Yesterday after church we went to visit our friends, the Murphys. They also hosted a child last summer and have experienced some setbacks in their case. It's always good to get together with other families who understand how frustrating the process can be at times. This afternoon we had some more behavioral issues with the kids so they weren't speaking to us on the way there but things got better as the night went on. I think a lot of it is a result of our inexperience as parents and all of us having unrealistic expectations of each other. The Murphys have a biological daughter close to Kristine's age so they got to hang out together. Olegs was happy too since she had a new Gameboy that she let him play with for awhile.
Today was our last full day together and we spent the afternoon with friends of ours who own a small plane. We also invited Ilga in the hopes that she and the kids could go up for a ride in the plane. Unfortunately, it was very windy so they weren't able to fly. The pilot, Sam Lyons, is an extremely talented artist whose paintings grace the walls of the Smithsonian and the Pentagon. He and his wife, Mindy, were kind enough to show us around Sam's beautiful studio. His paintings are so amazing they almost look like photographs. The kids and Ilga were especially excited to meet their three young and playful cats, a sharp contrast to our geriatric ones. They had one of those poles with a string on the end that hangs down and the cats would jump and flip like crazy in attempts to grab the string. The kids could have played with them for hours if we let them. Ilga got a kick out it when one of the cats took a liking to her faux fur covered animal print purse as if it were a new love interest.
Olegs and Kristine had a blast driving and riding up and down the grassy runway in our friends' golf cart. Rob and I didn't go with them but noticed that somehow everyone came back dirty when it was Kristine's turn to drive. We didn't ask.
Sam and Mindy have other friends who adopted a beautiful 13-year old girl named Anna from Kazakhstan. She and her father came over to meet Kristine and Olegs. The kids got to talk to each other and Ilga in Russian. Rob and I were dying to know what they were saying. Thank goodness Ilga was there to tell us. It turns out that Anna has been through some of the exact same troubling experiences that Kristine has and was able to share her experience. I'm not putting all of the details here only because I want Kristine to be able to read this one day without seeing all of her business being shared with the world. I'll just say that we believe this was divine intervention that Kristine got to meet Anna because she was able to tell Kristine that things turned out fine in her case and she is so happy with her adoptive family. This really meant a lot to Kristine. Anna took the kids for a ride in her golf cart and once again they had a blast going up and down the airstrip. Anna commented to Rob and me that she thought Olegs was cute. So from that point on we kidded Olegs about his new girlfriend. We told him it was obviously the "man perfume" working. LOL!
We came back to our house later and Ilga was able to sit down with us and talk to the kids. We wanted to make sure that they both understand that Kristine will be staying with us when we're in Latvia but that Olegs won't be allowed to since we're not adopting him now. We were able to tell them that this wasn't what we wanted but what the government required. We also got to reiterate that even though we may get angry with each other, it's important for us to talk about things so we can work through them. We covered many topics and it just flowed perfectly as we talked through some of their concerns and ours. Kristine ultimately said that she knows for sure she wants to be in our family now. That's good to know considering we're leaving for Latvia in a couple of weeks!!!
After our talk we went to our favorite Mexican restaurant for dinner. Ilga said she likes many different foods so we thought it might be a nice change of pace. The kids couldn't make up their minds at first but ultimately decided on the chicken wings. They didn't realize they would be spicy chicken wings. Luckily, they ate them anyway. Kristine got a kick out of saying "muchos gracias" every single time the waiter came to our table. After awhile I think it got on the guy's nerves but he didn't say anything.
After dinner we dropped Ilga off and went back home. I had made the mistake of sharing a big list of girl names with Kristine so she could tell me the names she liked. The first thing she wanted to do when we got home was go through the list. I knew better than this but I was interested to see what names she might like. Well, now she wants to be called "Britney" after Britney Spears. Rob and I both like the name Kristine but since being adopted is such a life changing event in her life we thought we might let her change it as long as we both approve. We'll have to come up with our list of approved names for her to choose from. One of the other names she liked was "Paris" after Paris Hilton. NO WAY!! I think we may try to convince her to keep her current name and come up with a middle name. We'll see how it goes.
We stayed up late helping the kids pack their bags and they were actually pretty good about it. They both understood that they had to leave things behind and they even left more than we thought they would. Rob and I had been dreading packing day because we thought we'd have another fight on our hands. Thankfully that wasn't so.
Now it's dawning on us that this time tomorrow the kids will be gone. I'm actually feeling okay about it. I can't say how I'll be at the airport though. I'm not good at goodbyes. We'll see.
No comments:
Post a Comment