Gifts and Stuff

I realized today that we haven't said anything about the gifts we brought for the children and how they went over. Let's just say that all the gifts we packed were not intended to be for twelve-year old girls.

So, for our very first visit we took puppy coloring books and crayons for the boys. Dima colored like a champ - very carefully coloring the entire picture and staying inside the lines. He has definitely had coloring experience. Vitali, in three year old fashion, colored some scribbles on every page. We gave Oksana a bath set that Rachel had picked up as a gift at some PSS function and one of the puppy coloring books. All seemed to go over well.

For the next several visits we took balloons. We had bought probably a hundred balloons at Party City and on the advice of Phil and Robin Hammond this little gadget to blow up the balloons. Boy, I cannot tell you what a hit both of those have been. We have already gone through one entire pack of balloons. The thing is once a balloon is blown up they just want to blow up another. There is not that much playing with the balloons as there is blowing up one balloon after another. The balloon blower upper is maybe the biggest hit (thanks Phil and Robin for that great tip), the boys love to just blow up the balloons. Dima has gotten pretty creative with his balloons - tying them together and wrapping them around each other to make these great ballooon globs. Vitali just wants whatever Dima has.

The bubbles have also been great fun. Dima catches on pretty quickly and will copy anything you do. Vitali mostly just spills bubble juice everywhere and wants whatever Dima has. You are probably noticing that I have not mentioned Oksana very much. She has pretty much abstained from the balloon and bubble blowing. While the boys play we try to ask her some questions and see what kind of information we can get out of her.

On the second visit we also took the stuffed animal puppies (su-ba-ka) that Aunt Puddin had given us (thankfully we have three of everything - just in case) and they were a great hit. The next day when we visited Oksana had hers sitting on her bed.

We have also given Oksana to - keep with her - the photo book I made with the family pictures. We have shown it to everyone, even the orphange Director and everyone is appropriately impressed with the family. Most are overwhelmed by the sheer size of us because most families here have only one or two children. All my translations were correct except apparently the word I have for Murphy means potato. Who knew - I just used what the computer gave me. (As an aside - for a country that eats more potatoes than anything else they do not eat sweet potatoes. Ramon (our facilitator) has said you could start a business here selling them. So for any budding entrepreneurs out there the Ukraine is ripe for a new type of potato!)

We did not include any pictures of the inside of our house in the album and Ramon has asked us to try and get some. So Rachel and Tadd have gone by the house to take some inside photos. Rach is sending them to us even as I type and Tadd played with the puppies even in the pouring rain (earning some brother-in-law points). Joe's work e-mail filtered them out as spam so she is having to use a different account and send them one at a time. This is making up for some of that time I had to go and register with her at Babies R Us and there were 450 different kinds of bottles and nipples. It took us an hour just to get over to the bath product row. Anyhow, the book doesn't have these pictures because I thought my audience would be younger. Ramon thinks they will help Oksana identify more with that being her new house. We hope so.

Back to the presents. The absolute best presents so far have been the blankets that mom made - 3 boy and 3 girl. We had Ramon explain that mom makes a blanket for all the grandchildren and they get to choose the one they want. Oksana chose the one with the bears on it, Dima the one with the cowboys and Vitali the one with the alphabet letters. The others we will donate to the orphanage before we leave.

What we wish we had brought with us is a picture book of North Carolina. Even if our intended audience is too young it would have been nice to show the adults and leave as a gift for someone.

All in all the gifts have been pretty good. This weekend in Kiev we got a journal book for Oksana and some earrings because we felt she had not had too many age appropriate gifts. We also got the boys a toy car and Joe impulse bought more bubble blowers - this one blows about a hundred bubbles at a time instead of 5-10.

We leave at 7:45 in the morning to head back to town and hopefully get the paperwork going. Ramon told us this afternoon that he has appointments with the Inspector and the Director and that all of us are going to meet with the Judge. We shall see what tomorrow brings. Just a reminder that we are back in the internet free zone so we will try to give Rachel as many details as we can.

Random Observations:
- you have to pay for grocery bags - we like this idea
- they have grocery carts that drive sideways - really fun to play with
- a lot of potatoes are consumed here
- when there are no lines on the road you get to drive anywhere you like - this is actually more fun in the country where there are not a million other cars doing the same thing - although this does increase the level of difficulty - if you are getting points like in gymnastics or diving!
- taxis basically get to make up their own prices as none of them have meters in their cars
- where there are no parking lots you get to park and drive on the sidewalk - the guidebook said keep your eyes open and they were not wrong!
- we have about seen a million accidents but surprisingly only one actual accident
- stillettos are everyday wear
- PDA is rampant

Thanks for all of the support - it really makes a difference!

Tonya & Joe