9/22/11 - Visit

We decided to do an outside visit with Zeph (AKA: "Wallace") today and it was a lovely breezy warm day! We had fun playing little games and showing Zeph toys but of course, as with all our children, "real" toys are most fun: sun-glasses, the camera, etc... And Scott took quite a few pictures of "Mama" (me) and Zephaniah together - yay!

And even though he is just all 'go, go, go' with the excitement - he still wants loves:

9/21/11 - Orphanage visit

Second day in the play/therapy room. Okay for awhile but after an hour he begins to get flustered a bit. I took a picture (can you tell I take most of the pictures) - isn't it cute?

What happens when "Papa" takes the pictures? Well, there's this one of me trying to get Zeph to say "hi":

And then there's this one of me trying to calm Zeph down when he's getting frustrated that he's in a fun room but not allowed to climb the walls, bang on the mirrors or other things that curious 2 year olds like to do. This is me thinking, "why isn't my hubby catching any of the fun pictures of me and Zeph?"

Daddy must be just trying to catch more than the "fuzzy" moments - though I must admit since we've had one child pass through toddler-hood, one in the midst of it and one about to enter - we're pretty patient with him and usually we find a way to distract him or help him accept things he doesn't understand. It's going to be a very big transition for him and we know it's a long road and we are ready as we can be to walk him through it. It's more than the "usual" stuff toddlers go through, more than most children must endure (to leave everything and everyone they've ever known). Please pray for his little heart as we know he will be homesick. He's really just a baby and these nice caregivers are the closest people to a "mama" he's ever known. He seems attached to them (which we've read is actually good because it means he can and will likely attach easier to us). We just know he will miss the sounds of their voices. I hope mine will be okay as a filler and then I hope mine will be a comfort on it's own...as his mama.

I leave you with another video caught by mama (and this is at the end of our visit when he's pretty much done having fun and just wants to go take a nap):

Oh and P.S. - It's my (Rachel's) Daddy's birthday today and since I cannot give you a hug dad - I'm blowing you a kiss from Eastern Europe!

Oh and P.S.S. - I need to update the thermometer! Thank you SO, so very much to everyone who's been donating to our funds! I'll try to get that all up to date when I get a chance.

9/20/11 - orphanage visit inside today!

Today we walked to the orphanage, only a brisk 20 minute walk! And we didn't get lost - he, he! We stopped by a local store to buy apples and some juice for the "groupa", which we were told is a nice thing to do. When we arrived the care-taker ladies were smiling and laughing and making a "round tummy" motion - as if we had brought it all for our little boy to eat all on his own. I hope we can clarify it is not just for him! He, as usual, was excited to see us, very vocal about it! We asked to take him to the inside playroom today and they allowed it. It's really a very neat room - looks a lot like a physical therapy room you might see in our country. We wanted to see him able to play when we put him down (they very much, as we understand, do not like imobile/walking children to be placed to play outside on the ground - it's a no- no). He took right off! First we played passing the ball and he said, "bounce" (well, not a perfect pronunciation, of course but he sure tried!). Then it was off to other activities, playing in a ball pit, with his toy phone we brought, with our camera, and riding on a push/ride car toy! We had fun and then we could tell he was quite worn out, ready to return and it was just at 3pm, which is the time we have to return him anyways. Here are just a few pictures and some video I hope you will enjoy!

Court date

Almost forgot to update - I don't know why we were mixed up - but our court date is actually Monday the 26th. Something is happening on Friday (like I think some papers or confirmation from court of court date ???) but our actual court date we expect to be on Monday the 26th. Sorry for that mix-up. We are still not quite used to the time difference and we are so tired!

