Hey everybody,
Been really busy the last few days, considering our present company. Even when I have time at the computer, everything takes me twice as long because of the distractions and noise of two playing kids. One of the kids being Jason of course. And then sometimes I can't help but join in the fun. ;)
First, updates on our kids in Estonia... The letter was translated into Russian and emailed to Dmitry, who will hopefully be able to get something done with it before Russia closes for their holidays on the 1st. They will be closed for about 2 weeks I think. It's POSSIBLE they could get it done by then. But I'm not really thinking it's likely. The Russians could ask for more backup documents, which would then have to be translated into Russian sent to them. So Diana is having Igor work on that now just in case. In the meantime, Dmitry and Diana both said they are very confident that this will work. But of course there are no guarantees. :( We'll just keep hoping. In the meantime the kids seem to still be doing well, although just as anxious.
I'll get some pictures up here of Sasha as soon as possible! Jason has to load them on the computer from his camera. Today I took a picture of her doing our dishes. We were just hanging out waiting till time to eat dinner, and there were a bunch of dishes from lunch and some left over from cookies we made last night. She just took herself to the sink and start washing them, humming and singing to herself, while she meticulously washed each item carefully, thoroughly washing it, and then smelling it to make sure it's clean before putting it in the drainer. She's so cute.
All the news from here. Stay tuned. :)
Love,
Molly
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Thursday, December 18, 2008
The good, the bad and the Oi.
OK, so, there is good news and bad news about the paperwork for the kids. Diana called me today and said she found out from Dmitry that he went to the MOE and they are being friendly and cooperative with him. Bad news is the letter that the MSA sent was ONLY in Estonian and English. Not Russian. ?!?!?!?!?! Diana is really irritated, to say the least!!!! Don't know why they did that. The MOE asked for a Russian translation to be just emailed over to them so they have it. Sounds like perhaps there won't be a problem getting the release once they have the Russian version. Don't know for sure, but that sounds like how it's going.
Dmitry is also back and forth to Moscow so much in the near future that he can do whatever needs to be done himself. The only thing we're concerned about, as far as timing goes, is hopefully getting this done before the MOE goes on their holiday in January.
Today was still good with Sasha. This morning Jason went to a friend's school (Julia) to be presented as Julia's "special friend". She read a report about him and why he is her friend and why he's special. LOL So this morning Sasha was up and dressed before I was, so I dragged myself out of bed and got us some cereal. She took a shower herself, made her bed, and everything else again. After we ate breakfast, she watched tv for a little while so I could take out the dogs and do some work. Then she got bored and started walking around the house, so I got out this colored sculpting clay and Paint-by-Number things for us to play with. She loved that. We did that for a couple hours. Then she started running around, tickling me, giggling, and massive amounts of energy. I wore out at about the time she asked me if we could prepare in advance our lunch so when Jason got home at about noon, it would be ready. She even walked outside and came back in, pretending to be Jason noticing a lunch already made, so I would understand what she was wanting to do. She helped me cook lunch, and then Jason took over playing with her after lunch so I could do some other stuff. Then we went back to Julia's school to watch Julia perform in a play about the different regions of the US. TWICE Julia said the forbidden word (adoption) in front of Sasha. I think my face almost melted off I was so embarrassed, worried that Sasha understood the word and misunderstood what Julia was saying. But Sasha didn't appear to notice.
This evening at the dinner-time prayer she said "AMEN!" at the end, all proud of herself for remembering what to say at the end of prayers, from hearing us say it a few times now.
Her English is fantastic for so soon. She reads signs while we're driving down the road. It's pretty funny. We quiz her by saying words in Russian and she'll say them in English, or vice-versa, so we know she understands what the words mean. We had to explain not to say this one word whisker she has, which sounds exactly like "sh**". She didn't know that it sounded like a bad word in English. When we told her, she covered her mouth and went, with a high pitched voice, "Oi!"
Anyway, it's a lot of fun. Last night our friend Marissa (Julia's older sister) was really enjoying listening to Sasha talk in Russian, explaining Russian words for some of what we were saying (like "how are you" and different animals and colors). Marissa said, "This is so cool! Can we get one?" hahaha
Nothing else to report. Sasha is really good therapy for us during this difficult time. We really miss the kids. We'll talk to them on the phone again on Saturday hopefully. Also we're due to receive a letter in the mail from them any day, along with one from Anna their former caretaker. I'll let ya know!
