Court

You have got to be kidding me. Now I can't get it to center. Good grief.

This is going to be a long post. And I can't get any pictures to load either, so my apologies.

I don't even know where to start. I think I need to tell you that I have a very looooooooow thyroid. That means that if I don't have my medicine I feel pretty weird. Like super tired. Like sit down to pee and fall asleep on the toilet tired. It also does weird things to my eyes. Think the Bourne movies and the cinematography. (Is that even a word? pretty sure I didn't spell it right) I have a hard time remembering things, like how to spell words:) Before I left, I called the pharmacy to refill my prescription. For some reason, their records show that my scrip had expired, even though my records show I have another six months. Sigh. No big deal. I call my doc to have him call the pharmacy and holy crap. He is out of town until tomorrow. As in July 6. Yeah. Not good. So here I am in Ukraine, without my thyroid medicine and feeling like I described above. I should add that I believe it has made me more emotional that I would normally be. I'm not a crier. Not really very emotional. Except right now. Now that you are up to speed on my state of mind, I will tell you about court. p.s. I also think I may be a lot more sarcastic than usual. I'm usually pretty dry and sarcastic, but I try to be appropriate. Now, I seem to only be sarcastic without knowing when to stop.

I have to start with Sunday night. Sunday day, actually. The boys were soooo happy to see us! For BoyOne, that lasted all of 38 seconds. (Andreas, you may need to add to the website a warning for all adoptive parents that the 'honeymoon' period of adoption can be as short as 38 seconds so people aren't blindsided:))

When BoyOne, aka, Mr. Moody, found out that we would be leaving camp to go to Zap for court at ten the next morning, he was not. happy. Mr. Moody has a girlfriend. This would actually be funny or maybe even cute if he wasn't such a terd. SUCH A TERD!!!!!!!!!!!!! He didn't want to go to court because every night at camp, they have 'disco.' This is a dance. Probably a pretty lame one with not nearly enough supervision. He told us he was mad to miss the dance because he wanted to 'slow dance.' I would like to know how, exactly, they 'slow dance' in Ukrainian orphan society. I'm picturing scenes from a movie I have liked up until now because I'm picturing my son dancing like this: Dirty Dancing. Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice. I could be wrong. But I doubt it.

So, sorry Mr. Moody, but we have to leave camp. No 'disco' tonight. We have a 3 hour drive ahead of us. Plus, the boys are filthy. Filthy!!!!!!!!!!! And we have plans to meet up with some people for dinner. Grudgingly, we leave. Actually, we all were happy to leave. The only grudge one was BoyOne.

Miraculously the car ride was not too terrible, again having nothing to do with the actual transportation aspect of things, but more Mr. Moody, himself. We ended up having a pretty decent night. When I asked BoyOne to go take a shower, he actually took a bath instead. hahaha. :)

In the morning the boys got right up and got ready. I already told you about the brief problem we had with BoyOne not wanting to wear his court clothes. Huz dealt with that. He is waaaaaay nicer than I am. He let him wear different shorts, but the same shirt. That was fine.

It took forever to actually get to court. We were picked up at 8:30. Then we had to run around and pick up a rep from the orphanage, get some papers notarized, etc. Court was at ten and the judge was late. Also, by about 9, BoyOne's attitude was already not good.

Court itself was great. We were taken into the room, which I have pictures of and will post as soon as possible. There was a cage inside. Niiiiice. At least we didn't have to sit in it:). The night before court our interpreter, the fabulous Yana, prepped us. Our assigned judge is not super consistent with how he sees his court cases. Sometimes he asks lots of questions, sometimes he asks weird questions like do we know who his favorite Ukrainian athlete is and we are supposed to know this (yeah, not at all like the states), sometimes he has the couple say, from memory, the petition to the court. So, we tried to memorize all this crap on the way to court. We weren't worried, just hoping to have a smooth 'trial.'

Like I said, the judge was late. He finally arrived at 10:15 when we were shown into the courtroom. It was us, our interpreter, our facilitator, the boys, a rep from the orphanage, a rep from basically the social services department, a court recorder, and a prosecutor. Then we were asked to stand while the judge entered. Now, if you know me at all you will know that I have a hard time not showing how I think or feel through my expressions. I am hoping that I did a better job than normal when the judge entered. He and two 'jurors' came in together. They were all in jeans. The two jurors were women. He could've grabbed the first two people he saw at the bus stop for all I know. The judge (Wendy) had his shirt unbuttoned half way. Oh my. And not in an oooh lah lah sort of way. First we had to state our names and be 'sworn in' which consisted of the judge telling us to be accurate and us saying yes. No bible or anything. But why would there be? I was surprised that there was even that hammer thing. (I told you already that my thyroid affects my memory) Then we were told to be seated.

