The drama never ends!

We recieved a call last night to be at the orphanage at 9am sharp. We were to go with the orphanage attorney to get some paperwork fixed.

Apparently, then name one of the boys tax ID (sort of like a social security #) does not match the name on his birth certificate. This mistake might never have been caught it we weren't attempting to adopt him.

(I don't remember if I shared that there were some other paperwork problems. The boys needed updated statements that they do not have siblings to be seperated from. This involved a trip to Yalta and a trip to Kerch, the cities of their birth, which happen to be in opposite directions. We didn't have to personally go, but we did have to pay for the car. Surprise, surprise.)

So this morning we took a drive with the attorney to get this whole thing fixed. When we got to the gov't office we sprinted after the attorney, who by the way was wearing fantastic high heels. How can they walk so fast in those things? We caught up with her upstairs where she was at a window arguing with a woman. It wasn't looking good.

Pretty soon she walked away and shrugged her shoulders at us, no English. We raced back to the waiting car not knowing what was going on! Of course my active imagination kicked into high gear. What if we couldn't adopt him? How would I handle that? What would I be willing to do in order to save him?

The attorney told the driver where to go next and called our facilitator and chatted away for the longest time. Finally we got to talk to our fac! Turns out there are more forms that need to be filled out to get this thing fixed. It will get done. We just don't need be there. Phew!

After running around for an hour we got to see the boys. They were both really great today! I know there are challenges ahead, there are many now. Alec needs physical healing first and foremost. Zhenya needs emotional healing, and that damage is much harder to understand. You can't see it from just looking at him, but it is there and it surfaces from time to time.

Teaching Zhenya how to play airplane!

Daddies love to tickle.

Zhenya insisted on laying down to play with this car? We suspect that he thought someone might take it away from him. He's in the playpen because we have nowhere else to set him down. He is not allowed to sit on the ground or in the grass, which he would probably try to eat. :(

Here you see the latest in orphanage fashion.

Complete with pants that go up to your armpits! :)

Yes, his upper arms are that thin. He is surprisingly strong, though!

Here's proof of progress! New windows! I'm please to say that the new windows are first going in to the rooms where the children play and sleep. Not sure, but I hope that our orphanage donations are paying for this. Look! There are even a few air conditioning units visible. This is money well spent.