Well, Mark, Erik and the caregiver Mark hired from the orphanage are on the train to Kiev!!! Mark hired the lady to help on the train ride until Tuesday night when she returns back to Kramatorsk. It will be money well spent. With Mark's MS, he really needs his sleep, and the help of a caregiver will help with stress a LOT.

You have NO IDEA how badly I wish I knew how it was going!!!! Those trains are NOT easy to sleep on, but it can be done, in the best of circumstances. With a "sturdy Ukraininan bahbushka (how Mark described her) and a new 5 y.o. who's never been outside of his orphanage walls, hard telling if ANYONE's sleeping!! LOL!!

Mark has his laptop, and we can only hope that he can access the Internet at the hotel in Kiev. Or in the Frankfurt airport, where he and Erik will connect for 7 hours on Wednesday. It's so hard to have NO contact of any kind!! But I know God is watching out for them. After all, I asked Him to.

That's all I know for now. The boys and I are just doing our "thing", waiting for them to return. It's the calm before the storm...

Well, after having a private blog for so long, I've decided to go public, or at least try it! Court is over and all we are waiting for is for my men to come HOME!!!

I've removed pictures of the other kids in the orphanage now that I'm public, but if you see one that I missed, please let me know so I can remove it.

I can't access my blog these days for some reason, but I can post... at least, I THINK I can - I can't see my blog to check it!!

Mark and Erik are taking the overnight train from Kramatorsk to Kiev tonight, then Monday and Tuesday they'll finish up at the Embassy and we'll pick them up in Orlando Wednesday evening! YAAAAAAYYYYY!!!!

Other than that, news is slow around here. The boys and I are just sitting around, waiting for Mark and Erik to come home. We're in a bit of a "holding pattern". Work, school, dogs, chores.

...for action, that is. It seems we hardly do anything here, but eat, sleep, and visit Erik. He is doing wonderfully, by the way. And today was the first day that he got mad when we left!! We didn't see him at all yesterday, the first day like that, as we were busy all morning doing very little with the facilitator (and going to lunch - going to lunch takes at least 90 minutes here. Service is SLOW.) In the afternoon, Mark wasn't feeling well and I was tired (from doing nothing, I think) so I didn't go, either. This morning, Mark still wasnt' feeling well, so I went alone and the little bugger was happy to see me! The caregiver said he was looking for Mama, and whether that's true or not, I don't know, but it was sweet of her to say, and it seemed to be true. We had a nice visit and are bonding nicely. This afternoon, Mark went with me, and we had a nice, long visit. We saw Leeza again, and little Alina and the girl from yesterday playing outside, but their caregivers were not very nice and we didn't visit with the girls for long. They also would not allow me to take any pictures, which didn't surprise me.

I love this picture below. Mark was playing with Erik with his hat and Erik was having such a fun time! When he gets excited, he gestures wildly and I caught this adorable picture:

I also put in 3 similar pictures here to show how much he likes to look at books!! For a kid who's never seen a book before, he sure shows good interest. And he TALKS the whole time he's looking!! "Lalalalalala babababa", etc. He is so animated! The top picture shows how he likes to hold your finger when he does something like turn the pages in a book, or push a button on a toy, or whatever. It's like he wants moral support, so he holds your finger while he's doing the job. It's the sweetest thing!

This seems to be a favorite activity in Erik's room. Hanging on/leaning over/chewing on the "pen" walls. Their room is designed to have a "big" area with linoleum that is open and unobstructed. Lena sits in a stroller along one wall, the TV is in the center of the same wall, and Dima sits in a plastic chair or stands in a standing table along a "pen". It's like a huge playpen. There is a swing and a ballpit in there, that never seem to be used, ever. The kids mostly lie on the padded floor or hang out on the railing. I wonder how much paint Erik has injested in his 5 years there?? There are very few "loose" toys in the "pen", and precious little to do. We did one day see the caregivers have Denis and Erik in a walker and let them walk around on the linoleum, which was great, but I think that is a rarity. I wonder how Erik will like his bedroom with all of the cabinets and drawers full of toys to explore and the freedom to come and go as he pleases?? :o)

We had a nice visit with Erik this afternoon - what a cute kid!!! He's so funny and really coming out of his shell every time we see him.

