Vitals: Bill took Paul to visit Ruslan today and I stayed "home" to do school with the other three. In the afternoon, we went downtown to a notary to get some paper work started so they can legally separate Ruslan and his sister. I got a little lost on the way. That transfer station is SO packed. If you get in the wrong river of humanity, there is NO TURNING BACK. I knew we were in the wrong stream, but there was no way out. We ended up exiting the Teatralna exit rather than the Zoloti Vorota, which is where I wanted to be. I just kept walking with the crowd until we hit the open air and called Nadya, our translator, to figure out how to get to St. Sophia's (where we were meeting) from where we were.
Not So Vital: The notary's office was behind the Hyatt (or maybe the Hilton--anyway, big, fancy, American hotel). I recognized it from the last time I was here in 1988. We visited five cities-but Moscow twice- and stayed around a week in each city. There was no cold anything; no cold water, no ice and definitely no a/c. By the time we got to Kyiv, I hadn't had a cold drink in about a month. To make matters worse, there was no plain water. All they had to drink was orange Fanta and/or seltzer water. There was no cold, plain water anywhere. It was deep summer and I was dying. I remember the Hyatt because it is a glass building, well maintained and as soon as I saw it, I knew American's would be there. We got some free time and I made a bee-line for their bar and bought a diet coke with ice. It cost me $2.50, which was a lot at the time, although I had $5 with me, just in case. I still remember that drink.
As soon as we passed by it today, I was right back there, sitting at the bar, cooling my hands on my glass and savoring every swallow. Looking back, I wonder why I didn't get an ice water, but I don't think they had clear, bubble free, bottled water here back then. I don't remember drinking it even once. At any rate, I remember that coke. If you remember in Gone With the Wind, Scarlett begged Ashley for "Just one kiss. I swear I'll live on it the rest of my life!!" ...It was sort of like that. I lived on that drink for the rest of the summer.
Anyway, they have coke here now, and ice, and I'm grateful. The papers are signed...and we wait....
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.
Another day, another visit. Bill finally broke down and bought a $30 water filter. I'm ashamed at how grateful I am for clean drinking water. Details below....
So, I'm a little behind, but this is about right for me anyway. Saturday morning, Bill looked at me with the eyes of a dead man and asked if I would take the girls to Vorzel and visit Ruslan so he could spend a morning at "home" with the boys. Of course, I was in NO WAY prepared to do this. Like I mentioned, I have been herding kids while he figured out the routes. But, I finally decided, if he could do it, so could I. So, there I was about 7am on Saturday morning walking to the Metro with my precious little girls. I was lost before we even left the Metro station. We had to take the first train to an intersection of the Green Line and the Red Line. Rather than just give the transfer station ONE NAME, it has TWO--one for the Green Line and one for the Red Line. I was looking for the Red Line's title, forgetting that the Green Line will only take me to the Green title. If this makes no sense to you then pat yourself on the back and Thank God, for you are an American.
In case you are wondering, we walk to the Lukyanivska (green) Metro station and take the Metro to the Zoloti Vorta (green) stop. Then we walk up some stairs, over the tracks, and up more stairs to the red line and go from Teatralna Universitet (red) seven stops to Svyatoshn (red). Then we walk to a bus stop and wait anywhere from one to forty minutes to catch the bus to Vorzel, then it's a three to four block walk to the orphanage.
To make matters worse, those words are the phonetic spellings for the Ukrainian names. Each stop also has a Russian name. The Ukrainian names are usually listed first and are actually in Cyrillic letters. Since so much is indecipherable, we started to associate English words with the Cyrillic Ukrainian spellings. So, for example, "Svyatoshn" in Cyrillic looks like "CBRTOWNH" which, you must agree, is really "Cybertown" to an English speaker. This habit is not always helpful, since it makes three names for each stop (Ukrainian, Russian and the English nick-name). Since we hadn't talked this out yet, I didn't always connect Bill's directions about "Svyatoshn" with my memories of "Cybertown?" ...I was further LOST because the "Z" sound is the letter "3" in cyrillic. So, Zoloti is similar to "3O--OTI" and Vorzel is similar to "BOP3--." The dashes are for cyrillic letters that I can't make on the computer, but in the end, the words look like "3BOP---" and BOP3---." It probably would have been fine, if I could only remember which comes when. ...Not being necessarily detail oriented, it was a rough morning for me.