Love,
Molly
Dmitry is also back and forth to Moscow so much in the near future that he can do whatever needs to be done himself. The only thing we're concerned about, as far as timing goes, is hopefully getting this done before the MOE goes on their holiday in January.
Today was still good with Sasha. This morning Jason went to a friend's school (Julia) to be presented as Julia's "special friend". She read a report about him and why he is her friend and why he's special. LOL So this morning Sasha was up and dressed before I was, so I dragged myself out of bed and got us some cereal. She took a shower herself, made her bed, and everything else again. After we ate breakfast, she watched tv for a little while so I could take out the dogs and do some work. Then she got bored and started walking around the house, so I got out this colored sculpting clay and Paint-by-Number things for us to play with. She loved that. We did that for a couple hours. Then she started running around, tickling me, giggling, and massive amounts of energy. I wore out at about the time she asked me if we could prepare in advance our lunch so when Jason got home at about noon, it would be ready. She even walked outside and came back in, pretending to be Jason noticing a lunch already made, so I would understand what she was wanting to do. She helped me cook lunch, and then Jason took over playing with her after lunch so I could do some other stuff. Then we went back to Julia's school to watch Julia perform in a play about the different regions of the US. TWICE Julia said the forbidden word (adoption) in front of Sasha. I think my face almost melted off I was so embarrassed, worried that Sasha understood the word and misunderstood what Julia was saying. But Sasha didn't appear to notice.
This evening at the dinner-time prayer she said "AMEN!" at the end, all proud of herself for remembering what to say at the end of prayers, from hearing us say it a few times now.
Her English is fantastic for so soon. She reads signs while we're driving down the road. It's pretty funny. We quiz her by saying words in Russian and she'll say them in English, or vice-versa, so we know she understands what the words mean. We had to explain not to say this one word whisker she has, which sounds exactly like "sh**". She didn't know that it sounded like a bad word in English. When we told her, she covered her mouth and went, with a high pitched voice, "Oi!"
Anyway, it's a lot of fun. Last night our friend Marissa (Julia's older sister) was really enjoying listening to Sasha talk in Russian, explaining Russian words for some of what we were saying (like "how are you" and different animals and colors). Marissa said, "This is so cool! Can we get one?" hahaha
Nothing else to report. Sasha is really good therapy for us during this difficult time. We really miss the kids. We'll talk to them on the phone again on Saturday hopefully. Also we're due to receive a letter in the mail from them any day, along with one from Anna their former caretaker. I'll let ya know!
Love,
Molly
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
You are a fat duck.
Hey all!
Still no news from Diana. I will call or email her tomorrow to say "WHAT IS GOING ON?!" I'll keep ya posted. SOOOO frustrating!!!!!!
Q&A time... Sasha is 10 years old. She will be 11 in May. The program is called New Horizons for Children. It's based out of Atlanta, and it is a strictly host-only program, even though all the children who come are orphans who live in orphanages (and sometimes foster homes). They have a coordinator here in PA for northeast families. The kids fly into JFK and then continue to ATL or Washington DC for other families in those areas. Since it is a host-only program, it is allowed by these countries who do not allow pre-selection of children available for adoption. Because of that, to protect the program, the kids are NOT told that they may find an adoptive family in the process of their visit. They might, and they might not. In fact no one is even allowed to mention the word "adoption" in front of her, just to prevent misunderstandings and possible false hopes. The children may or may not even be officially available for adoption. In Sasha's case, she tells us she has 2 brothers and a sister. We don't know their ages, if they are available for adoption, or if they have to be adopted together. No idea! A lot of times, though, people do host with the hope of continuing on to adopt the child they host, and the host program people know that and don't discourage it. On an official front, though, it is JUST for a visit. But it's great for families looking to choose a child to adopt, because the family can really get to know the children in their own home for several weeks. And then during the adoption process can re-host them in the summer and again the following winter while the process takes a thousand years. The program also interviews the kids individually and tries to rule out RAD and other behavioral disorders.