THEN - as we were walking with him around the orphanage in the yard, I spotted Leeza. There was no way I could get around. Anyone who knows me knows that I would *LOVE* to adopt Leeza, but she's been spoken for (hopefully her family will get here soon!). Not only was she the cutest thing ever, but before I could turn around to avoid her, she ran STRAIGHT AT ME, with this HUGE smile on her face and said, "MAMA!!!". I heard Mark mutter, "Oh, that'll help...!" LOL I about died. The caregivers didn't know who I was and Erik was dressed in his "I have parents" clothes, so we didn't approach her, so as not to worry them. They called her away just as I wanted to start to cry. A few minutes later, we had no choice but to pass by again, and do you know what that little dickens (my grandmother's word) did? She stood on the top of a play thing platform and with the branch of dead leaves that she was holding, started strumming it like a guitar and singing!! Mark and I laughed so hard we about split a gut!!! THAT didn't help either!! You don't KNOW how badly I wanted to take that precious little girl and RUN! By that time, we had told the caregivers that we knew Alexei's family and Leeza's new family (though we really don't know Leeza's), and they understood why we were there and relaxed quite a bit

BUT! By THAT time, Mark had fallen in love with his OWN little girl!! A PRECIOUS little brunette, just as petite and feminine as could be!! He asked her what her name was, and she said, "Alina". He picked her up and she called him "Papa", and that was all he needed. He could hardly put her down. I kept telling him our taxi was coming and we needed to go, but it was as hard pulling him away from her as it was pulling me away from Leeza!!

We took our taxi home, and Mark called our facilitator asking if she was available. She's checking. Mom? We may need you again next year...!!!!! LOL The probability of her being available is fairly low, however. Just because kids are in orphanages doesn't mean that they are available for international adoption. I will admit, though, this girl was really a special little girl.

(And OF COURSE I didn't bring my camera!!!)

Yesterday afternoon was a good visit. It is clear that Erik has never been taught how to play. He doesn't know what to do with toys and seems to feel safer watching us work the toys than him actively playing with the toys. Today we made a bit of a stride in that area. The caregiver put us in the sleeping area that has a mat on the floor. She tossed some stuffed animals at us and we decided to play. I came up with this silly game where I held a stuffed animal high over his head then slowly brought it down so that it sat on his head like a hat. Of course, he moved his head and it fell off. He was fascinated by this! I did it over and over and got tired of it, so Mark took over. It wasn't long after that that Erik was handing Mark the toys to put over, then on, his head! It doesn't sound like much, but if you were there, you'd see the progress. He is learning that you can have FUN with objects, not just hang on to them and wing them across the room out of frustration of not knowing what to do with them! It was a good visit.

Here he is, in "thinking mode". When he thinks hard about something, he gets a look on his face, and his babbling goes from a bland, "la, la, la" to a much more intense, quick, and higher pitched, "lalalala". It's so cute! He makes different faces when he's concentrating, too.

Here I am, in the early stages of the game.

Sorry for the duplicate photo, but this computer's commands are all in Russian and I don't know how to read "Delete" in the menu!! Everything looks like this: флшуідьуишієу".

I can't wait to get back to the States and have little Gabe evaluated. I really want the opinion of therapists who have experience with pedes - I don't have much. To me, though, he seems to be globally on a 12 - 18 mo. level. He'll be 5 next week (we need to watch the dates so we don't miss it - we keep losing track of time!). He is sooooo delayed in so many areas, it's so sad. But I do see signs of potential that are very encouraging to me: For example, he LOVES to look at stuff. Flashing lights, pictures in books, photos, toys. When he looks at books, he looks at EVERY picture before losing interest. He loves people and loves to interact. He enjoys being outside and going for walks and enjoys looking around. He seems to WANT to learn stuff. His eye contact is so-so. He will make eye contact, but only for short periods of time. He likes physical contact a lot - likes to be tickled, held, touched. Likes to hold hands. He doesn't initiate much, though: he doesn't usually reach for stuff, but often just lets you hold it by yourself. He doesn't initiate walking, but if you take his hand and guide him, he'll walk with support. When he goes in a stroller, he doesn't lift his feet up to put them in the "slots", but lets you do it for him. When he eats (such as the cookie episode below) he just opens his mouth - does not reach for the food. No doubt, these are the results of not being allowed to do much, and he should improve in time. I do see lots of potential with him, as I've said. It will just take time. Hopefully others in our situation have seen the same thing and can encourage me. I really want to just get him home. It's hard visiting in the orphanage where there are so many rules, and eyes, and nothing is ours or familiar. Oh, well. It's part of the process.

