It's me again

Hi sweetheart, I was so glad to see your comment posted. I was praying and praying that you would make it all the way home safely. I don't know whether you are still planning to go to work today. I wouldn't blame you a bit if you just slept for several hours. I love you lots. Please give the kids lots of hugs and kisses from me. Carol Stephans was telling me about a free email account you can set up so I can email you.

BINGO! 50 points to the ladies who guessed that the driver I was describing was Sergei! Funny thing was that he told Kevin he has 'no woman' and no children. Hmmm . . . ??

Now see if anyone can guess who our other driver is. . . He's shorter, has dark hair, wears dark glasses, drives a dark-colored Audi with dark-tinted windows and for some reason reminds me of 'Joseph, Joe, Joey', the driver on Princess Diaries. Usually very quiet due to his limited English and my even-more-limited Ukranian--unless Dima is in the car and then they talk a constant blue streak. Very courteous. Today in the car he was giving his opinion on the U.S. presidential race and then later I think he was telling me he also has 2 Mitsubishis at home. Man! he must have Texas Tea in his back yard or something. Today it is snowing and if I understood him right, it's supposed to snow for 3 days. The snow is beautiful but now I'm even more bummed that I didn't get out and enjoy the sunshine yesterday.

Driver #2 picked me up at 9 am for a visit at the orphanage. The traffic is usually rather awful getting out of the city but today it was all backed up farther out of town for some reason. We sat there and sat there. If I had been with Sergei he probably would have found a shortcut through the forest or something :) I tried to occupy myself by studying my booklet of Ukranian and Russian phrases for children that is made especially for English speaking adoptive parents. I'm still trying to decide whether to concentrate on the Russian or Ukrainian because I really think I've heard examples of both at the orphanage. Of course, mostly I just speak English with Caleb and do sound effects.

Anyway I'm happy to say that we did eventually get to Vorzel. When Caleb and I first came into the room I wasn't sure what to expect. A worker brought some toys (a bus we have played with several times and some animals) and walked back out. I offered him a banana and he didn't want it so I just laid it to the side. Then he was putting the bus back in the box and waving bye-bye to it which is a little routine I've been going through at the end of each visit--and I'm thinking, he already wants to put the toys away and get out of here. He never did cry though. But before long I was holding him and he was sticking his fingers in my mouth and I was pretending to bite them and he was laughing and grabbing my glasses (I then just set them out of reach but every time I'd quietly put them back on he was pretty quick to take them off). Boy, he was alive today--climbing up in the chair, onto the bench, under the table, playing with the bus ON THE FLOOR like he'd seen Daddy do, pulling the plastic greenery off the wall, trying to answer the telephone, getting into the pots on the little stand, messing with some medical equipment stored in there, watching the markers roll, batting the pieces that fit inside the bus around on the floor under who-knows-how-many cabinets. But best of all he was chattering and laughing and teasing. And he snarfed that banana-peeled it himself, hid part of the peeling in my coat, gave me a piece of banana and we played the 'mmmm-mmmmm!' game and then he grabbed my piece and ate it, too. And he was really trying to fit the various shapes into the correct hole in the side of the bus. I took a couple videos of him. Even got a chance to use my handy-dandy measuring tape to measure his waist and length of pants and shirt. Now I'll have to measure the clothes we have to see if they'll fit. At around 11:40 I started picking up toys but he wasn't ready to quit yet so we played awhile longer. At 11:55 he still wasn't any help with pickup but when I reached for his hand and headed for the door he readily went with me and led me to his room where I could see some other little kiddos. One little girl was saying something about Momma and Poppi so I'm guessing she must have heard the workers talking to Caleb or the other Sasha about their Momma and Poppi. Very sweet--I just hope she has a Momma and Poppi coming, too.