We All Scream for Ice Cream

Friday, 18 May, 2007

Today was the day! Our train arrived right on time at 9:00 AM. We were met by two drivers; one for Fred and Lisa, the other for me and Mark. We both had so much luggage and the cars were both so small that Sveta barely fit in our car!

We dropped Fred and Lisa off at their apartment, and then drove to ours, about three miles away. The apartment here is very large, and comfortable(unlike the elevator, which *barely* holds three very friendly people. There are two bedrooms, an eat-n kitchen, and a separate living room with a piano and a flat panel TV. (Mark would be in heaven if we could find some English programming….we’ve been watching Russian VH1 all evening!)

We caught a quick shower, and met our driver downstairs. First we drove to the Notary’s office to have some documents prepared and signed to get started on our court petition; this formalized our request to adopt Masha. The facilitator and translator kept mixing the girls up, and talking to us about Khrystyna, and to Lisa and Fred about Masha! Instead of being switched at birth, we were joking that they were switched at the notary!

After the notary, we tried to visit the government’s social worker, who also needed to approve us before our paperwork could be finalized and turned in to the court. When we got there, we learned that the social worker had been called into a very important meeting, and that she would call us later in the day.

We went to Papa Karlos’ for lunch…a ccafeteria-style restaurant across from the University. The food was great, and it was pretty inexpensive. Also, since it’s cafeteria-style, you can just point at something, and they put it on a plate for you. Much easier than ordering from a menu.

Following lunch, Sveta tried the social worker again, but no luck. We all decided to go on over to the orphanage while we waited.

The nerves hit me about the time we pulled into the little parking lot in front of the building, and I recognized it from another family’s photos. We were ushered into a large room filled with plants, a fishtank, and a very loud bird. On our way in, we ran into Vika and Little Masha. It took us a couple of seconds to recognize Vika with her new haircut, but they were both doing great! I think Vika has been working on her English…she was very proud to answer our questions in English!

We waited for a little bit, saw Nataliya, the assistant director, and then were led to Ludmilla’s office. She brought in the orphanage doctor and social worker, and they shared some additional information with us about both girls. While this was going on, they also orchestrated a set of tasks that let us see some of the other children that had been identified as a good match.

After we spoke with Ludmilla for a while, there was a knock at the door, and when it opened, we saw Masha and Khrystyna. We ran over to them, and all kinds of hugging and kissing ensued.

We all went outside and walked around the grounds hand-in-hand for a while. Then one of Masha’s friends came out, and they pulled us around behind a little storage building to a box on the ground. Masha carefully lifted a piece of plywood from the top of the box to reveal a mama-cat and five baby kittens. They looked like they were abut 2 weeks old or so, and the kids were taking really good care of her. They all picked up the kittens and snuggled them and we took lots of pictures. It was so cute that I think Masha needs a cat. Mark does not share that opinion!

The girls had to go back inside for dance practice, and when they were done, we took them out for ice cream (with was VERY good) and we taught them “I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream.” But we had to return them to the orphanage by 6:00, so we cut the visit short and took them back. We gave each of the girls three packs of gum, and Masha also kept Sloanie (her elephant) and a can of Pringles. She also wanted to keep my flip book of her dance performance last summer to show all of her friends.

We said our goodbyes and “see you tomorrows” and then headed for the grocery store. The apartment that we are staying in does not include someone to cook for us, so we stocked up. I don’t think that many people were used to seeing a cart as full as ours was! I was even getting a little concerned that we might not have quite enough cash to cover the contents in our cart. I was relieved to see that they took Visa, but even more relieved that our cart full of groceries totaled only about $45! The same cart at home would have easily been twice that!

We got back to the apartment at about 7:30, put away all of our groceries, and heated up some cabbage rolls that we got at the store deli and then just chilled out.

Today was a great success. Masha has grown at least three inches…the pink camo pants we got her in the summer are now capris! But she is healthy and happy, and she’s wearing her glasses. She looks great, and she was very happy to see us.