Today Sasha really got comfortable with us I think. We went shopping for some dress clothes and shoes, and she seemed to have fun trying on dresses. She's not extremely girly, but seemed to have a lot of fun. She doesn't always give definitive answers about whether she likes something or not. I have to ask "Yes, no, or ehhhhh?" She will shrug and go "I don't know" and then go "OK" if it's fine, or she'll shrug and go "I don't know" and then shake her head if she doesn't like it. She quietly giggles in between the shrug and the giggle.
Then later I started tickling her (kind of out of nowhere), and she turned into this crazy hyper playful laughing silly thing! She started tickling both of us, running away to escape all over the house, screaming if we suddenly got too close and almost caught her, and laughing till she couldn't breathe. So for about an hour we played tag, pillow fight, tickling like crazy games around the house. Then Jason went outside to play more tag, kick the soccer ball and throw the football. So you know Jason loved all that activity!
Oh yeah, and she made us breakfast this morning, after getting up and making her bed and taking a shower. She put a bunch of olive oil in a pan, cracked 4 eggs into it, cooked it for several minutes, sprinkled cut up ham on top, cut it into 3 parts, put it on plates, squirted ketchup on it... Then got out forks for each bowl, set them on the table with napkins, got out the bread, put butter on 3 pieces along with a slice of American cheese on each, and got me to microwave it until it was melted. Then she sat us on each side of her at the table and we all ate. You have to remember in your imagination, though, that does not behave arrogantly or over confidently at all, isn't extremely outgoing and sure of herself, and asked every step of the way "OK?" to make sure we wouldn't get mad. We just let her do what she was going to do, under supervision, to see what she'd do.
The food wasn't bad, by the way, even though I thought some of it was going to be gross.
She also is already using quite a bit of English for less than 24 hours here. She already knew 1-12 in English and recognizes other numbers in spoken English, as well as "My name is Sasha", "Hello", "Yes", "No", "Dog", "Cat", and other words like that. Now she uses sentences including "What is this" and "This is a"... And says "I'm sleepy". When she was playing today, she said "Ya ne Rooski, Ya American!", which means "I'm not Russian, I'm American!"
At Letty's house today she entertained the kids with oragami boats and teaching them lots of Russian words. They taught her a lot of English too I think. At one point she ran up to me, laughing histarically into my arm because Julia repeated a Russian phrase incorrectly and it sounded really funny. The kids all are so comfortable trying out the words, so it was just laughs all the time. Josephine, the 6 year old, kept talking to Sasha like she didn't understand the language barrier. She asked her once "Can't you hear???" LOL She also would say things like "Do you know how to say blowdryer?" Or say long strands of sentences to her that Sasha obviously wouldn't understand. Sasha would smile and say softly with a giggle, in Russian, "Not understand."
There were several other language related entertaining things that happened today, like her calling everyone a fat animal of one kind or another, and didn't know that Jason knew what the Russian word for "fat" was, so it became this big joke afterwards where she kept saying "Talsty Cat, Talsty Dog, Talsty Duck!". I think it all came about because Joanie said "It's a tad toasty in here," and Sasha thought she said "It's a cat talsty (obese) in here" and Sasha laughed. So then someone became an obese cat, and so on it went.
OK time to turn off Spongebob and go to sleepy!
Love,
Molly
Still no news from Diana. I will call or email her tomorrow to say "WHAT IS GOING ON?!" I'll keep ya posted. SOOOO frustrating!!!!!!
Q&A time... Sasha is 10 years old. She will be 11 in May. The program is called New Horizons for Children. It's based out of Atlanta, and it is a strictly host-only program, even though all the children who come are orphans who live in orphanages (and sometimes foster homes). They have a coordinator here in PA for northeast families. The kids fly into JFK and then continue to ATL or Washington DC for other families in those areas. Since it is a host-only program, it is allowed by these countries who do not allow pre-selection of children available for adoption. Because of that, to protect the program, the kids are NOT told that they may find an adoptive family in the process of their visit. They might, and they might not. In fact no one is even allowed to mention the word "adoption" in front of her, just to prevent misunderstandings and possible false hopes. The children may or may not even be officially available for adoption. In Sasha's case, she tells us she has 2 brothers and a sister. We don't know their ages, if they are available for adoption, or if they have to be adopted together. No idea! A lot of times, though, people do host with the hope of continuing on to adopt the child they host, and the host program people know that and don't discourage it. On an official front, though, it is JUST for a visit. But it's great for families looking to choose a child to adopt, because the family can really get to know the children in their own home for several weeks. And then during the adoption process can re-host them in the summer and again the following winter while the process takes a thousand years. The program also interviews the kids individually and tries to rule out RAD and other behavioral disorders.
