Hello from cold (but not snowy, icy, sleety, or slushy)
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It’s Friday night here and we still have seen no moisture. The thermometer remains in the mid 20’s and we are somehow getting use to it.
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Thursday, Dec. 18th
Thursday was a bitter-sweet day here in
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The Williamsons checked out of their apartment Thursday morning, so Ostap brought them and their luggage to our apartment. They spent the day in our apartment and surrounding neighborhood until their train left at 5:30pm. After Ostap delivered them here, he then took Barb & me to the orphanage.
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It’s always a good time playing with the boy, but the Christmas tree (and its enticing, colorful decorations) still proves to be an attraction for small hands. Funny…I thought he would grow out of that after two or three days. I know when my parents told me something the second or third time I ALWAYS listened!
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I don’t know for sure what an excess of fresh bananas do to a 2 year olds digestive system, but it must not be pretty. After feeding him a banana a day for the last two weeks, the nurse had a few words for us today. We don’t really know what those words were…because they were spoken in Ukrainian. But when she knew we weren’t getting the message, she grabbed the banana, shook her finger, and said “No, No”. That was actually the first time we had been scolded in an orphanage. So today’s snack diet consisted of a juice box and a double portion of animal crackers- thought that should help get him firmed back up. So after a fun visit, we hopped a cab back to the apartment.
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We said goodbye to The Williamsons as they departed in a taxi bound for the train station at 4:20pm. We ate some pasta for supper then Barb watched some American movies dubbed in Ukrainian that were running on TV. I worked on a photo site in order to prepare to share photographs of our son. (I guess you read the other day that we are going to post his name and photos sometime later this weekend.) It ended as a quiet night.
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Friday, December 19, 2008
After our nights slumber, we awoke to a healthy bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios. A leisurely morning at the apartment ended when the taxi came at noon. Our son came to the playroom at about 12:45pm, and the fun began. Barb asked the nurse about the banana today, the nurse indicated that ½ the banana would be fine. I discussed it with our son, we decided it was a small banana and he could handle the whole thing. I made him promise he wouldn’t tell the nurse, and if he did he is suppose to implicate his mother. (I think the nurse still likes me.)
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We did make some progress on the Christmas tree. Our son touched the ornaments a few times but he understood not to pull them off. The one time I did stand to my feet, he scurried away from the tree pretty quickly. We do believe he is mostly drawn to the shiny gold ornaments. Today we realized that he is finding his reflection in those ornaments. I don’t know if he has ever seen a mirror or not. We keep using the digital camera to recall photos and reinforce “mama, papa, and son”. It will be interesting when we get to the apartment with him; we have a full length mirror attached to the wall. He may be concerned that he isn’t the only little boy in the room!
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He is still enjoying his literary moments. The three books we presently pack back and forth to the orphanage are Ukrainian versions of “The Three Little Pigs”, “The Goose that Laid the Golden Egg”, and a book about a baby chicken searching for it’s mama that we have forgotten the name of. (If you have the answer, blog or e-mail us and you may win a terrific prize.) Bubbles were a big hit today as well. He loves to chase and pop them before they hit the ground. We love bubbles, because they seem to wear him out pretty fast after he chases them for 20 minutes. We figure that if it helps him wear down naturally, it saves us the Benadryl for later!
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So at 2:40 pm the nurse snatched him from us and he headed off for his nap. (He didn’t mention the banana, she didn’t ask, so we didn’t offer.) After a taxi ride to the apartment, Barb & I journeyed out for a cold walk. We headed to
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I mentioned earlier about the books, let me tell you about our arsenal that we pack each day before we head to the orphanage. In order to guarantee a fun and active two hours with our son, we have to make sure we can entertain him, amuse him, and convince him that we are cool people to hang with. Each day we pack the 3 books, an inflatable beach ball (Barb usually gets the honor of inflating that), two baseball size bouncy balls, a 4” teddy bear, a 3” rubber squeaky yellow cat, and bubbles to complete our toy line up. From the food section we pack a juice box, a bottle of water, a sippy cup, a minimum of 20 animal crackers, and the ever important and much debated banana. The cleanup tool, wet wipes, has become a staple for us as well. After all of that is packed, we have to make sure we get the camera, camcorder, and batteries in my toy bag. Who would have thought two year olds would be this much work. I can’t wait ‘til he comes to the apartment full time, I’m sure it will get a whole lot easier then…right?
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Speaking of coming to the apartment, you are all invited to
Light, and enjoying that famous Christmas tradition of watching National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. If you can make it, please RSVP soon. We only have 6 chairs, so if more than 4 of you are coming, we will need to round up some beanbag chairs or something.
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Looking ahead to next week things will change a lot for the Daugherty family in the
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So we continue to pray that all the worst weather lands in
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Missing you all, and remembering you during this beautiful Christmas week.
Darrin, Barb, & TBAS (To Be Announced Soon)
