I’m sitting here with a huge headache.  I’ve taken 4 Tylenol (and I usually don’t take anything) and have had a bunch of water to drink and it’s not helping so I’m just going to try and power though and blog anyway.  At least it’s not stomach issues again…

     Today we had a pretty good morning visit with Noah.  It was raining so we just stayed inside.  The nannies gave us a hat and coat anyway though.  I’m not sure if they thought that we might want to go outside later or if they thought he would need his coat upstairs.  It was so warm that I just took it right off of him.  They also put a huge bib on him and gave me one for wipe ups because he was spitting up the tea that they had just given him (from a bottle that they told me he wasn’t on – GRRR!)

     Noah had lots of fun knocking down the tower of cups we would make for him.  He scoots himself very close to the tower and tries not to knock it down with his legs.  He then starts tapping both sides of the tower simultaneously until it falls.  He LOVES this game and he gets the biggest smile on his face with and squints his eyes in the cutest fashion.

     He also crawled off the rug and looked down into the hallway.  It must have been pure bliss thinking about crawling all the way down there by himself.  I wish I could have just let him but I didn’t know if the nannies would get upset if they found out so we just kept him on the rug (yes Liz, this must have been where you played because there is now a rug there but there wasn’t when we played there before). 

     We also brought some more diapers to the orphanage.  Last time I brought diapers they told me size 3 but now they are saying size 4 which is what I brought the first time.  I think 4s would fit Noah better but I think maybe they need the diapers for the other children in his group and really it’s the least I can do.

     We also went to the main market in Simferopol about noon.  It is simply huge!  There are people selling just about everything.  We even ran into a part where they were selling animals.  They had all these mice in one little tiny cage.  They also had the most odd looking turtle I’ve ever seen.  It had kind of a pointed head and a soft shell (we could see the shell move in the water).  We ended up buying some tights for the girls.  I am hoping that the ones we bought for Elisha fit because it’s hard to find tights for her size in the states and they were a good price so we may buy more.

     The last few days we’ve had the pleasure to visit with Liz Kulp, her wonderful son, Shea, and her parents, Steve and Kathy Button.  It’s been great to get to know them a little bit more and just to sit down and have a conversation without trying to explain what you mean or get past the cultural difference.  There’s just something comforting about being able to be with somebody who understands. 

     So it was with mixed emotion last night that we went to our evening visit and found them to have disappeared.  It’s so wonderful for them to have been able to get Shea out of the orphanage and let him begin experiencing a very full life with many opportunities he never would have had if he had been forced to grow up here.  I am thrilled to think of Shea waking up next to his Mama this morning and then riding in one of his beloved machinas (cars) and I would really like to see the look on his face when that airplane takes off!  On the other hand it really stinks to be still here trying to trudge though all of this by ourselves.

     Yesterday morning Noah was in fine form.  Let’s just say I am not looking forward to the airplane ride.  He has decided he only likes one toy that we brought, he’s tired of all the other ones.  The one toy he likes is a set of stacking cups and he loves to separate them, try to stack them on top of one another or figure out which ones nest together.  He also enjoys tapping the cups on things to make a sound.  I am just afraid that he’s going to wear out the joy of the cups and then what are we going to do on the plane but arch the back, try to bite himself or others and scream.  Yeah, I see a shopping trip for some new toys in our near future.

     The evening visit we had was with the sweet Noah.  The Noah who makes you remember why you wanted to do this.  He was cuddly, he didn’t scream, he laughed so hard that he could hardly hold his head up when Daddy tickled him.  He enjoyed being carried around and didn’t mind when I tried some new shoes on him (that fit!).  He was just plain wonderful :)

     Mike and I have been talking about how the visits we have mimic what God must feel about us.  He must feel so happy when we choose to do the right things.  When we obey and our attitudes are nice.  But the reality is that we are not always nice, we throw our fits, arch our backs and kick and scream when things don’t go our way.  We think we know better than our Father.  But God, in His great mercy, loves us anyway.  He chooses us!  He chooses to love us not walk away when times are tough.  He keeps his commitment us.  I’m so glad he’s our Father!  That’s true love!

     So backing up to Father’s Day we had gone down to the market.  Mike only had shoes that tied and he wanted something easy to slip off and on.  We had looked a little bit but didn’t find anything that was cheap (that being the most important thing in looking for in these shoes) and that Mike liked and fit.  We saw a little shop with some shoes that we had looked at before.  Mike glanced over again and saw something he liked.  We were able to communicate enough to find the right size and 90 hyrvnia (a little more than $10) we had a pair of sandles for Mike. 

