Great First Day!

Joseph really enjoyed his first day of school. He even enjoyed riding the bus home (his choice). There is a boy in his class who speaks Russian. His parents speak it and have taught it to him, they speak it at home. What great luck that he is in 4th grade at Joseph's school right?!?! So the teacher sat Joseph at his table but after today she said she will have to split them up. Apparently they talk too much (in Russian). I am sure the little boy, David, is happy to have another kid to speak Russian with and I know Joseph is happy to get to speak some Russian. They will just have to save their Russian conversations for recess and lunch! Keith met him at school for lunch (at 12:45) which was a surprise to Joseph. The only problem... by lunch time, Joseph had eaten nearly everything I had packed him for lunch! He had a quarter of a sandwich and a peach left, that was it! I think tomorrow I will pack him lunch again with just a little bit more food (although today's should have been more than enough!) and I will send him with a water bottle tomorrow. He is just going to have to learn that if he eats all of his lunch before lunchtime then he just won't have lunch! He will have to learn to pace himself with food. But we are ever thankful that he had such a great first day.

Happy Happy Happy!

Since we got home last Friday everything has been GREAT! Jackson and Joseph played together SO WELL last weekend. No, I do not expect that to last, but it was nice last weekend. I think they were so excited to be together again that they were unusually nice and accomodating with each other. Arranging for where Joseph was going to be every day this week was a bit complilcated. Monday and Wednesday he stayed home with Keith, Tuesday my mom took off of work and stayed home with him (and being the awesome nana she is, she let him do almost anything he wanted so by the end of the day he had completely worn her out!), Thursday he stayed at my parents' house while my dad worked at home, and today (Friday) I took the day off to stay with him and get him registered for school. We got the rest of the immunizations he needed and the eye and dental forms completed so I could register him for school today. He met the principal, his teacher, his new classmates, and his ESOL teacher. Although his age would have him in 5th grade, we are putting him in 4th grade now. He was in 4th grade in Ukraine and this will give him a whole year in elementary school next year. Not looking to push him into middle school yet, one middle schooler in my household is enough for now! He has a friend from the neighborhood, Carson, in his class and there is a boy in his class who speaks Russian! Apparently the boy's parents speak Russian him and have taught him and speak it at home with him. We have been so blessed and continue to be throughout this whole process. Joseph is VERY excited about his school. He was a little scared at first he told me but after getting the tour and seeing everything and meeting his teachers and classmates he is really excited for Monday. He says his school is AWESOME (he just recently learned this word and everything is awesome today). Poor Jackson has ahd SO MUCH homework this week, he has barely been able to hang out with us. Thankfully last night he finished up homework early enough that he and I could go out for icecream just the two of us. We had so much fun and it made me realize just how much he and I both needed some time just the two of us. We will have to be sure to have mother/son dates every now and then. I think it will be important that Keith and I both have individual time with both boys regularly.
We only had one incident of dishonesty this week with Joseph. He wants to eat so often, and usually wants to eat unhealthy stuff. I hate to tell him no about eating but if we said yes all the times he wanted to eat he would put on so much weight! He is already up to 100 pounds. He has put on at least 10 pounds since we started visiting him in the orphanage in February and at this rate he would be classified as overweight in no time. Usually when he asks for something unhealthy we offer him something healthy instead and he usually will eat the healthy choice (like fruit or yogurt or the like). But, for example, for lunch today he asked for 2 PBJ sandwiches and one bologna/cheese sandwich and fruit snacks. And I am sure he would have eaten all that. But I told him I would make him one sandwich and I cut up an orange and gave him one bag of fruit snacks. That seemed to tide him over for about 30 minutes until he asked for a yogurt and some gummy bears. I tried by telling him a time (an hour later) when he can eat again and that seems to work. And he knows he has to ask for food, he is not allowed to just take food without asking. This is where we had our issue this week. He knows he is only allowed one fruit snack per day so he chooses when he wants to eat it. Well, when we looked in the box one evening there were an extra to bags of fruit snacks missing. We asked him if he had taken them multiple times and he said no multiple times. He was very adamant that he had not taken them. After some discussion he finally told us he had. We told him we were very upset with him lying. And he lost his PSP and video games for a day. He was remorseful and I really think this behavior is going to get better but we have to be vigilant and make sure he knows that part of being in a family is that we are honest with each other. But we ended the discussion and the giving of the punishment by assuring him that we love him. Right now Keith and I feel like there are two really important things we want Joseph to know, that every action (good or bad) has a consequence, and we love him no matter what.
I just got a call from a guy at NASA (rec soccer league) that they are going to let Joseph join a team and he can practice with them tonight. He is so excited. He jumped up and down saying AWESOME (word of the day remember?)!!!! Getting regular exercise will help with the weight concerns I am having for him and it will be great for learning english and making friends. Again, God is working things out so well. True confirmation that Keith and I are on the right path.
LOVE MY BOYS!!!! (all 3 of them!)