Our metro stop. This is what you see after descending the two sets of escalators.
This is where we wait for the train.
This is one of the frescoes inside the archway. They are all unique.
This is looking down at the metro tracks. There's no barrier, and it always terrifies me to have the kids near the edge.
Reilly took a photo of the train as it pulled in.
Anyway, I finally figured it out and we made it. Ruslan continues to be adorable. He looked around a little for Bill, but seemed OK with the "B" team after a while. We brought a coloring book and crayons (no interest), and a balloon (huge thrill). He LOVED the balloon. He usually combat crawls everywhere, but he can get up on all fours when the need arises. To throw the balloon, he gets on all fours, lift his torso upright, throws the balloon in the air with both hands and then, since he doesn't have enough torso strength to hold himself up more than a millisecond, he falls quickly down and bangs the floor hard. He usually manages to catch himself with both hands before his chin hits. It's a pretty loud thump and it's painful to watch, but he laughed and squealed the whole time throwing and chasing that balloon. Nevertheless, I finally took it away, hoping to delay the stress fracture that I know is in our future.
Then he let me hold him up and we went for a "walk" around the orphanage. He was enamored with the kitchen. It seemed as though he had never been in it before. We looked on every shelf, opened every door and drawer (all empty), turned on and off the water and chatted it up with the cook. It is primitive, and looks about to fall over, but very, very clean. A woman brought in a pot of chicken/rice/veggie soup and it looks like they cook it in another Baby House and then distribute the food to the other houses. The Baby House Five kitchen is mostly for dishwashing.
We left just before noon and got back to our apartment about 3:45. Even though it was Saturday, the bus and subway were packed. I was TOTALLY WIPED OUT, and slept until dinner. I'm continually surprised over how tired I am here, anytime we go out. Bill went running before dinner and said there there was some sort of October Fest going on downtown, which probably accounts for the crowds.
He also went grocery shopping with the older kids while I did school with Sharon in the evening. At first, we bought all our drinking water. But it was getting expensive and heavy to carry water for six people every time we went shopping. So, I started to boil tap water a few days after we arrived. This was working OK, as far as it goes, until Friday, when I noticed the tap water had taken on a distinct yellow tint. God forgive me, but that yellow tint combined with the decidedly not clean taste was more than I could handle. I also noticed that none of us were peeing, since none of us were drinking. I finally broke down and asked Bill to buy a water filter. How wonderful to have clean, good water anytime I want!!
I was here in 1988, before the fall of the Berlin wall, but after "Glasnost." A LOT has changed. One thing I remember distinctly is that I went for two whole months without even one drink of clear, cold water. All the tap water was yellow-brown and gritty. All they had to drink was warm seltzer (bubble) water, or warm orange Fanta. I lasted two months in 1988 without even one drink of cold water and I remember being happy. How did it happen? I didn't even make it a week this time! Although, in 1988 when I got back to the states, we went to Pizza Hut right away and I remember getting a quart size ice water, all to myself. I'm sure it was jet lag and travel stress, but I sat in the booth and cried over that huge plastic glass. I was so grateful for that ice water. ...I didn't cry this time, but I'm so glad we bought that filter!!
Bill took Sharon to visit Ruslan today so I could stay "home" with the older kids and catch up on school and laundry. They had a good visit and he said Ruslan looked a little panicked when it was time for them to leave. This is one of those painful steps in adopting here. You want them to bond with you, but at the same time, when they do, the separations get more and more painful. Lovely system.
I also spent time with the road/bus/metro map trying to find another route to get to Vorzel (there just has to be a better way). Bill got there in about 2.5 hours this time, but it's still an amazingly long time to travel 17 miles. I think it was a good visit, and this habit of taking turns to go out there will be a lifesaver for us. It's a really LONG day. They left at 8am and got back about 3pm, totally wiped out.
We'll all go again as a family tomorrow (Saturday). I have to learn the metro/bus route so that I can do it alone, without Bill. I'm generally herding cats while Bill is looking at the maps. We could take a taxi every day, but it's about $50 a day, vs $7 to take public transportation ($.15 each for the subway and $1 each for the bus to Vorzel).
It's going to add up over time, but I'm so grateful to have the kids nearby, I don't care. ...Thank goodness we took the children with us here! Occasionally I make a right decision.