Today Sasha really got comfortable with us I think. We went shopping for some dress clothes and shoes, and she seemed to have fun trying on dresses. She's not extremely girly, but seemed to have a lot of fun. She doesn't always give definitive answers about whether she likes something or not. I have to ask "Yes, no, or ehhhhh?" She will shrug and go "I don't know" and then go "OK" if it's fine, or she'll shrug and go "I don't know" and then shake her head if she doesn't like it. She quietly giggles in between the shrug and the giggle.
Then later I started tickling her (kind of out of nowhere), and she turned into this crazy hyper playful laughing silly thing! She started tickling both of us, running away to escape all over the house, screaming if we suddenly got too close and almost caught her, and laughing till she couldn't breathe. So for about an hour we played tag, pillow fight, tickling like crazy games around the house. Then Jason went outside to play more tag, kick the soccer ball and throw the football. So you know Jason loved all that activity!
Oh yeah, and she made us breakfast this morning, after getting up and making her bed and taking a shower. She put a bunch of olive oil in a pan, cracked 4 eggs into it, cooked it for several minutes, sprinkled cut up ham on top, cut it into 3 parts, put it on plates, squirted ketchup on it... Then got out forks for each bowl, set them on the table with napkins, got out the bread, put butter on 3 pieces along with a slice of American cheese on each, and got me to microwave it until it was melted. Then she sat us on each side of her at the table and we all ate. You have to remember in your imagination, though, that does not behave arrogantly or over confidently at all, isn't extremely outgoing and sure of herself, and asked every step of the way "OK?" to make sure we wouldn't get mad. We just let her do what she was going to do, under supervision, to see what she'd do.
The food wasn't bad, by the way, even though I thought some of it was going to be gross.
She also is already using quite a bit of English for less than 24 hours here. She already knew 1-12 in English and recognizes other numbers in spoken English, as well as "My name is Sasha", "Hello", "Yes", "No", "Dog", "Cat", and other words like that. Now she uses sentences including "What is this" and "This is a"... And says "I'm sleepy". When she was playing today, she said "Ya ne Rooski, Ya American!", which means "I'm not Russian, I'm American!"
At Letty's house today she entertained the kids with oragami boats and teaching them lots of Russian words. They taught her a lot of English too I think. At one point she ran up to me, laughing histarically into my arm because Julia repeated a Russian phrase incorrectly and it sounded really funny. The kids all are so comfortable trying out the words, so it was just laughs all the time. Josephine, the 6 year old, kept talking to Sasha like she didn't understand the language barrier. She asked her once "Can't you hear???" LOL She also would say things like "Do you know how to say blowdryer?" Or say long strands of sentences to her that Sasha obviously wouldn't understand. Sasha would smile and say softly with a giggle, in Russian, "Not understand."
There were several other language related entertaining things that happened today, like her calling everyone a fat animal of one kind or another, and didn't know that Jason knew what the Russian word for "fat" was, so it became this big joke afterwards where she kept saying "Talsty Cat, Talsty Dog, Talsty Duck!". I think it all came about because Joanie said "It's a tad toasty in here," and Sasha thought she said "It's a cat talsty (obese) in here" and Sasha laughed. So then someone became an obese cat, and so on it went.
OK time to turn off Spongebob and go to sleepy!
Love,
Molly
What time is it?
No news on the kids' paperwork. Diana called Dmitri Monday and he was in a meeting and said he'd call her back, and as of then I haven't heard from anyone. I didn't bother calling Diana again yesterday because I know she is really swamped and would call me if there was anything to report. So as far as we assume, the letter arrived in Moscow and they will soon (if they haven't started already) be taking it to the MOE. We (wait for it... here it comes again!!.....) hope we'll hear something soon.