     While Mike was doing his shoe buying I was looking at some shoes for Noah.  I had brought a pair of the R*beez knock offs from T*rget but they proved to be too big.  Now while I wasn’t totally convinced that he needed a pair of shoes to get by I thought it might look better (and help keep his socks on) if he had some.  I had studied the shoes that he was wearing in the orphanage and took notes on which ones were close to fitting and their size.  So when I saw a fairly decent pair of shoes I asked Mike about them.  We used finger numbers to tell the lady what size we would need and she went to find them.  Although they were in a box and the bottoms were clean the inside looked like they had been a little worn.  I still thought that maybe we should buy them, after all, they would newer than any of the shoes that Noah had worn in his life and they would belong just to him.  100 hryvnia later (about $12) Noah had a pair of real shoes.

     So yesterday when we went for our morning visit I put the shoes into my bag.  After taking a picture of the outfit the nannies had put him in I took off the orphanage shoes and held up the new ones to his feet.  They looked just right, I was thrilled.  I thought that we would just put them on for the visit and then take them off when it was over.  Now I’ve put a lot of shoes on children, both mine and other people’s children but this wasn’t working out quite like any of the shoes I had put on before.  Noah was very patient and waited for me to put his shoe on but it just wasn’t going on.  Mike looked at me with a funny face wondering why I couldn’t get the shoe on.  I couldn’t explain the problem kept trying and invited him over to see what he could do.  We sat there trying to get Noah’s feet in the shoes without any luck.  He wasn’t curling he toes or making it difficult for us in any way, he was actually sitting though this with more patience than most children.  Finally we decided that his feet were just too fat for the shoes.  So he’s still shoeless and I’m not really sure that we can find wide width shoes here so he might head home without shoes.

     Yesterday afternoon we were walking around for our visit and headed over to the swings for a change of pace.  I noticed a man sitting on a bench reading but didn’t pay very close attention to him.  There often seems to be people who don’t really belong at the orphanage there making use of their benches or cutting though on their way someplace.  We went over and plopped Noah on the swing and chatted a bit between ourselves and then a lady walked up to us and said we sounded like Americans.  It’s a good thing we sound like Americans since we are :)  It turns out that she and the gentleman on the bench were there with their daughter picking up their grandson Shea.  It was so nice to have a conversation in English!  They are sweet people who really love children.  Unfortunately, the visit was cut short by our facilitator calling and saying we had 30 minutes to be across town (that’s another post).

     I wanted to give those of you who haven’t been here a little taste some of the things we love and some of the things we…well, we don’t love about being here in Ukraine.  It’s so different than the US and even though some things are similar to Germany it’s not as much as would have made me comfortable.

• If you plan on coming here do yourself a favor and learn some Russian phrases because, trust me, nobody here speaks English.
• Riding the bus can be like being packed into a Sardine can and is capable of smelling similar too.
• The rules of the road aren’t really rules, they are more like suggestions.  If you don’t like them, don’t follow them and make up your own ideas about how fast you should drive and where.  (This comes after we were chased down the sidewalk by a vehicle)
• Don’t drink the milk!
• There are fewer preservatives in all of their foods so just count on it not lasting as long as you think it should.
• The market is lots of fun but allow yourself plenty of time to find the few items you need.
• Go with the flow.  Don’t get weirded out by all the “American” rules we have such as, “You should wear gloves when you are cutting our meat up at the market and you also shouldn’t be taking my money with the very same hand you just used to touch my meat.” 
• Slips?  What are those and what are they used for?  I’m asking because I’m sure this is what a Ukrainian woman would think.  Trust me, they don’t have slips under their dresses here, it’s very apparent!
• Be adventurous with your food, there’s nothing here that seems too scary and you can actually find things you didn’t imagine you’d like.
• When you get on the bus you don’t have to pay as you walk on.  You are free to go sit down and then pass up your money via all the people in front of you.  If you need change they will pass it back.
• Personal space is not a concept that is understood here.  You get in line and push your way to the front. 
• Animals.  They seem to have animals around but not really pets.  Don’t touch the animals because they probably have something you can’t pronounce.
• Just keep walking if two preschool girls in their underwear walk down the street with an adult as if it’s the most normal thing in the world.
• Be prepared for the bank to tell you they don’t have enough money to change your $100 into hryvnia.
• You can buy most medicines without a prescription and at a fraction of the cost of what you’d pay in the US.
• You won’t have to wait long for your bus because they come by very frequently.

This is the picture of the “mini bus” or marshrutka that is so popular here.

     I’ve seen this video a number of times and cry every time I watch it.  It’s so meaningful but even more so since we are in the process of adopting Noah.  God is a God of adoption, it was His idea and it’s such a beautiful picture of the way He loves His children.  Be blessed as you watch :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6jO7xhU_Pw