Finding Our Girl: Christmas Crafts

Thank you to everyone for the many prayers, emails and comments regarding the hearing we attended last week. Another formality, I suppose. But for those of you who have been on this side, each formality comes with an almost paralyzing fear that something could go wrong. However, we were able to breathe a tremendous sigh of relief when we learned the outcome was positive. Approval to continue with the adoption was given within 20 minutes. There were very nice comments from the Deputy Mayor, which made us all smile. The Mayor signed off on the required documents, and they were off to SDA (State Department for Adoption) while the ink was still drying.

So ---- as many of you have guessed, we are now in a holding pattern just waiting for our court date. Things are moving slowly in part due to the typical end-of-year craziness in the courts here in Ukraine. In addition, there are also implications for the elderly in 2011 associated with new tax laws, so the courts have additional cases to hear in December. Net result: we have not yet been assigned either a judge or a court date. We are still hopeful this will happen soon.

While we are waiting though, we have gotten to spend lots of time together as a (dare I say it) family. Most of that has been spent at the orphanage, and all of the caretakers have been very nice to us. Our first few visits were spent in the “visitor area”, a room with a couch, two chairs, a table, and one light. No heat, though, which would be a nice addition. We played several frosty games of Uno there. Fortunately, after a few visits, they felt comfortable with us venturing upstairs and they have let us use one of the rooms in which the kids eat their meals. It has two long tables with bench-style seating and is a great space for games, puzzles, and crafts. It is still cold, but not nearly as cold. And, both lights work. Awesome!

Things are relatively quiet at the orphanage right now as about half of the kids are away at camp. Even still, it is fun to sit in our room and listen to the kids playing outside the door. Sometimes they sing along with the videos they are watching on TV. Sometimes it sounds like they are running at full speed up and down the halls. The orphanage we are at started out as a hospital. It has long hallways and lots of small rooms. Our girl shares a room with one other girl (who is away at camp). They have nice bunk beds, a sink, and a bookcase. She has been decorating with all of the things we’ve been making so her room looks pretty festive right now.

We’ve had about 4 hours a day together, so we’ve tried to do several activities each time just to keep us all from getting bored. Our staples are Uno, Trouble, Yahtzee, and puzzles. We mix it up with craft projects, some of which we brought from America and some of which we purchased here in Ukraine. The latter have definitely been interesting. Some new friends took us to a store with lots of Christmas decorations and some packaged crafts to make (everything you need included in the kit). My favorite so far has been the penguins. Pretty straightforward – Styrofoam balls for the head and body, felt coverings, and some felt pieces for the feet, etc. The body covering was the only tricky part. Instead of the pressed felt that you see in the US, the felt came as loosely matted strands that you “attached” to the Styrofoam by poking it into the balls with a small flat blade (included, thankfully – don’t know what we would have improvised with). This will come as no surprise to some of you, but I managed to poke my finger pretty good with this. It made me wonder – is this kid-tested, mother-approved?

For all you South Carolina folks, I made the red penguin in the picture below and, yes, he resembles a Carolina Gamecock! We made up for it by making a set of carol singers the next day (another Ukrainian craft) and one of them is orange --- Go Tigers!