In the meantime, we received Sasha last night at JFK from St. Petersburg, Russia. For those of you who don't remember or didn't notice when I posted about her, she's visiting us for 4 weeks through a host program. She came along with about 120 other kids from Latvia and Russia. We were called to be a backup family for a family who couldn't host her after all. We're so glad they missed out! She is so sweet.
At the airport the flight came in at about 6:15, but they didn't get through customs and come out till almost 7:30. She was ushered into the arrival waiting area with a bunch of other kids and immediately noticed our poster with "Welcome SASHA!" and her picture on it. She smiled and came over right away. We hugged her (she didn't hug back- which we expected that. None of the kids from Eastern Europe seem to know how to hug at first!). She just smiled big and giggled.
She is shy, like she's uncertain about what to say or do, and about asking for something. You know how someone can be shy and act indifferent or disinterested, or someone can be shy and sit and smile cutely? She's the second. She seems concerned to do the right thing, but started talking pretty quickly. Of course we don't understand everything she says. But she talks anyway. She corrects our Russian pronunciation, in a bashful way. It's very funny. I told Jason she actually reminds me of ME as a child. (Not that I'm saying I was cute and sweet. But I was! ;) ) She also reminds me of Tristan (my nephew). She makes this funny face when she says something and she's not sure how to explain it, where she blinks a couple times and shrugs and laughs quietly. I told Jason later that I finally realized that those kinds of mannerisms remind me of Tristan.
When we got home, she unpacked and neatly folded her clothes and put them away, then sat on her bed quietly waiting for us to tell her what else to do. So we got her changed, teeth brushed and into bed. She's very agreeable and so far seems extremely easy to get along with.
Today I have a couple of appointments but we have to take her shopping for a few more clothes and do some arts and crafts for fun. We'll probably also take her over to Letty's house to play with Joanie and Julia. She's still asleep now (or maybe not sure if she's allowed to get up? LOL). She is probably really tired from traveling over 24 hours to get here. It's 5pm where she lives, which means when we went to bed it was 8am for her. She slept in the car a lot on the way home.
All for now!
Love,
Molly
In the meantime, we received Sasha last night at JFK from St. Petersburg, Russia. For those of you who don't remember or didn't notice when I posted about her, she's visiting us for 4 weeks through a host program. She came along with about 120 other kids from Latvia and Russia. We were called to be a backup family for a family who couldn't host her after all. We're so glad they missed out! She is so sweet.
At the airport the flight came in at about 6:15, but they didn't get through customs and come out till almost 7:30. She was ushered into the arrival waiting area with a bunch of other kids and immediately noticed our poster with "Welcome SASHA!" and her picture on it. She smiled and came over right away. We hugged her (she didn't hug back- which we expected that. None of the kids from Eastern Europe seem to know how to hug at first!). She just smiled big and giggled.
She is shy, like she's uncertain about what to say or do, and about asking for something. You know how someone can be shy and act indifferent or disinterested, or someone can be shy and sit and smile cutely? She's the second. She seems concerned to do the right thing, but started talking pretty quickly. Of course we don't understand everything she says. But she talks anyway. She corrects our Russian pronunciation, in a bashful way. It's very funny. I told Jason she actually reminds me of ME as a child. (Not that I'm saying I was cute and sweet. But I was! ;) ) She also reminds me of Tristan (my nephew). She makes this funny face when she says something and she's not sure how to explain it, where she blinks a couple times and shrugs and laughs quietly. I told Jason later that I finally realized that those kinds of mannerisms remind me of Tristan.
When we got home, she unpacked and neatly folded her clothes and put them away, then sat on her bed quietly waiting for us to tell her what else to do. So we got her changed, teeth brushed and into bed. She's very agreeable and so far seems extremely easy to get along with.
Today I have a couple of appointments but we have to take her shopping for a few more clothes and do some arts and crafts for fun. We'll probably also take her over to Letty's house to play with Joanie and Julia. She's still asleep now (or maybe not sure if she's allowed to get up? LOL). She is probably really tired from traveling over 24 hours to get here. It's 5pm where she lives, which means when we went to bed it was 8am for her. She slept in the car a lot on the way home.