Pictures!

In our compartment in the train. And YES he did sleep on the train, without drugs (in case you were questioning my parental skills). Once it got dark (and the battery on the laptop died) he got a little sleepy. He slept from about 10:30pm until 2am, which he thought was time to PARTY. I informed him that he was clearly mistaken and after some coaxing got him to go back to sleep until the sun started to come up about 5:30am.

Working in one of the puzzle books I got him.

The bridge over a large river outside Kiev, that I am sure my 9th grade Geography teacher would be appalled I did not know the name of.

As we were crossing over that unnamed river you could see this hillside with two beautiful churches. There are beautiful churches everywhere here.

Joseph and I on the balcony of our apartment in Kiev.

HAD to take a picture of this. This is the ONLY high top conversion van I have seen in Ukraine (and I have been on the look out). Apparently there is only one wicked cool person in Ukraine (and he/she lives somewhere near Kiev) that can rock the high top! I must say, I love this in black, my NEXT high top conversion van will be in all black like this one.

On our walk yesterday we happened upon the Romanian Embassy. Pretty isn't it? (But not nearly as pretty as the aforementioned black high top conversion van...)

At the pizza place we went to tonight. I made the mistake of assuming that since said pizza place was next to the ENGLISH SCHOOL that someone who worked at the establishment would speak a little ENGLISH. Joseph helped me order correctly though, very good dinner tonight!

One of the great joys of having children... getting to act like a kid again!

Here he is with his onion and hot dog (kilbasa) pizza.

We are done!!!

So everything that needs to be done for the adoption here in Ukraine is DONE! We went back to the embassy for our second appointment today and got all our paperwork to hand over to the immigration people once we get into the states. If we had flight tickets out for tomorrow we could fly home tomorrow but ALAS our tickets are for Friday. So tomorrow we are going to go sightseeing and shopping for souvenirs.
We have had a bit of an "issue" with stealing and lying about it today. We have dealt with this before, during hosting the first time, and I know we are, in essence, starting over again. I think I did a really good job of handling the situation today when I discovered it (parenting pat on my back please) by letting it know him very clearly that it is NOT okay but after a tough "talking-to" I made sure to also let him know that I still love him very much. He cried and seemed very remorseful and apologized a couple of times. I have to remind myself that it is not personal and he is merely resorting to a behavior that was second nature to him over the last five years of his life. But I will have to be more vigilant about checking his pockets regularly, which I really don't want to have to do but it is a necessary evil until we get this straightened out. He is an amazing kid with a huge capacity for love and it is sad that because of the circumstances of his life that this behavior (stealing) had to develop in order for him to survive in the orphanage.
I am excited about our day of shopping and sightseeing tomorrow but even more excited about the day after tomorrow when I get to see Keith and Jackson again. This past weeks without seeing Jackson has seemed like an eternity. I love him dearly and can't wait to give him a BIG hug... and hold on for a while...

Made it to Kiev!

