IT'S THE LITTLE THINGS.........

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Today was fairly uneventful.  It started out sunny then began to rain so S and I stayed inside most of the day. He doesn’t seem to want to go out much, as he’s enthralled by all the toys I brought and watching  the The Incredibles and Tom & Jerry (over and over and…..). I gave him a wallet and put some grivna in it. He loves having something of his own and insists on sleeping with the wallet. He tried to give some of his grivna to our driver who stopped by tonight to drop off a new cell phone for me.  He’s also in love with a small flashlight I brought so we open the lock of our flat at night. He also had never been in an elevator before riding the one that takes us up to the 6^th floor of this building.

Today I let him stay in most of the day but insisted we go out for a short walk to get some exercise. We walked down to my favorite candy store located a few blocks from our flat near a bunch of street food vendors. They sell candy, cookies and fruit. You’re immediately enveloped by sweet aromas when you walk into the tiny shop and all the goodies are displayed in large piles, just like fruit at a farmer’s market. I bought some “cow candies” for Gavin (his favorite!) then asked S what he wanted. He just stood still, then looked at me. Then he looked away. I thought, “Is he mad I made him go for a walk?” Then it hit me. He was befuddled by too many choices. It was simply overwhelming! I then pointed to three types of candy and said, “Eta, eta, eley eta?” (This one, this one or this one?”). He was then able to choose one candy – the Lion bar. Everyday I try and have him make more and more decisions on his own. I must remember this is a completely new thing for him.

Tonight he took a shower for me and washed his hair.  I had to ask a few times but the bath crayons and waterproof Nemo book I brought finally did the trick. He proceeded to write his name on the shower walls with the crayons. He then let me clip his fingernails and clean his ears with Q-tips (as long as I let him watch Stich & Lilo again). I even introduced him to dental floss tonight!  

Tomorrow we’ll need to do another grocery run since this kid’s eating me out of house and home! For breakfast he had oatmeal, an entire banana, juice, bread, and an egg! I need to be careful of hording/overeating which is common in kids adopted from orphanages. Tonight at dinner, after eating his own dinner, he asked if he could have one of my rolls. I said sure. After that he was complaining of a stomach ache…poor little guy’s stomach is getting stretched like it’s never been before! He was fine  in 30 minutes. He weighed 42 lbs when he left the orphanage. It will be interesting to see how much he weighs in a few months : - ) .

Little man's lunchtime feast.

THESE ARE IMAGES FROM OUR LAST TRIP:

These are two of my favorte girls in S's wing. The kitten she is holding was born to a mama cat that lives at the orphanage. The kids take great care of the kittens! There are far fewer girls than boys for adoption worldwide.  There were ony 3 in S's entire wing of about 15 kids. This is because people who adopt usually want girls over boys....especially older boys.

Scott and S played soccer in the orphanage non-stop.

I asked some of S's friends to pose in front of their self-portraits and this is what they did. We spent around 30 days total visiting S in the orphanage and getting to know his friends. These 3 boys were sort of shy at first but warmed up to us. Their beautiful manners and brains blew away any preconceived notions I had of "orphans". Unfortunately, 2 of these boys are identical twins (center and right). This means they cannot be separated and must be adopted together. This puts their chance of ever being adopted extremely low since there is only a 20% chance of a single boy over the age of 5 being adopted in Ukraine. This is because most people who adopt want infants. In the past, 70% of boys released from orphanages ended up in a life of crime. The Ukrainian government now has a program in place to support these orphans until age 23 to try and curb this statistic.