All for now!
Love,
Molly
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Little bombs - Good idea!
We found out yesterday that the MSA had just sent the letter to Dmitry (finally!) YESTERDAY. So hopefully he got it today and will be able to take it to the MOE tomorrow. I don't know why they were so stinking slow getting it mailed out. They knew about this since 11/17, found out on 11/27 that Dmitry was going to be in Moscow on 12/1, and they didn't write the letter and send it out till 12/10?! C'mon people, this is important! I know they probably had some legitamate delays or whatever- all the official channels and approvals and translations and this and that... But still!
We keep saying everyday "Maybe we'll hear something tomorrow..." So at this point I don't really expect to (because we never do!) but I'll let you know if we do hear something tomorrow.
Now, to answer the question of many of you: Katya's comment about having a big family and always wanting to have a sister comes from the conversations we've had with them about whether or not they want more siblings in the future. They've asked more than once if we will adopt more kids or have kids, and told us that they want a big family if possible. We told them that we do plan on having more kids, especially since they want more siblings.
Roman told us that he wouldn't mind having another sister so Katya can share her room with a girl and he can share his room with a dog. LOL He's so funny. And so random! I got an email from him (addressed to me in response to an email I sent to him just from me) this morning that said: "I wanted to have skis for a long time and I would like so much to ride a bike and I love you mom so much and I want to live with you very soon and when we get money we will go to buy little bombs."
Naturally, we have no idea what he's talking about. We'll ask him on Saturday when we call them.
:)
Love,
Molly
We keep saying everyday "Maybe we'll hear something tomorrow..." So at this point I don't really expect to (because we never do!) but I'll let you know if we do hear something tomorrow.
Now, to answer the question of many of you: Katya's comment about having a big family and always wanting to have a sister comes from the conversations we've had with them about whether or not they want more siblings in the future. They've asked more than once if we will adopt more kids or have kids, and told us that they want a big family if possible. We told them that we do plan on having more kids, especially since they want more siblings.
Roman told us that he wouldn't mind having another sister so Katya can share her room with a girl and he can share his room with a dog. LOL He's so funny. And so random! I got an email from him (addressed to me in response to an email I sent to him just from me) this morning that said: "I wanted to have skis for a long time and I would like so much to ride a bike and I love you mom so much and I want to live with you very soon and when we get money we will go to buy little bombs."
Naturally, we have no idea what he's talking about. We'll ask him on Saturday when we call them.
:)
Love,
Molly
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Why do "caretaker" and "caregiver" mean the same thing?
Hey everyone,
We got letters from the kids, and from their former caretaker. See below. :)
No news yet from Dmitry. The MSA has been really slow actually sending the letter to him, but we are pretty optimistic that he will be able to get this done when he does finally get to go. We hope we'll hear something useful this week, but we may not. Tired of hoping, I wanna see something actually go well!!!
More later if we hear anything...
Love,
Molly
***
Hello mom and dad
We got letters from the kids, and from their former caretaker. See below. :)
No news yet from Dmitry. The MSA has been really slow actually sending the letter to him, but we are pretty optimistic that he will be able to get this done when he does finally get to go. We hope we'll hear something useful this week, but we may not. Tired of hoping, I wanna see something actually go well!!!
More later if we hear anything...
Love,
Molly
***
Hello mom and dad
we are so happy that you want to have more kids. it is so nice to have a big and caring family.
