Day 5

Sorry the formatting won't hold. I'll fix the paragraphing when I get home.

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

 Today, we picked up V and M and took them to a nearby monastery.  A monk came and gave us a very thorough tour. I was surprised when he told us to take as many pictures and video as we liked. With all the very old paintings and things (besides the fact that it was a church), I thought that would not be allowed.   The kids also surprised us by being very attentive and quiet whenever the monk was talking...'cause it was a LONG tour. It was quite interesting, though.

 After this we went to a small playground for a while. Once again M & V got my camera to play with. There is no telling what I will will find when I upload my pictures. At one point I told Tim I really hated to go home with a ton of pictures of myself!  : )

 By this time we were all getting hungry, so we went to the one restaurant in the village.  They didn't have a menu but told us what they had. I believe they had three salads, two soups, and two main plates. I must say, it did keep things simple.  We had quite the crowd: the two of us, the two kids, our translator, each kid's social worker, and one of the orphanage directors. M & V ate very well and were well-behaved...at least until Tim started aggravating V.  He would pick at her and she would giggle.  Then she started repeating everything he said.  Once she tried to sneak my camera out of its case, which was clipped to Tim's belt loop. He caught her with a funny look and called her Sneaky. She repeated that several times and may have a new nickname.  

 We went back to M's orphanage and sat down to look at the photo albums we had brought them. Our plan was to go through all of the pictures and then talk to them about becoming a part of our family. This was going to be our way of telling them that  kwe did, in fact, want to adopt them. Our translator was making labels for each page as we went, so it wasn't going as quickly as just flipping through an album. At one point she told us that M had asked her how long it would be before we came back to take them with us. What?  This kid is not letting us get away!  First he announces that he is going to call us Mama and Daddy. Then he wants to know how soon we can go. He is not going to waste time beating around the o,,ok bush. He is so excited to be getting a family. The last child adopted from his orphanage of 7-18 year-olds was 2 years ago.  See, once you move to this place for older kids, your chances of getting a family are greatly reduced. He fully understands what this adoption means. I don't think V gets it as much, but she is going anywhere her brother goes.  

After pictures, we gave them the other gift for today.  M was so excited about his Ben-10 t-shirt, he jumped up and gave each of us a hug and kiss. V was tickled with the dress we brought and followed her brother's lead by giving us a hug and kiss.  Although our little "talk" had been blown, we still felt we needed to say something official. So Tim (and the translator) got their attention and asked them...

Tim:  "Are you sure you want to become a part of our family?"
M&V: "Da"  ("yes"  Although they might just as well have said "DUH".)    
Tim:  "And move to America?"
M&V:  "Da"
Tim: "And learn to speak English?"
M&V: "Da"

And that was that. While we were doing the pictures, I had also gotten the iPad out to show them some video clips of Colton and Eli. Then they saw all of their referral pictures.  They really liked seeing themselves. So after our very brief "talk", I showed them that I had a few cartoons on there. This opened us up to our first dispute!  (Isn't that sweet?  They already feel enough like a family to argue.)  She wanted to watch Bugs Bunny, and he wanted to watch Phineas and Ferb.  Then he asked if I had any Batman. Finally to settle the dispute, I asked if they would like for me to show them some games on it.  M tried out a version of Simon (where you follow the pattern of colored lights).  Then I showed them a memory game, and we had them take turns flipping two cards for a match.  V surprised everyone by being quite good at this game. I would say that if we had kept score, she would have won. M was just as sweet as could be. He didn't get upset when he missed or when she succeeded. He just enjoyed playing. 

 When it was time to go, he gave V a hug and kiss...then us. This kid has got so much love to give and just needs a family to receive it. There were times when he would just hug Tim out of the blue as if he were just spilling over with affection and had to either let it out or burst.  During our travels today, we had two kids and 5 adults in a 5-passenger car. M sat in Tim's lap, and V sat in mine. When we took V back to her orphanage, we were back to having plenty of room, but she still wanted to ride in my lap.  Awwww.  

 The trip back to the city was interesting. Each of the directors had asked our translator for a ride back. (They both live in the city.)  I ended up sitting between them in the back seat. The ride back began to make me very sleepy, and I was so afraid I would fall asleep between them and end up snoring or drooling on one of them. Yikes!  But I didn't. Don't worry.  

 A little shopping and a lot of dinner later, I'm ready for bed.