Yesterday, we took our kids home forever, for the first time! No longer will they live or sleep in an orphanage. No longer will they be sequestered at a scary sanitorium if they are sick. And did they know it! They were all smiles and grins as it was their day! We had shopped with them this past weekend for some special, "Go Home" clothes and they were eagerly awaiting for us when we arrived. Galina sent the house nurse to go and rescue our Julia from the sanitorium while the other two proceeded to change into their dress clothes.
Julia arrived and was very happy to be busted out! We spent the next two hours at the Dietski Dom because the staff had to have the "send off". Galina exchanged gifts with us, she gave us a pretty nice Matriska (sp?) doll and we presented her with a framed family photo, the same one a few posts back where Kolya is doing the rabbit ears. Everyone Ooh-ed and aaww-ed over the three in their new threads! I stood back and let them glow in the spotlight, it was their day. We went upstairs for some more pictures before taking off.
When we left, there were no tears, no sad goodbyes, no fan-fare! The kids couldn't wait to leave! Their attitude may be because we will come back for a formal going away party right before we leave. Also, Kolya wants to perform again with his dance troop. They have a competition Wednesday and Thursday in Kiev. We will drop him off at 8:30 on those mornings so that he can catch the Dietski Dom bus with the other boys, thus saving us the trouble of getting him to Kiev. We will pick him up afterwards, back at the Dom. We have elected to keep all three out of school. Nadia has only three days of school left due to the paperchase, Kolya will have only two days in school at most due to the dance thing and the paperchase, and Julia just needs the love, food, and attention she has missed. She lost weight when they isolated her and she couldn't come home.
Last night all went well until bedtime. It was funny as each kid had an idea as to their new bedtimes. We thought it best to send the little ones to bed around eight and let Nadia stay up with us intil 9pm. Man! You would have thought the world was coming to an end. We put the other two in bed and they blabbed, yelled, bellowed, boo-hoo-ed. you name it! We caught the gist of it...they were upset that they had to go to bed while Nadia stayed up. Every 10 minutes, Heidi or I would have to go into the room to quiet them down. When we would, they wouldn't speak to us and the would hide their faces under their pillows. Good thing too, they couldn't see me choking back laughter. It was so funny! I couldn't help but snicker at their futile attempts to change our minds! I'm lol right now remembering the situation! In this case, thank God for the language barrier. I'm sure they weren't happy that we told them in Spanish to go to sleep and quit whining! There were some choice, strong words coming from the room when we would leave. After 30 minutes or so of this, they tired of it and went to sleep. This morning all was forgiven and nothing was said about the night before. Heidi invited Julia to snuggle with her on her side of the bed. Julia put one arm around Heidi and reached for my hand with the other.
Taa-daa, instant family, just add LOVE!
I've added a new photo album in our picture link for this occasion entitled, "Going Home". This time I added captions to help with the story. See ya next time!
~ Felix ~