I always wanted to have a sister. we told you before that we moved to different place because our group has to be closed. we are very happy that you never forget about us. please do not worry about us we believe that pretty soon we going to be together. we just have to wait a little bit longer. now we have new caregiver but we keeping coming back to our old place to see our old caregiver that has been with us for more than 5 years.
it is real winter here we have snow for 2 days now. is is a perfect time for sliding down . it first is kinda scary at first but that it is such a fun after all. we love you so much, please do not forget us ever .
katyaHello mom and dad it has been a week since we live in new place in Nim. Our group going to be closed on Dec,1st that is why we had to move to the different children home. now we got new caregiver her name is .... ( I can not understand her name I think she might have Estonian name???) Here is only 6 children with us, if not count ourselves - there would be 1 boy and 3 other girls. I live with Yuriy he is 16 years old. Not far away from our place is big pine forest and big hill. We slide down from that hill on slides yesterday. We have snow here and frost too. temperature is freezing. What weather do you have there? Do you have snow at winter? When you going to come? We miss you so much and wait for you to come. With love, Roman
Good day Jason and Molly
this is Anna caregiver of Katya and Roman. my English is not very good that is why I am writing in Russian. As your children wrote you before our group is closing on December first and children had been transferred to different orphanage. This decision was unrespectable for all of us and was worrying a lot because I got so attached to the Roman and Katya. I have known them for 5.5 years since they came to our orphanage in June 6th 2003. together we got through a lot of challenges and difficulties and achieved a lot of success.
sometimes I think i gave them more time than my own daughter. Katya has a very open personality that is why she can easy fit and adjust herself in new places and can find connections with new people too. Roman is opposite he is holding everything inside him. He will open up only for people to whom he can trust.
but please do not worry to much about them, I am going to support them as much as I can. I visit with them and they come over on my work days. they really need your support though. they always wait for your letters so much and very hope that soon they will be with you. they get through all difficulties in their life only because of this hope. it very important for them to know that there are some people who love them and want them. that some day they will have a real family. I am very sorry about that complications with their papers. I learned myself that they are Russian citizens only one year ago, their social worker never mentioned it before.
if you have any questions you can write them on my email address
With best wishes,
Anna.
***
(Note: By the way, they did know about the citizenship a long time ago, but it was never a problem till recently. The judge in Estonia is the one that is requiring the release from Russia, because of recent scandals about this kind of thing. That info provides a little new understanding - whatever is ok with the judge to allow the adoption will work fine. Right now he is saying a letter from the Embassy releasing them from citizenship so they can get Estonian citizenship, OR a letter from the MOE saying that they can be adopted as Russian citizens through Estonian court.)
With best wishes,
Anna.
***
(Note: By the way, they did know about the citizenship a long time ago, but it was never a problem till recently. The judge in Estonia is the one that is requiring the release from Russia, because of recent scandals about this kind of thing. That info provides a little new understanding - whatever is ok with the judge to allow the adoption will work fine. Right now he is saying a letter from the Embassy releasing them from citizenship so they can get Estonian citizenship, OR a letter from the MOE saying that they can be adopted as Russian citizens through Estonian court.)
Saturday, December 6, 2008
To Russia, with love. (Not.)
We talked to the kids on the phone this afternoon. They seem to be doing well. They keep asking if we know when court will be, or if not if we have a guess. They are so anxious to come home!! Roman talked a lot more this time. He told us that he won an art contest at school for a drawing he did, and it is on display somewhere with all of the other entries. And because he won the grand prize, he got 500EEK ($50) to spend on school supplies for himself. :) He also wanted us to remind him if we have dogs. We told him that we have 2 dogs, and that he can see pictures of them in the album we gave them when we visited. I think he remembered about that when we mentioned it. He asked if he can have a dog sleep in his room and we said we may be able to allow that (since DogDog is so good when he's out of his crate, sometimes we let him sleep on the floor in our room). He was very excited about having dogs. We said we're happy he likes dogs, and he said that he doesn't just like dogs, he adores them. LOL We reminded him that we have dogs visiting for training, too, because that's what we do for our job. He said (in Russian) "Ooooh Wow! I see!" He was very excited. So cute.
He also said that he wanted to tell us the Leprechauns came. Larisa didn't know what he meant, and naturally neither did we. So we asked what he meant, and he said, "Don't you know about the Leprechauns? Don't you have them? They bring candy!" We said we don't have Leprechauns that bring candy, we just go to the store to buy candy. He said, "Oh... Well I'll tell you a secret. I don't really think they are real Leprechauns. I think they are really people dressed up to bring us candy." We laughed and told him that he is very smart.
At the end of the conversation he said he wanted to tell us that they miss us VERY very much and love us VERY very much and they want to be with us soon. Larisa laughed and said he's so polite.
