere. Playboys available to thumb through in the restaurants, X rated DVD’s right within a child’s line of vision in the computer game store, soft porn being passed around on cell phones and everywhere you look bill boards with half naked women or women in very sexy lingerie. Everywhere! It makes me cringe.
The positive things I saw all over town (as I walked all over town today) was groups of youth cleaning up trash and working in the yards. I also saw many people cultivating their gardens and I can see bulbs coming up everywhere. Maybe I just arrived at the wrong time? Without the trash and a little color and flowers this place may not be so depressing! And these people all have green thumbs! Everywhere is indoor plants thriving-green and lush on every windowsill. It's amazing!
Later in the day Julia took my cell phone out of my coat pocket while Alex and I were kicking the soccer ball and inadvertently messed it up playing a game. Alex tried all his cell phone expertise/skills (which are vast-the boy can do more with a cell phone then I can) to fix it and it just got worse until the phone said “Sims card rejected”. Alex could tell I was distraught. He asked if I was sad-by pantomiming tears and saying “Mama?” He went so far as to offer me his cell phone-which is his most prized treasure.

Alex outside the orphanage looking perplexed about my phone situation.

We walked down to the cell phone card booth and they rattled off instructions to the kids that apparently involve me going somewhere where a computer is-like a main store? So here I am at the orphanage with no one’s phone numbers and not a soul that speaks English. It’s about 4:45 pm and I need to find Constantine. I ask Alex (counting on his fabulous ability to figure out what I'm asking-even if we don't speak the same language) if we can call the director on the school’s phone and get Constantine’s phone number from her? (She is his mother in law.) And wouldn’t you know it-the lady that sits in the lobby for hours on end monitoring the building is Constantine’s mother! She calls Const- Const talks to Julia-and he comes right over, takes me to the cell phone store and 10 grynva’s later I have a new Sims card! Const has most the numbers I need (Victor, Oxana, Hanna and of course him!) and within an hour I’m back in business! (Const actually left me his phone just in case mine wouldn’t work-it takes 1-3 hours to update. He made me show him that I knew how to call his wife in case I had an emergency. I really am being looked after over here!) As soon as I had service I sent Lex a text to let him know my phone works as I knew he was worried. I hope he lets Julia know too. She felt very bad too. Obviously no one will be playing with my phone anymore!
I also had a nice long phone call with my girls and mom and now I’m just thinking of what else I should do tonight. I think a book is calling my name…
Day one of ten….down! Nine more to go!!