Pictures from 9/18/11, our second orphanage visit

Here are some pictures from yesterday during our second orphanage visit with our little "Zephanushka". Most are with Scott (me, Rachel, taking pictures) but I assure you I've had plenty of fun moments with our little boy :)

I would also ask for everyone to continue to pray as "Wallace" (our Zephaniah) has some health issues we were unaware of until we met him on Friday the 16th. They are more recent occurring in early September, which is why they were not disclosed to us earlier. We are praying nothing comes up, especially during this process, and that he remains in good health so he can safely travel home to the states. I don't know what we are allowed to disclose on-line and not so I'll leave it like that on our blog. We hope it will not become anything serious and pray for God to heal him. His language is similar to our 1 year old's (in his own language). He knows some words and phrases and understands a lot of their words and phrases but does not speak all that clearly or very many words. But we feel he's a fast learner because he is already trying to say "jump", "car", "ball", and he says "na" for "no". So we feel he will be able to pick up English pretty fast with all the little chatter-boxes we have at home.

Not every moment is "fun" - some of it is figuring out what makes him happy and what he doesn't like and when or how easily he is over-stimulated or tired. His little pout - think somebody is going to be spoiled???

Do we have a picture of him smiling? Oh yes we do! LOTS!

We taught him "Bbbbbbb" - the car motor sound with his lips - it is just too cute!

He really likes for his "Papa" to show him the sunglasses!

When we can tell he's getting tired or over-stimulated we place him back into his "safe place" which is in this case a stroller that is very difficult to steer/turn - but we manage and just push him along, letting him play with a simple toy and letting him hear our voices and language so he slowly gets used to us.

More Pictures!!

Some Video!

Our internet is fixed, Praise God! Thank You, Lord! So hard to have SO much to share and having no way to share it yet!



Zephaniah ("Wallace") loves our little camera - mostly because he can see on the 3x3" screen whatever he's looking at - but he gets very upset if/when we have to put it away so we've been trying not to get it out too much lately. But here are some short little clips.



From what we have gathered during our first few visits now - Zeph is easily overloaded/tired after only an hour of visiting. Maybe it is just too exciting having a "Papa" to play with, along with Mama but we are not sure if also he is just not used to having two people play with him at once very often. It might be just a lot of stimulation for him to process. The workers in his group seem very sweet and pleased that we are visiting and trying to adopt him. One is particularly sweet and interacts very endearingly with him. After about an hour of showing him toys or playing little games like peek-a-boo and such he starts to become flustered and then we place him in the stroller and just sort of give him a "break" and walk him around. All of our visits so far have been outside in their nice play/walk area where we often see other workers taking other little ones for walks in their prams, including this morning an itty-bitty (young) down-syndrome baby.

We also did not get to mention in the last post how our first day before we even got to meet the children we were invited to sit in on a little play that was going on in a nearby room. We sat right next to the orphanage director who was happily clapping his hands along to the children's songs and dances. Each child was given a little poem to recite, including one little girl we had previously seen on Reece's Rainbow (but her special need is not currently on the list, making her not available for adoption at this time until the list is changed or until she is old enough). It was a darling little presentation that the children obviously had worked hard and had fun at and we were so pleased to see that two children with obvious "special needs" were lovingly included.

I will see if I can post more pictures in a few minutes - so many to post!!

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\my attempt to post a picture frm my facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?fbid=1529203007897&set=t.516509046&type=1&theater

update

just checking in really quick as our driver has allowed us to stop at an internet cafe but i must make this quick. We met both children on Friday and learned more information about them and were able to hold them and take pictures as well. After praying and a lot of emotions we decided only to adopt "Wallace" and are not proceeding with the adoption of sweet little Anastasia. This comes for many reasons I do not have time to explain everything but we did learn that our little boy has some additional health concerns that we will be needing to tend to and we also realized that Anastasia is in need of a family that can give her more time and attention than we have to give at this time in our lives. We are so excited to be visiting our little boy whom we have put on the paperwork to be named Zephaniah but at the same time we are grieving not bringing home Anastasia and we are grieving for her staying here without her family. Words just can't describe the mix of emotions we are feeling now. We have court on Friday the 23rd of September to adopt Zephaniah. Not sure when we may update again. We have no internet in our apartment so please forgive our limited updates until we have more access to internet. And please pray for us, as our hearts are so glad, yet heavy and please pray and advocate for precious little Anastasia - i have a lot to write about her and i hope her family will come soon as there is so much hope for her! When we can we have lots of pictures to post as well but we can't at this post, this time.

God Bless!!

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