Rimi Hypermart

Good morning everyone! (Middle of the night for you though!)

I haven't been on the computer at all in the last couple of days, except when necessary for the translator. We got Katya and Roman Friday afternoon, after picking up Nastja's completed immigrant Visa (all documents complete for her now!). Then we went shopping at the "Hypermart" grocery store for Nastja's goodbye party. That was fun having three kids plus Igor running around a store throwing stuff in our cart. There ended up being one or two things that were actually edible to me, which were my dinner! LOL It was mostly these pastry things filled with tuna or mushrooms or ham, as well as fruit and cookies. Katya was cute, she always tried to choose the cheapest options. When we looked for a cake she picked the cheapest one as the one she wanted.

Usually the goodbye party is at the child's orphanage, but in this case for some reason they decided to do it at our apartment. So we had Nastja's former caretaker Anna, and the lady who was her caretaker before Anna, Igor, Igor's daughter, Vlad (Nastja's brother), Anja, a little girl named Ilona who lives at Nastja's orphanage, and the 5 of us. We played hide and seek with all the kids, competed in our best break-dancing headstand handstand moves (I impressed everyone with my favorite break dancing freeze, which they all failed to learn how to do!). Jason impressed everyone with how long he can hold a hand stand. Katya was the best at doing a bridge (backwards on the floor with stomach in the air) and holding it for a long time.

Yesterday we went to the indoor water park again in the morning. We were supposed to go to the Tallinn zoo in the afternoon with Anna, but the kids begged not to go. I think it's just too cold for them to be outside that long. We went to that festival last weekend and were all chilled to the bone. But Katya said she just wanted to be at the hotel and playing with us, not going out somewhere. So the most we did was watch a movie and eat dinner and went ice skating. We played Uno and hide and seek a lot.

Nastja's doing great. She is so much easier when the other two are around, and we can't wait for them to be home for her benefit too. It'll be good to have some time to bond with her alone, and she needs a lot of teaching for boundaries and rules. She doesn't do anything really bad, but she tests a lot. She argues, she whines like a 2 year old when she wants something, and if you tell her that if she does something again she'll get a certain consequence, she will do it again just to see if you will actually follow through. Which of course, we do! Other than that, she's got a ton of great qualities. She's very affectionate, loves to be hugged and loves to tell us that she loves us. She also doesn't pout much. If she gets offended at something (such as being told no, or being punished), it takes less than a minute to get over it. That's something her caretaker and her sister also told us at different times, that if she gets upset, it lasts no time at all.

Anja also told me that she is purposely disobedient on small matters at times, but she hopes that she will become "quick-witted and obedient" in our environment. I think she'll present normal challenges for a kid her age, for the most part.

Some of the most irritating things - like baby talk - I think will go away when she knows more English. We are looking forward to getting her home, and getting home ourselves, although we're not looking forward to leaving especially if we get no news about the kids' paperwork.

We are still going to leave Thursday, so no changes there. We have to go to Nastja's orphanage and pack her stuff tomorrow, and on Wednesday we get the kids in the afternoon again, and Anja will be spending the night and going with us to the airport to say goodbye. Since those plans were suggested, we decided to stay.

All for now! I'll get more time during the week to write again I probably. Hang in there till the next episode!

Love,
Molly