We are here in our apartment in Kiev. We will be here until we leave (for our 5:45am flight) on Friday morning. Alexei took us straight from the train to the US Embassy to turn in our paperwork. Joseph was intrigued by the fact that he made the metal detector beep (I was not). They didn't find anything unless the gum I bought him here has metal in it, that could be a problem. Anyways, I had all the correct paperwork to turn in and was told to return tomorrow at 2pm with the medical forms I needed (this was expected). So we then went to the doctor and he reviewed Joseph's immunization form from the orphanage, translated it, and gave Joseph a once over. The only things the doctor find in Joseph's paperwork was that he has had bronchitis before and chicken pox. Otherwise he is totally healthy! After we were brought to our apartment we took a walk to a mall where we were told there was a "food court" (that exact phrase) on the top floor. So I am expecting a Sbarros, a Chinese food place, a Gyro Wraps, and a Chick-fil-A at a minimum! I was mistaken... again... I swear, if I have to eat food much longer that feels like it is prepared for an eighty year old grandpa with dentures... It was really just another cafeteria style restaurant, they have lots of those here, where you point to something and then they put it on a plate and they stick it in the microwave. I had mashed potatoes (not too bad) and what I thought was meatballs. There was more rice than meat and they fell apart under they weight of my fork. I like to think of them as mushballs (Ukraine has like 1100 varieties of a meatloaf type of substance and I am over it!). I want some food I can really sink my teeth (not dentures!) into! We went by the grocery store on the way home and I got Raman noodles for my dinner...

Some New Information

So this morning, Joseph and I are talking about getting on the train tonight. We will be getting on the train at about 7:30 and we arrive in Kiev around 11am tomorrow morning. That's over 15 hours of being on the train (do the math!). So during our conversation about the train ride Joseph informs me that he does not sleep on trains and planes. He says he sleeps on cars, buses, and boats but not on trains and planes. Unfortunately we are not taking a car, bus, or boat to get back to America, only a train and two planes! Including the train ride and the two planes we will be traveling for over 29 hours within the next 4 and a half days. Joseph has another think coming... Maybe I can make him run some laps around the train station first to wear him out...

Sleep deprived already...

So after all the excitement yesterday I finally got Joseph to agree to go to sleep a little after 11. He had said that he wanted to sleep on the couch (this is a small one bedroom apartment). So I tucked him in and headed to bed ready to PASS OUT with exhaustion and within 5 minutes, in he comes saying "Mom, me sleep bed". So I said okay and scooted over for him to sleep in the bed with me. We fell asleep quickly but I was awoken suddenly at 1am by a switch smack in the chest! Apparently Joseph moves A LOT in his sleep so over the next hour as I was trying to go back to sleep I was relegated to about a one foot wide section of the bed on the very edge due to flying arms and kicking legs. I finally fell back asleep and was awoken to Joseph doing who knows what in the kitchen at 6am. When he is excited he wakes up early like a kid on Christmas. So I got up too, powered up the laptop, and turned on some Tom and Jerry and was able to get about 30 minutes more of sleep. Finally, about 7:15am, he had had enough Tom and Jerry and wanted to go walking to by 7:30 am we were out the door to wander the streets and markets (the few booths that were open) of Luhansk, Ukraine. He was upset that so many things were still closed, I told him that he should have slept more then.  But it was not a completely unsuccessful outing because we did find a vendor set up in the open air market that had drinks and hotdogs. So at 8am, for breakfast, Joseph had a hotdog with slaw and a coke. I wish I had found this vendor sooner, there were many days I craved something American like a good ole slaw dog! Although, at 8am I wasn't as in the mood as Joseph was. So after getting lost in the endless open air market and seeing bunnies, birds, fishing and hunting equipment, and lots of cell phones (for which I had to repeatedly explain that a Ukraine cell phone will not work in America, we have to buy a cell phone in America for it to work in America - I think he thinks I am making that up to get out of buying him a cell phone yet!) we found our way out and returned to our apartment at 8:45am. Sergei is not picking us up until 10:15 to go back to Joseph's school for one last party/goodbye. Now he is killing time between watching some Russian cartoons on TV, listening to his MP3 player with his new headphones, and turning the stereo on to listen to the radio and he keeps asking when is Sergei going to be here. Its gonna be a long day... BUT I wouldn't trade it for the world... to finally have my son Joseph with me... I just might need a nap after I am done "not trading it for the world".   :)