Ten Dollar Smiles

End of Day Eight

Vitals:  Since today was Sunday, all six of us went to see Ruslan this morning.  My goodness, he is precious.  He is just all smiles as he "walks" in to see us and he smiles most of the visit.  Today as we left, he asked us for a hug and kiss.  This was a huge step in my opinion.  Therefore, I have been trying not to overwhelm Ruslan with affection, only giving him "high fives," tousling his hair and maybe a squeeze on the arm when we say goodbye.  But today, after the arm squeezes, as we were walking out, he hollered after Bill that he wanted a hug and kiss on the cheek, and then he asked for one from me as well.  It was wonderful and quite endearing.  PROGRESS!!!

Not so vital:  This hug thing would NEVER have happened with our eldest son.  We adopted him when he was twelve.  He gave me a quick hug the first day I met him and after that, he never touched me voluntarily even once.   The most I could do without eliciting a grimace was to give him an affectionate bump.  Sharon, our second adoptee was three when we got her.  She smothers us with love and hugs and kisses every day, which is very yummy.  But, she is a girl and was really still a baby when she came to us.  We were wondering how Ruslan would handle the whole affection thing, since he is in between those ages and you just can't know what their experiences have been.  Anyway, this is definitely a good sign. 

It was a good visit.  It's hard to say how much he has been using his walker, but I don't think he is putting much weight on his legs AT ALL.  He seems to be holding himself up with his arms, which, considering the angle, is really difficult.  He can't straighten his arms and lock his elbows, because he is too short for the walker, so he has to hold himself up with his arms at almost 90 degrees.  It must be really difficult.  He lasts long enough to get into the room from the hallway and then he collapses onto the floor and either combat crawls or gets up on his knees and sort of jump-scoots.  He can't move his legs one at a time as he crawls, so he braces his upper body and pulls both his legs forward at the same time.  Then he moves his arms forward (together) and catches up his legs again. 

After the visit, we went into the center of the city to try to eat out and catch the rest of the Oktoberfest but apparently it was just a Saturday festival.  All that was left was a bunch of swindlers who wanted to get a photo with you and then charge you for it.  ...charming.  Luckily, the costumes were really cheezy, so we weren't tempted on that note, but we made the mistake of letting the kids hold some white doves that some men were displaying. 

The photos look charming, but the experience was horrible.  The men wanted 100 grivna (about 12 dollars) for the pictures.  They were really pushy.  I wanted to go get a policeman, or at least threaten to, because they were such bullies, but Bill thought it was better to just give them the grivna--probably since there were four of them and he was surrounded by his own small children.  We won't make that mistake again, but it definitely took the fun out of the day.  We'd almost forgot...This is UKRAINE.