Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Random Stuff!


Good morning, everyone!


My new Mommy is hilarious!


This is my "concentration" face


I have a really cool ride!


Even put my workout clothes on for this!


My mom says that she had a "carb fest"....she says that you are not suppose to eat potatoes, pasta, and bread at the same time....but she didn't care!

Yep, we are still here. Hopefully we will find out something about the passport today. I still don't know what happened. Somehow there was an "error". I think it may have been how our passport application was submitted. Our facilitator was sick on court day and she sent someone else who wasn't as familiar with the system as she was and that person insisted on completing the passport application and apparently, it had an error on it. So, now we wait! If we get the passport tonight, then we will do our 2nd appointment at the Embassy tomorrow, along with Cooper's medical appointment and then we are out of here on Friday!!!

Cooper is smart, smart, smart! He has surprised me beyond belief. He is totally time/potty trained. He hasn't peed/pooped in his diaper in 3 days. He uses the bathroom every time you sit him on the potty. He is eating well, drinking well, sleeping well and overall just a happy baby/little boy. He is playing with the toys so much better instead of just throwing them. He can sign "more" when we are eating, says "Momma" (which he thinks means eat) and "hi" when we are skyping someone. He scoots to you constantly and holds his arms up to be held. One thing he does that is not so cute is smack you and if you correct him and tell him "no/nyet", he will not stop at least touching you with one finger so that he gets the last word in. While I secretly think it is funny, I can't let him know that. So, we did have our first come to Jesus meeting last night and he was less than thrilled. I will update you all when I have passport in hand! Please continue to pray that the rest of this journey will go smoothly!

Monday, February 27, 2012

Delay!

There was an error in Cooper's passport application and we did not get his passport today. We may not get it tomorrow, either. Supposedly, we should have it by Wednesday and then have our 2nd Embassy appoint. on Thursday, which puts us home on Friday. Please pray that they will let us get the passport tomorrow from Kiev instead of sending it all the way back to Cooper's region and then back to Kiev (which is the rule-CRAZY)!!!!

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Scabies Saturday!


Scabies treatment in UA if you ever need it (hope you don't)

Yesterday when I woke up I was more than a little itchy. I have thought that Cooper may have scabies, but he is so small that I didn't want to give him anything for it until I had him checked out, but yesterday he had bloody claw marks all over him from scratching all night. Scabies usually takes 2-4 weeks to show up, so I guess my time was up:( So, I called our facilitator, Yulia, and asked if they had meds here readily available for this. She told me to go to the pharmacy (anteka) and she would ask. So, I went out, found an anteka...gave the lady behind the counter the phone....she gave me the meds. It is an aeresol spray and very greasy. I put the name in google translate....then read the entire package insert....and then treated myself, my mother, and Cooper. I then proceeded to wash everything in the apartment. We washed the sheets, blanket, all of his clothes, our jackets, all of our clothes and all the towels/wash clothes. It came out to be eight loads on Saturday and two today (had to rewash the sheets from last night while the meds were on us). Good fun times!

Coop is doing great. His stomach still swells after eating. He then proceeds to burp and poot for about an hour or so, then his belly slowly starts going back down. He is now much more alert and tracks you everywhere you go. If you get his food, or any food for that matter, he scoots to you, pulls himself up and holds his arms in the air for you to pick him up. That is quite impressive for someone that did NOTHING a week ago. He is much smarter than everyone, myself included, gave him credit for.


Look at this face....how could you not love it?


Loves to joke and laugh


For all you coffee lovers out there, this is by far the best instant coffee in the WORLD....it is expensive...$11/jar (makes about 15 cups-cheaper than buying at a cafe)....but much worth it!

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Time is Standing Still

Well, time is going by so SLOWLY...we are staying in today and just relaxing. I got a taxi cab yesterday and went to the big grocery store and shopped for food to last for the next 5 days. So we did what any normal American would do....we fried peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and ate til we were sick!

Andrey/Cooper is doing SO good. You can sit him in the floor and he will scoot across the room, get to the couch, pull himself up and then hold his hands up for you to pick him up and then CRACK up. That is some serious progress in just a few days. He literally did not do anything when we got him from the orphanage. He loves to play, laugh, eat, sleep, and he just enjoys life, in general.

Thursday, February 23, 2012


My poor babe's huge belly....with his skeleton body.




Not so sure about the whole "taking a bath" situation...




But he was very forgiving!

He is the sweetest BABY in the entire universe. He may be five years old, but he is very much a baby....like having a 6 month old. He has to have a diaper bag, extra clothes, diapers, diaper wipes, his own cup, his own bowl, his own food, his own toys, a stroller....not exactly what I signed up for, but loving it. He is TINY....I don't know if you can tell by the pictures, but tiny, tiny, tiny. The size 24 months clothes I brought him are huge on him, but we can manage.

Hopefully, we will get our passport Monday, have our first embassy appointment Monday, then visa pick up on Tuesday and hopefully come home Wednesday. Please pray for the passport to come and for the man to stay healthy. I have been feeding him bread soaked in milk, yogurt, baby food meats, baby food fruits and thickened water with a packet of pedialyte in it and so far, so good. I feed him 4 small meals a day. His gut is working. He has had two dirty diapers and he is peeing good, not too much, not too little....I am hoping to keep him healthy until I can get him home and then start feeding him some real food once we have access to medical care.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Gotcha!


Having dinner with friends who are also adopting...and of course, the stud picked up a chick!

