Well, they are ours, at least in the legal sense of the word. As far as really owning them in the ‘well, I’ve given birth to you and you owe me’ sense of the word that will take a few weeks longer.
We started the legal paperwork toward making the adoption of these little angles ours today and it didn’t get as far as I would have hoped. We went to the hall of records to get the paperwork started and the copies of our passports were declared to light colored and we needed to get them taken again and I also needed a second picture of myself to give to officials, because I am the one petitioning the courts to adopt the girls. We went as far as we could today and tomorrow we will go further.
Yesterday I went on about how the girls had been conquered and how things had gone so well yesterday. Well today was the empire strikes back. It started out raining and we thought it would be nice after the paperwork if we stopped by the orphanage and picked up the girls and took them to the Pit Stop. We finished the paperwork about noon and went to pick up the girls about twelve-thirty. The Pit Stop was empty. It was after all a Monday. They played in the Maze and had lunch. We were so positive about things that we let Yulila go for two hours. Everything went well until Teri found Elena lying on the bathroom floor fooling around with her sister. They came out of the bathroom in a fit and we were out the door walking to the hotel. The hotel is only two blocks away and on a sunny day it is a pleasant walk. Today wasn’t pleasant. It was raining and windy and the home hadn’t given the girls proper clothes to wear. Elena had a suit jacket to wear and Nastia who is susceptible to the cold a winter jacket. It was raining when we started and by the time we passed the second flooded intersection the girls had walked through twice that many. We ended up giving the girls our jackets, which didn’t mean that they were staying out of the water. Their feet were soaked by the time we had gone two blocks. At the hotel they ate chips and Teri dried their hair. I gave them coloring books, but when I put on cartoons they were quickly forgotten. At four, our driver showed with the translator and we took the girls to the orphanage.
At dinner, we ate with Fran and CJ. We got into an intense discussion about the abuses of the program in Birobadijan, which later segwayed into a discussion about the problems of raising an orphan and how it doesn’t look anything like little orphan Annie. We took them to the orphanage around four in the afternoon. We went to the hotel and had some drinks in Fran and CJ’s room and that was where the conversation about the evening started. They best thought to come out of the evening was by Fran when she talked about how your new child will challenge you and how you have to remember they are nothing like your birth child. They come with baggage that will challenge you.
