Zoo Day

Today was an organized group event, courtesy of SAC. Huz took the day off and our whole family went. The weather was cool, but not too bad. Over all, it was a great day to be there.

We let BoyTwo stay with his friends and the rest of us stuck together. I felt pretty comfortable with this as we were frequently within eye shot (is that even a term?) of their group.

At noon we were supposed to meet at a picnic area to eat as a large group and to meet the Jazz player from Ukraine, Fsenko. Probably slaughtered that spelling, but oh well. At noon we were there and we were the only ones. By 12:30 a few other families had come. At around 1:00 we received word that Fsenko had thrown up at practice and was sent home. Apparently when this happens they are required to not go anywhere the remainder of the day. Kinda sounds to me like when my kids stay home from school because they are "sick" and I don't let them go anywhere so they can be sure to start "feeling better." So, needless to say, that was a disappointment to many of the boys there.

We didn't get home from the zoo until after 4. I'm not sure I've ever spent so much time there. But, it was a good time, the kids all seemed to have had fun.

Tonight Huz had a client dinner so I was on my own again. Honestly, I can't even remember what we did the rest of the evening! Later, after all the kids were in bed, BoyOne was still awake. Huz and I decided to have a little computer talk with him. He has been acting like he enjoys us and being here, he plays with the kids well, both our kids and others, he asks when he has to go back to Ukraine and when we tell him, he says "NOOOO." We get hugs every morning and night, except for Sunday and Monday after the concert. We really love these boys and would love for them to be part of our family. In observing the boys, we feel they are comfortable here with us and would be happy. We decided to at least give them the option. Ultimately, we want what is best for them, even if it means that it isn't us. We believe they came into our lives for a reason and we want to help them however they need, wether through adopting them or keeping in contact with them, or simply our prayers for them. So, we asked BoyOne to come to the computer to translate. We told him how we have enjoyed having him in our home. We told him we loved him and BoyTwo. We told him that we would love for them to become part of our family if they wanted. We asked if he was worried about living in another country and learning a new language. He answered yes. He, with much sign language, asked what grade he would be in and where he would go to school. We answered those questions and then just told him we wanted them to be happy. That was most important to us. Then we asked if he'd like to think about it, he answered yes. By the way, there is not a word for adopt in Russian. We have been told that we would need to initiate any discussion of this due to the incredibly low self-esteem these kids have. We decided to wait and see how he acted to decide what we should do next.