Weird Day

Today started out at midnight last night when we left for the region to meet the boys. We had an eight hour drive overnight ( in what felt like a log wagon) which kept us from sleeping much. Our nerves were going crazy wondering about these children and wanting to meet them. We had to meet with inspectors first in each of the towns before we had permission to meet with the children. Technicalities.

Anyway, we had trouble finding the addresses but we finally did. We met the younger child first. Let me warn you that we were starving (we hadn't eaten since lunch the previous day), very tired, and nervous. The child was very rambunctious and fearless, trusting us right away. Oh yeah, did I mention that he is made of lead? The child, Ivan, is SO heavy but he doesn't look it. He walked right up to us first thing and hugged our legs. We gave him a toy we had bought the day before. It was Mater from the movie Cars. It lit up, moved, played music, and spun in circles......for about the first 30 seconds. Within those first 30 seconds, he was already missing a rear wheel. Needless to say the life of the toy was down hill from there. In less than a half an hour, he had it in about 30 pieces. We call him Ivan the destroyer now. We played outside a while and he started to answer our questions with Russian for yes and no. It was great. We didn't have much energy so we were tired right away.

We left his orphanage and went and found a hotel for the night while our apartment is being cleaned in preparation for our stay. We ate and had a small nap. We left around 2 pm to travel to Ivan's brother's town (about an hour away) and met with the inspector there as well. We then had permission to travel to the orphanage to meet him. They first brought in the wrong boy to meet us because there was some miscommunication with the names of the children. They finally brought in Ivan's older brother whose name is Alexander but everyone calls him Sasha. This is short for Alexander in Ukrainian and his whole name is only used when he is in trouble. They told us he had been a little disobedient and he wanted parents but thought he wouldn't get them until he behaved. On the way down the hall to meet us he asked if he was now obedient because they told him they had found him parents. How sweet. He was quiet and shy and played with Left Brain a while with the toy semi truck we took to him. He was taken with Left Brain very quickly but assured our translator that he already had a mommy. It wasn't long before he seemed to change his mind and was hugging us both. We played for about an hour and now know that he loves raisins, peanuts, and water. He showed us his bed and his favorite toys at the orphanage. By the time we left he was keeping us from the other children in his group. When we started to walk out of the room he asked for us to come back. We love them both already and have started the process to adopt them. They are cuter in person than we saw in the pictures. We traveled home to the hotel and walked around town to have dinner and find an internet cafe. We will try to post some of our videos on the blog very soon. Keep praying and thanks for the prayers you have already said. We believe you are helping make things happen quickly. Keep it up!