Katya was a little less talkative today. We asked her if she was alright, and she said she is just very sad that she's not with us. We told her that we are sad too, but when she gets sad just think about all the wonderful things she will experience after we are together as a family and try to be happy. She said "OK, I will try to be happy!"
After last weekend's conversation on the phone with them, she was really talkative at first and quiet at the end of the conversation, so we'd asked her in an email why she was quiet at the end. She wrote back "I don't know, I just feel sad ("ОБИДНО", here means sad or offended, it's not fair, insulted) because I am not with you and I really want to be with you." So we know that if she's quiet, that's why.
Just thought you'd all like to know about our conversation. The made us laugh a lot. :)
So the MSA in Estonia sent the letter to Dmitry to take to the MOE in Moscow. After much fussing about what it should say and in what language. The MSA emailed Diana a draft, in poor English, and asked if they could send it in English. Diana added a couple items to the letter and said it should be written in Estonian with an official Russian translation attached, that they should NOT send it in English. Why would they send it in English?! That's like me sending something to Canada in Chinese because it has to do with children from America going to China. Then they said since it's going in Russian, maybe they should attach all the other documents related to the children (14 pages) and have them translated in Russian too (a month of waiting and $1000). So Diana (along with our approval of her decision) said no way, we'll wait and see if the MOE asks for any backup documents. But don't waste time and money that may not be necessary to spend. Just send the stinking letter to the Dmitry!!!
So this coming up week he should be taking it to the MOE, and I don't know if we'll hear something right away or not. We'll see.
Now you're all caught up!
Sasha (visiting little girl from Russia hosting group) gets here on the 16th, so that will be fun. She's one of 122 kids coming over on a hosting trip from Latvia and St. Petersburg. I'll keep you all posted. :)
Love,
Molly
He also said that he wanted to tell us the Leprechauns came. Larisa didn't know what he meant, and naturally neither did we. So we asked what he meant, and he said, "Don't you know about the Leprechauns? Don't you have them? They bring candy!" We said we don't have Leprechauns that bring candy, we just go to the store to buy candy. He said, "Oh... Well I'll tell you a secret. I don't really think they are real Leprechauns. I think they are really people dressed up to bring us candy." We laughed and told him that he is very smart.
At the end of the conversation he said he wanted to tell us that they miss us VERY very much and love us VERY very much and they want to be with us soon. Larisa laughed and said he's so polite.
Katya was a little less talkative today. We asked her if she was alright, and she said she is just very sad that she's not with us. We told her that we are sad too, but when she gets sad just think about all the wonderful things she will experience after we are together as a family and try to be happy. She said "OK, I will try to be happy!"
After last weekend's conversation on the phone with them, she was really talkative at first and quiet at the end of the conversation, so we'd asked her in an email why she was quiet at the end. She wrote back "I don't know, I just feel sad ("ОБИДНО", here means sad or offended, it's not fair, insulted) because I am not with you and I really want to be with you." So we know that if she's quiet, that's why.
Just thought you'd all like to know about our conversation. The made us laugh a lot. :)
So the MSA in Estonia sent the letter to Dmitry to take to the MOE in Moscow. After much fussing about what it should say and in what language. The MSA emailed Diana a draft, in poor English, and asked if they could send it in English. Diana added a couple items to the letter and said it should be written in Estonian with an official Russian translation attached, that they should NOT send it in English. Why would they send it in English?! That's like me sending something to Canada in Chinese because it has to do with children from America going to China. Then they said since it's going in Russian, maybe they should attach all the other documents related to the children (14 pages) and have them translated in Russian too (a month of waiting and $1000). So Diana (along with our approval of her decision) said no way, we'll wait and see if the MOE asks for any backup documents. But don't waste time and money that may not be necessary to spend. Just send the stinking letter to the Dmitry!!!
So this coming up week he should be taking it to the MOE, and I don't know if we'll hear something right away or not. We'll see.
Now you're all caught up!
Sasha (visiting little girl from Russia hosting group) gets here on the 16th, so that will be fun. She's one of 122 kids coming over on a hosting trip from Latvia and St. Petersburg. I'll keep you all posted. :)
Love,
Molly
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