I PROMISE to upload some pics tomorrow...but to update you all....we got Cooper yesterday (2-21-12) at around 3 pm and then we drove 2 hours to the train and then 9 hours on the train back to the capital city. He has been fabulous. Not one tear. Not one fit. Nothing...but pure happiness and bliss. He has slept well, ate well, and played like crazy. He is now done for the night and hopefully will get caught up on sleep. He is pure joy! We hope to get his passport either Friday or Monday, then we can finish up at the US Embassy and get out of here. Please pray that he stays healthy. His stomach is still quite distended and will need pretty urgent care to see what is going on in there. I really can't express how sweet he is.

Friday, February 17, 2012

Pick up Trip

My mother and I are leaving Sunday to go pick up Andrey/Cooper. We will arrive in his country on Monday, go straight from the airport to the train station, and hopefully, will arrive in his region on Tuesday to start the great "paperjam". We should be doing paperwork on Tuesday and Wednesday and hopefully going back to the capital city on Wednesday night to wait for his passport and for our medical appointment and Visa. If all goes well, we should be home on Wednesday or Thursday (March 1st or 2nd). Please pray for safe travels. My mother has never done any extensive traveling, especially in a place that do not sometimes have conveniences that we are used to. Promise to update from UA!!

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Yes, I am the worst blogger in the world!!!

Hello, all!

Yes, we had court!

Yes, we PASSED!

Yes, we are HOME!

No, we don't have Andrey yet!

Yes, we have to go back!

I am sorry for the lack of posts, but it has literally been run, run, run for the last week. We had court on Friday, Feb. 3rd. It was much more intense than I was expecting. We were questioned quite extensively on our motives for adopting. But, praise God, we did it. We then left court, waited on the night train, rode 9 hours to the capital city, went straight to the airport, hopped a plane to Zurich, ran across the airport and missed our flight.....but the plane was still there and I cried and cried and begged to get on that flight and to just open the gate back up and we would run to the plane.....AND THEY DID....so we made our flight to Chicago...and we only had a 3 hour layover until our flight to Knoxville. Our flight got delayed due to a "minor mechanical problem" and then about 30 minutes later.....our flight got canceled. We were so close, yet so far away. We ended up getting a hotel and staying the night in Chicago and catching a early morning flight out to Knoxville. We could not wait to get home to our kids!!! We did NOTHING but lay around and play and hug and kiss all day Sunday, then Monday we hit the ground running. We went back to work and the kids were in school and we have not had a day off yet! I am exhausted!!!! I am working on a long post about the actual court proceedings and I will post as soon as I am finished. Thanks for all the prayers and well wishes!!!

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Random Info



Working on giving a kiss without slipping you the tongue....the very BIG tongue!


Yep...I have on three shirts, a sweater, a hoodie and a jacket....with two pair of stockings and some velvet purple pants...don't hate!


"Mommmm...why do you keep taking my picture?"

Sorry that I haven't posted much....there just really isn't that much to post about. It is too cold (-15 degrees) to go anywhere, so we sit in the apartment and watch Lifetime (which is killing Sean slowly). We go visit Andrey just once a day because there is not much heat in the playroom and it is freezing in there so they put so many clothes on him that the poor little guy cannot even move. We have court tomorrow at 11 am. I am a little nervous because our facilitator is sick and will not be joining us. She is sending a person named Ira (who I have never heard of) to go to court with us. After court, we will visit with Andrey one last time and then we will get on the overnight train to the capital city and then we will go straight to the airport to start our journey home. I cannot wait to get out of here. It is unbelievably cold here, more so than normal. I read today that about 75 people had died already from hypothermia. It is mostly homeless people and the elderly. So very sad. They haven't figured out a way to help the homeless here and they are indifferent to them, at best.

Andrey did not feel very good today. No laughs. No snuggles. No kisses. He just sat and stared. I don't know what happened or if he was just really tired, but something definitely was different. Please pray for him to stay strong and healthy for our journey home. I won't be back to pick him up for at least 14 days.

I have a friend that wrote a blog post today that took my breath away. I want to share it here with some of you all. Please visit her blog and read about the ones left behind......her blog is http://butbygraceitcouldbeme.blogspot.com.

Solitary Confinement

Before I share elements of the true stories that motivated the title of this post, I want to throw some food for thought out there for you.

We, as Americans, hate Adolf Hitler. Even his name brings forth anger for many. Any good contributions of art or science that he produced are far overshadowed by the atrocities he inflicted on the disabled, the poor, those of Jewish descent or other racial minorities. In his quest for a pure, perfect race, he extinguished the lives of those he deemed, by his standards, to be flawed and therefore useless. And America raged against the genocide- rightfully so, sending in troops to stop the maniacal reign of terror he inflicted on Europe.

Yet everyday, in Eastern Europe, in the shadows of the concrete buildings erected during a Soviet empire, this genocide continues to occur. If you walk the streets, you do not see the disabled, the cognitively impaired, the unique. You see a people striving for outer perfection- for beauty, for an elite quality of superiority in fashion and breeding. Those born with disabilities are shuttled away to institutions, living out their lives in restricted fashion, limited to the world the government deems appropriate. Deprived of the basic rights that we Americans value as essential to humanity- the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, the right to practice our faith, the right to an education, to be treated with respect and dignity.

It is a slower genocide than what Hitler inflicted. His was brutally quick- the victims were forcibly evacuated from their homes and businesses, herded onto trains like cattle, transported to a future of incarceration or incineration, or both. They were treated like animals- used for manual labor until their cost of upkeep superceded their value in work, then put down like lame horses or rabid dogs.

The children and adults with disabilities in EE face a similar future. A government body determines their value as humans in terms of their potential costs of upkeep compared to value of work production- if the scales weigh in the wrong balance, they are sent to remote mental institutions, where they face a slow torturous death from malnutrition, isolation, deprivation of medical care, and maltreatment.

It's still genocide.