Our visit went much better this morning, as morning visits go. We mostly just sat and looked at books, but he was MUCH more animated than other mornings, which is encouraging. Afternoons are always wild, but this is our first "happy" morning visit! Mark even tried his hand at discipline, telling him "No" when he kept throwing the book that we were looking at. ;oP It helped!!

That's all for now. Our afternoon visit is in a couple of hours. -oh, and we went to the market today, like a big flea market. Bought some clothes for Peter at ridiculous prices, and Mark got some really nice sneakers (desperately needed!) for $25. It was very interesting. Raw meats, cheeses, eggs and breads out in the open at room temperature, etc. It was fun shopping, though. Mark also got some sunglasses for around $2.50. Amazing. There were also puppies and kittens for sale. There were two dachsund pups that were PRECIOUS that the guy was selling for $40 each. Purebred dachsunds. Wow.

Gotta run and let Mark on the computer for now. Hopefully later I'll have more pictures to share. I can't do videos yet because of the computer, but after I get home I'll share some. Bye!

(BTW, keep the comments coming, please! They are a lifeline to me!)

Greetings from Kramatorsk!!! WE MADE IT!!! We actually had 3 very smooth flights (BIG HINT: If you are planning on traveling a long distance by plane and are overweight (especially if BOTH of you are overweight) ... LOSE WEIGHT! Mark's tailbone and my hips will never be the same, especially after the long flight from Philly to Frankfurt! Those seats are NOT designed for "big boys and girls"!! LOL But our flights were on time, good connections, and Mark tolerated the flying pretty well. He hasn't flown in decades by choice, and he did great! He was adorable on the first flight, gripping my pinky finger for support, yet with his nose plastered against the window looking out at the clouds, all hyper from excitement and fear. He was so adorable!! By the third flight, he was a chilled as the rest of us.

We arrived in Kiev in the afternoon on Tuesday and were taken straight to our apartment, where, if I remember correctly, we stayed until the next morning. We were BEAT. At noon the next day, we had our SDA appt. and the lady who interviewed us was so nice!!!! It was not a tense meeting by any means! Very relaxing. We saw a picture of little Sergei (Simon) taken 2 years ago. Not a great picture (we have a lot that were better) but it is always fun to see a picture we've never seen before! We agreed that we wanted his referral and a few hours later we picked up the letter (whatever that was) and we were off to the train station! THAT FAST!! The bad part is that we didn't get to see any of our Reece's Rainbow friends like we were hoping to. UGH. Maybe a little too fast?? We arrived in Kramatorsk this morning (what day is this?? Thursday??) after a rather long night on the train. The train itself was fine (and the bathroom not THAT bad!!) but our systems are SO out of whack that it was hard to sleep. I didn't dare take a sleeping pill that night but you bet your boots I will tonight!!

Whoops! Gotta go! Time to go to the orphanage for our second visit and our facilitator will be meeting us in a few minutes. Gotta get down there to meet her - more later!!!!!!

Well, we leave tomorrow!!! Mom's here to house/dog/kid -sit, we had dinner with the Cornishes , our bags are 95% packed, our nerves are shot, and our e-tickets are sitting by the door!!

We leave tomorrow out of Orlando at 1:55pm connecting through Philadelphia and Frankfurt to Kiev!! We arrive in Kiev (supposed to, anyway!) Tuesday afternoon at 1:20pm (no, it's not 24 hours, remember to subtract 8 hours for the time difference). Our appointment to get the official "referral" for Simon is Wednesday and we hope to travel on the overnight train to Kramatorsk Thursday night. We meet Simon on Friday!!

I will check my e-mails in the morning, but probably not do any blogging until we are in-country!! I'm sure I'll have lots of stories to tell.

PLEASE PRAY FOR US for smooth traveling and energy enough to enjoy it! LOL

I'll post again as soon as I am able and have something interesting to say. :o)

So until then, Good-bye, and dasvidanya!!!