Want Mother

We didn't realize it, but Sasha was singing or something in a performance this morning at the orphanage and when we arrived, we had to wait for a long time before we saw him. As we waited, we were soon surrounded by increasing numbers of very cute 8-11 year old orphans, some of whom must be from another school because we'd never seen them before. They were excited by the novelty of being around Americans and of course loved our iPad. Even with all the excitement, they were still good about taking turns playing games on the ipad and being downright adorable.

One of the boys, Edward, was particularly good with the English word games and we praised him for it. He's in Sasha's group but has always been a little reserved around us before. With the praise, Edward became more comfortable and after a few minutes he put together a sentence that broke my heart: I want mother. He immediately got a little shy after that outburst.  A few minutes later, Sasha came down the hall. I saw him first and greeted him with a big hug. He has been good about sharing us, but soon wiggled his way inside the huddle of kids to be right next to Mark and was happy when Mark noticed him. 

We soon went outside with him. On the way, we saw some women from the Regional Office who had helped us and I was very happy to have the chance to introduce them to our new son. They were delighted to meet him and congratulated us. 

Sasha is increasingly comfy with us. We read Go Dogs Go! again and he named four of the dogs: Sasha, Thomas, Tato and Mama. He used our Ukrainian-English dictionary on the iPad to write: We are going to America. We are very happy.
He ate lots of fruit we'd brought for a snack and then ran off to get a drink. We followed and saw him drinking water out of a big dirty old pickle jar that was left by who knows who, who knows when. Mark brought the jar into the sunlight and showed Sasha the dirt and debris floating in it and he realized it was gross and pretended to spit it out. Funny boy, he really needs parents. We had just started a game of volleyball when Rouslan's sister Nadia walked by. We invited her to join us and the four of us had a good time. Rouslan himself has been keeping a safe distance from us since his note. 

It is clear that many if these kids wish they could have parents. Several teenagers as well as little kids have been vying for our attention. I have been amazed at how well behaved these kids are and how emotionally healthy they seem to be. One of my friends in America said that some of his friends get tattoos and other of his friends adopt and it seems both kinds of friends keep going back for more. It is hard to resist these sweet children who long for families. I'm very glad that the first two groups of three kids that we visited have already been adopted, and I hope that someone will come for these kids. We are the first foreign adoption for this orphanage, but hopefully more people either Ukrainians or foreign people like us, will choose to adopt.