Day 14: Has it really been 2 weeks?

Maria's view-

I can't believe that we have been in this country for 2 weeks already!  It seems to be going by pretty quickly, actually.  I miss my girls like crazy, though, but they are doing extremely well!

My big G is still in Germany and she is staying with one of our friends for the school nights and then she rotates with other friends of ours on the weekends.  We are very, very blessed to have such wonderful friends in Germany.

Our little G is spending her days and nights with her Mawmaw who is my awesome mother.  She is also spending a lot of time with my brother and his wife and my sister and her daughter.  I am simply amazed at how well she is doing and my mother keeps telling me over and over what a great job I have done in raising her so far.  That makes me laugh because this is not how little G really is with me!   She is a STINK-ER!

I miss them more than words can express.  I can't wait to hold them in my arms again.  I don't know how my hubs does it with having to go deployed or TDY, sometimes for a year at a time.  He's amazing.  So far, it's been 3 weeks away from my little G and 2 weeks away from my big G and I'm hoping that we can wrap everything up here pretty soon... but there's still no court date.

As for our little dude (btw, "dude" has a meaning to us that I will share once we are able to talk about it), he's just thriving.  He is comfortable enough around us now to let his little guard down and drift off to sleep.  We love watching him sleep because he seems to peacefully content.  So far this is the 2nd day in the row that he has drifted off in the swing.

I am worried about him.  Today is his last day in his groupa that he has lived with for the past 2 years.  Why in the world would they change him now?  I am praying that he will have gentle nannies who will be patient with him.  I'm certain that we will start seeing some behavior that we have probably never seen before with him.  I'm praying that he will see us as his safe haven and long for our visits even more.

I worry about the little ones that we will be leaving behind...it's so very hard to walk through the courtyard and hear so many children yell out "momma!"  They are so smart to be so young.  They know why we are there or else they wouldn't call me that.  They know that the strangers who take the same child outside each day are "momma" and "papa" and they beg.  They plead to be chosen.  Will they ever know a momma's love?  You can't go to an orphanage and leave without your heart being changed, broken.

This evening, we made the decision to give a sippy cup to our little man.  We bought a sippy cup today from the grocery store and it wasn't cheap!   It was $6 for one of those Nuby style ones that I'm sure are only a couple of bucks at Walmart.  Oh well, lesson learned.  So we filled it up with bottled water and took it with us for the evening visit.  Chris held it up and he put it right to his mouth like a pro!  Drinking, however, didn't go 100% but I believe he did swallow some.  Our bottled water was chilled so he may not have liked the coldness since I don't think he's ever had refrigerated drinks in his life.  We will try it again every day until he is use to it!

I also think we have a very stubborn little boy on our hands. haha.  I can say, "come here" in Russian and he won't budge.  I'll need some pointers from all of you Been There Done That moms soon!

Also, I have heard that many of you are having problems leaving comments on our blog.  I tried to respond to you, Susan, for leaving such a sweet and encouraging comment and it wouldn't let me reply!  But thank you!!!  Trust me, we need all of the encouragement we can get!  Many of you leave comments on our facebook statuses and we really appreciate those too!  If anyone knows what could be happening to the comment section, let me know!  I know many of you are on my FB so just message me or email me at solomonadoption at hotmail dot com.

Please remember to say a prayer for our little boy tonight since he will be making a big move to a new groupa tomorrow morning! 

Love you all!  We have the most amazing support group ever!


Chris's View:

Today, let's look at the things we take for granted. 

Say you go to a grocery store and you need some cookies to take to school for your little one.  In the states, and every other grocery store I have been to (9 countries & counting now) you go to the cookie isle, grab a pack & head to the checkout.  Not so much here.  As soon as you walk in the store, at least the main one we use is in the Karavan, we are greeted with gobs of delectable treats, and you sack them up and buy them by the kilogram!  Cookies, muffins, candy (wrapped & unwrapped), chocolate, it's all like the Brach's stand in your local Sunflower or Piggly Wiggly!  Yeah, I'm from the south ya'll!

It doesn't stop there though.  A few rows down, and you can grab your corn meal, flour (I'm sure it's self-rising & all purpose), spices, grains, etc.  It's a smorgasbord of baking supplies!  This could throw a wrench in the plans of the cops who pull you over and finds a kilo of white powder in your trunk!  Right next to that is the pastas and rices.  They had every type of pasta like this, except the long strand (spaghetti & fettuccine noodles).  They did have what seemed to be broken up strands of spaghetti in 1"-2" sections though.  You think that's enough... there's more!

Yes, it's like the commissary for those of ya'll who are reading in Germany.  You sack up your own breads and pastries... this is not new to us, so I really didn't get a picture of it.  The one I missed though was the fish market!  They have literally 50' of counter that had fish & other sea life that had been preserved (maybe smoked or dried, I couldn't really tell).  They sack this up for you though, so it's not that different than many stores back stateside, other than the fact that almost all of the fish was preserved in some fashion... except for the talapia that you could pick out live in the tank at the end of the counter like we have the ability to do with lobsters at some stores.  I find that pretty humbling, while we are picking out what lobster we want, they are picking out what talapia they want.  Fresh is fresh, don't get me wrong, there's just no comparing lobster & talapia... well, unless it's Ashley's Fiery Fish Tacos & Crunchy Corn Salsa!  :)

The last shots blew my mind.  We made our way over to the cereal isle, no, it's not the cereal that you can bag & buy, it was the frozen foods that we passed on our way over there!  Yes, those are chicken patties!  Veggies, meats, fruits, french fries, all by the kilo!  I guess this is nice if you are throwing a cookout & need a TON of fries.  You only deal with one big bag as opposed to several bags of OreIda!

So, now that you've seen it all, a little story about this bag your own stuff.  A few days ago, we wanted something different for breakfast.  At the Kravan, as I stated earlier, you pick what you want & bag it.  Each item has a number.  You go put your bag on the scale, type in the number, push the Enter key, and you get a sticker with the price.  I'm thinking, I got this, it's not intimidating to me since I do this all the time with breads & veggies at our commissary.  I find what looks to be a cinnamon bread ring, get the number, put it on the scale, type the number in, and where I think the Enter key should be is a bunch of Russian!  Uh-oh.  I push it anyway... bonk!  It starts screaming at me.  A middle-aged woman grabs the roll and smiles, throws it on the scale, types in the number, pushes the GREEN button (yeah... it was that obvious!), slaps the sticker on the ring & laughs.  I walk away, I'm sure several shades redder than when I walked in!

See ya'll tomorrow!