The judge formally introduced everyone that was there and told what their respective interest in our case was. Next, he asked us is we had any motions. So, I have to tell you really quick that on our way home last time, we were asked to give the boys their names as they would appear after the adoption. We hadn't talked about this much ourselves, let alone with the boys, so we just kind of grabbed a couple of names and figured we would change it later, even if that meant doing a name change back in the States. Then, last night we were told that we could make a motion to have the names changed right there in court. So, judge asked if we had any motions. Huz stood up and started to give the little spiel he had memorized. After about three words, the judge interrupted him and said that he should just tell him later. Again, hope I didn't laugh aloud. This judge has been known to ask the adopting couple many questions. His first question to Huz was why he wanted to adopt these boys. Huz told him about our hosting experience. Then, he asked Huz if he thought he could care for all 6 kids that we will now have. Huz responded saying that he was prepared to care for them financially, emotionally and physically. When he said physically everyone in the room sort of gasped. I knew Huz meant that he could provide for their physical needs. I also knew that everyone else thought he meant that he could physically beat them. Again, hard not to laugh. I actually think I did. After we cleared that one up, the judge asked the prosecutor if he had any questions. He did not. Then it was my turn. My first question was this: "Your husband has a job. Why don't you?" I took a chance. This is how I answered: "His job is to earn the money. My job is to spend it all." Judge liked that one. He said, "All women are the same. It is a sickness." I said, "Yes, it is international." Then to give a real answer I proceeded to tell him that I had licensing in the financial industry and had been a stock trader until I had kids at which time I was fortunate enough to be a stay at home mom. I told him my job was to care for the kids, the house, the laundry, the food, and that I also spent much time doing volunteer work both at the school my children attend and at our church. I also threw in that we had a very strict budget and worked very hard to save money (I didn't want him thinking that I was some crazy woman). He asked why I wanted to adopt when I already had biological children. I told him that I was adopted and that because I had been given the opportunity to be raised by a father and mother both who cared for and loved me, that I desired to give other children who did not have that, an opportunity. Judge must have had a lunch date, because that was it. The prosecutor asked how I would help the boys integrate into a new culture and how I would deal with their language barrier. I told him that I have been studying about Ukraine's history and culture and that I really enjoy the country. I told him that I wasn't trying to take Ukraine away from the boys, just add our culture to theirs. I told him that I was learning to prepare Ukrainian dishes and studying Russian. I told him I had already met with the director of the school the boys would be attending and we were working on getting a tutor for them during school hours. The prosecutor had no further questions. But the judge did. He wanted to know if I knew how to make borsht. I said I did and that I had made it for the boys when they came to visit, but that it had been a waste because the boys do not care for borsht. The judge asked the boys if this was true, they really didn't like borsht? They confirmed they do not. Then the judge asked if I was really learning Russian and how. I told him that I was studying with an online course and also had text books that I used. Then, I decided to wow him with my impressive skills. I asked him in Russian to please tell me where the bathroom is. He along with everyone else laughed and he told me, "out the door to the left. Did I need to be excused?" hahaha.

Next, he asked the boys to stand and state their names. Then he called on BoyOne. He asked him if he wanted to be adopted and go to America. He said yes and that while he was visiting us we had bought him everything he asked for. I'm not sure if he was thinking that would be a good thing to say, because it is definitely not true. Then or now. He asked BoyTwo if he understood what was going on. BoyTwo said no. Everyone laughed. Judge asked BoyTwo if he wanted to be adopted by us and BoyTwo said yes. Judge asked us what we wanted the boys names to be. We told him. He then said the court would need to take a brief recess to deliberate. Five minutes later he came back in and granted our petition to adopt, pending no objections from the prosecutor. Nobody objected. We were done in 45 minutes total. Sweet.

Unfortunately the judge was in such a hurry to get out of there that he forgot to sign some paper so we had to wait at the courthouse for his assistant to get that taken care of. BoyOne was not happy about having to wait. And if he wasn't happy then, he was even less happy when we had to drive around and collect more signatures and documents. Talk about spiraling downward quickly. Sheesh. And, this was all my fault. Everything was my fault. He was seriously ticked at me because it was raining.

At this point, I was still understanding. He just agreed to be adopted by us, which we know he wants, but at the same time this means he is leaving behind everything he knows. Everything. The magnitude of this is huge and I get that he is going to have a hard time so I don't take it personal. Yet.

But later, when he said that he wished he hadn't agreed to being adopted, I started to cry. I threw on my sunglasses and bowed my head and tried to cover my face. He didn't even care. Like seriously, could he have at least been happy for an hour? Judas. Or even nice?! In retrospect, I am trying to convince myself that it is good that he feels comfortable enough with me to treat me like this. You'd think he'd be scared that we'd leave him in Ukraine. Honeymoon period over (did it ever even happen?!), testing period begun.

Paperwork took forever. Finally, at 3:15 we were able to go to McDonalds. Yum. (hear the sarcasm?:)) The caregiver from the orphanage, our facilitator and I did not order food. BoyOne was super concerned with the caregiver and facilitator not eating, telling them they should eat, it had been such a long day, etc. Didn't even look at me. I was sitting next to him. By now, I've put on my big girl panties and I'm not sad anymore, just pissed. Bring. it. on.

I decided that we would send them back to camp for the ten day wait and that I wouldn't even drive with them back to the camp. I was just going to send the driver and the caregiver. I did feel badly about doing this to BoyTwo, but I knew he didn't know that it was even an option to stay with me during the ten days, so as far as he knew, this was the plan. And, no. I couldn't just keep BoyTwo with me and send BoyOne, or else I would have.

BoyOne was startled when he realized I would not be driving back with them to camp. I was glad. I actually thought that he was disappointed to say good-bye to me. He asked why I was crying earlier (as if he didn't know). I told him it was because he said he wished he had not agreed to the adoption. He said that it wasn't true, that he wanted to be adopted. I started thinking there was maybe going to be a reverse in his attitude.

Until he told me he wanted me to come to the camp so that he could use my camera.

Back at the apartment, Huz packed up and we both took a little nap. He was picked up at 8:45 to go to the train. I left the apartment for a walk.

I can't wait to tell you about my first day here alone. I will wait though, because this post is painfully long. Just know that I am alive and that I have internet access for now and that I did not get lost or mugged. And that I miss my girlies and BoyTwo. And even BoyOne. And Huz and my pets and my beautiful mountains and lake. And the clean air act.

By the way, the boys names are Danil Judd (Judd is a family name and Danil is the Ukrainian spelling and pronunciation of the American name, Daniel) and Brandon Bogdan.

p.s. Kerry, I left you a message on your blog... also, feel free to comment. anyone. i may read the entire king james version of the bible while i am here and still have time to spare.