Our little Puke Machine...

I'm so sorry we've not posted for a few days - but to say we've been busy is an understatement!!

Thursday Yelena arrived and we went to the FoxMart and bought a cake, cookies, oranges, bananas, and apple juice for Nicholas’ going away party.

When we arrived the Wise Director wanted us to go into her office. We all gathered in there and she had such a present for me - I guess she saw my birth date on the paperwork and had bought a card. Nicholas had written "I love you" and signed his name!! My first card from my son - needless to say I was a blubbering fool - and Nicholas was giving me kisses. What a wonderful present!!

We then went up to the classroom and set up the cookies and cake. There are 13 other children in his class – 2 girls and 11 boys. The children each have a glass with a number on it. They saw the apple juice and ran to get their assigned glasses. Then they just stood there – I was expecting to have glasses shoved at me but they were all so polite and waited for us to pour. We then passed out the cookies and the teacher cut the cake and oranges. The kids ate every single bite of food. Then Mike started making balloon animals for the children. The kids got so excited and when they saw that Mike could make a balloon dog they were all gathered round and literally jumping for him to make more - the sugar high certainly kicked in!! :o) We played with the balloons for at least an hour.

We headed back to Donetsk and Yelena dropped us off at the apartment to run an errand. Well – that errand turned out to be a surprise for me! She and the driver came up to the apartment with champagne and a huge birthday cake for me! I was so surprised and we sat down and finally got to talk with the driver via Yelena. It was great to finally communicate with him with words instead of hand signals! :o)

On Friday we got up very early and headed to the orphanage for the last time - we were picking up our son!!

We arrived at the orphanage and we dressed him in the clothes we had picked up. The clothes are way too big for him - we need to find a belt. His pants hardly stay up!

We could not stay at the orphanage for long as Yelena needed to get the birth certificate and we needed to head back to Donetsk to get Nicholas’ passport. But the Director had made breakfast for us and we read that it is very rude to turn down food (no matter how much of a hurry we are in!). So we went downstairs and ate a wonderful breakfast. The Wise Director is so funny – whenever there is food she says “Eat Eat” and “Eat until it’s gone”! :o)

The Director gave us presents: a bread basket, salt and pepper shakers in the shape of two mice (the Chinese New Year is very popular here and next year is the year of the Rat) and four cross-stitched napkins and a cross-stitched towel for our Easter table. She said the most kind things about us and toasted our health and happiness as a family. We still can't believe their kindness!

We ate a big breakfast very quickly and then ran out to the car. You may have already guessed what came next based on the title……lots and lots of vomit. About 15 minutes into the drive to Donetsk every bit of breakfast came up - most on Mike's coat and the rest on the taxi seat. We pulled over and got a lot of it out - but we couldn't clean Mike's coat. For the rest of the afternoon we had bags up near Nicholas' face and I think every meal he has ever eaten made it's way back up. We were driving for and hour and a half but we still had to get his passport so we were driving all over Donetsk in stop and go traffic - or as we now call it - stop and puke traffic! :o) Poor Nicholas - we felt so bad for him - he was very grumpy, but not as grumpy as Mike. As soon as he got out of the car he would be fine but literally seconds after driving he would vomit again.

We finally made it back to the apartment. We had originally planned to catch the train to Kiev that night - but we knew we HAD to find motion sickness pills as we could not imagine a 12 hour train ride filled with vomit. So we asked Yelena to stay an extra night in Donetsk. We bought train tickets for the Saturday night train but we were not able to get an entire cabin. We ended up with two upper bunks in two adjacent cabins.

Saturday we asked Nicholas who he wanted to bunk with on the train to Kiev. He picked Pappa (thank goodness!!! :o) but now I really owe Mike!!). We goofed off the rest of day around Donetsk and thankfully we found a pharmacy which had motion sickness pills for kids (the first one we tried didn't have anything and we got worried). At 5pm we gave him a pill and at 6pm the driver picked us up. We held a bag near him the entire drive and he jokingly made a few vomit noises and we burst out laughing with relief as he was kidding. He has Mike's personality!!

We made it to the train station completely clean and Nicholas was so happy. He told everyone we passed about "the tablets that keep him from vomiting"!! :o)

We got on the train and in the next cabin was a guy who had just adopted two girls. We talked with him for quite a while - I won't say more but he has had a difficult time. I imagine we'll see him on Wednesday at the US Embassy!

Then Mike and Nicholas went to their cabin and had a great time talking via sign language with a woman and her teenage son. The son had some English at school and told Mike that he thought learning English was boring - but he had a great time using it while speaking with Mike.

Yelena and I went to our cabin which we shared with a married couple. The husband spoke great English and wanted to practice so he spoke with me for hours. I learned a lot about Ukraine and we had a great conversation. I was worn out and we finally decided to get in our individual bunks for bed. It was tough sleeping as the train was jerky as it stopped and started. Poor Mike spent the entire night reaching out with a trash bag in case Nicholas vomited. There were no guard rails on the top bunks and Mike actually caught Nicholas as he started to fall out of the bunk!

Sunday we arrived in Kiev at 7am. Nicholas did great and did not get sick!! We made it to the apartment and honestly I cannot describe the relief and happiness to be out of the train and taxi! We all got in the bed and took a brief nap.

When we got up and showered we then went walking to the grocery store. We decided to finally try to find the TGI Fridays that we have read about so many times on the FRUA boards. We found it and had a great lunch. Nicholas had a quesadilla and loved it!
We then bought groceries and walked around Independence Square. It is all decked out with Christmas lights and a huge tree. We actually have internet access (yea!!!!!!) so we can finally upload some photos. We got Nicholas' photo taken with St. Nick. He was beyond thrilled to see all the lights and the decorated trees.

The US Embassy is closed Christmas Eve and Christmas Day - so we really can't do much until Wednesday. But we heard that things were relatively slow at the Embassy this time of the year and that we may be able to get his visa in just one day! Hopefully we may make it back home before New Years Day (depending if we can get flights).

We've already had quite a few laughs with our son. He has a great personality and we cannot wait until he can speak English. Everyone he speaks with in Ukrainian gets to laughing and both Yelena and Luba laugh the entire time they translate what he's saying. He is quite the character - he is his father's son!!

Love to all...