10/18/04-Let's have a party...

It was a party day today. When I went to pick-up Jack, they were having a party for a couple who went to court today to adopt their daughter, Anna. They were from another agency, so I didn’t catch their name, but they were having a party in the room with all the caregivers and some great food. So, Jack and I sat down and celebrated with them. (Serves Mary Jo right for letting me go in because she knew it was his feeding time.) After the party, I fed Jack and we went back out to the big room. Of course, I was just in time for little Miss Gracie’s feeding time. (Mary Jo hates the way they feed them here, so I have volunteered to do the in-orphanage feeding with the understanding that she will take a larger proportion when we get them out.)

Grace has not been eating well the last couple days. This morning she had rice and milk. Not rice cereal, but whole rice. She just refused to eat it, so I gave her juice and some bread and she drank the milk out of her bowl. In the afternoon, her snack was a milk and bread mixture and some bananas. She didn’t eat all of that, but she did drink the apple juice I brought for her. When we get them out, we are taking them back a little and putting them on bottles with formula. They both like to drink, so I think they will benefit from the high octane formula we brought. Jack could use some more meat on his bone also.

They said we can move into the apartment on Wednesday. Joe and Amika (another couple from our agency) moved today. They got all their stuff together and the plan was to pick our Damir (their son) when we all went in the afternoon and go to the apartment. There was a slight change in plans though, since the local social worker is visiting tomorrow. So Damir stayed in the orphanage tonight and they’ll take him out after they meet with the social work. (Shsh…don’t tell the social worker we are doing this. We’re really not supposed to do this until after court.) We also meet with her tomorrow, so I suspect Wednesday we will follow the original plan and pick up the kids in the afternoon and go to the apartment.

Everything is still on track, according to Tamara our facilitator. We should be going to court on Tuesday. Everyone who goes through it says the same thing. It is intimidating because everyone is talking in Russian, but it goes quickly and is painless. We should go in the morning, will probably have parties in the afternoon (I don’t know how we will do it, since Grace and Jack are from different rooms, but we’ll handle it) then in the late afternoon, Mary Jo will probably jump on a plane to Almaty to start her journey home. Then it will Dad GMA and the kids wandering the streets of Karaganda.

Sorry, no pictures came out today. We've been doing more playing than pictures. I promise you all that we will have many more pictures when we get to the apartment and can put them in the clothes we brought.