Jackson is starting to get into a routine with us and today was no exception. Little does he know we are about to rock his little world in two days and throw him into a totally different time zone! We woke up this morning and played. Jackson is struggling with seeing Scott and I as the authority figures in his life. I think he still thinks he might be taken back to the orphanage at any time and that the nurses are still in charge. He just sees us as his playmates. An example of this was at breakfast when he grabbed a spoon and banged it on the table. I told him nyet (no). Then he grabbed it with the other hand, and I told him nyet. Then he stared at it for a while and very softly touched it with his pointer finger! He’s testing us!
After all of the testing and because of our afternoon plans, it was determined that Jackson would take his afternoon nap a little bit early. When he woke up, we ate lunch and took a taxi back to the US Embassy for Part II of our appointment. We went in and signed the paperwork that we filled out yesterday and then swore that we had filled out the paperwork to the best of our ability. Then we waited for them to print Jackson’s visa on his passport.
The US Embassy in Kiev is awesome, and they have a waiting room with toys. We waited in there for about an hour. Everyone at the Embassy was so friendly and at one point a guy came out to see how we were doing. He shook our hands, and Jackson imitated us and shook the man’s hand, and he said that Jackson was very well behaved. Of course we liked hearing that, haha! We got the visa and we are finally able to leave the country, woohoo! Can’t wait for the flight on Thursday!
We got back to the apartment and the testing continued with Scott. We have observed that when we are out in public, Jackson is very well behaved and does not want to leave our laps, even when there are other children playing around him. We think that he is being possessive and wants everyone to know that he is with us and that we are already taken as parents. Add that into the fact that everything he is seeing is new. When he is in our apartment he feels comfortable and is trying to figure out his boundaries. Oh, the journey of adoption!
Dinnertime was interesting. Someone told us about a cafeteria style restaurant across the street from our apartment. We really like the one that we went to when we first arrived in Kiev a month ago, and it was easy to get over the language barrier because we just pointed at the food we wanted. However, when we walked into the restaurant, it was clearly not what we thought it was, and it was not going to work for us to eat at a sit down restaurant with Jackson, so we left. Then we had no idea where to eat. We looked at a couple of restaurants and ruled them out for various reasons.
We soon found ourselves at the deli part of the supermarket. The culture of Ukrainians is very cold and people keep to themselves and don’t smile. This carries over into lines at stores. We waited for a while to get our chicken and rice and people kept coming in front of us and shouting out their orders. Finally this guy stepped in front of Scott and shouted his order, and then said something to Scott. Scott just shrugged his shoulders and said “English”. Then the guy responded in broken english and asked what we wanted. Then he proceeded to tell the employee in Russian what we wanted and we got our dinner. It was the strangest act of kindness from a stranger in a country where people just don’t do that type of thing. It made us feel really good.
That pretty much sums up our day! I’ve been trying to go over in mind what we need to get done tomorrow, since it is our last day in Ukraine. Niko is going to pick us up for the airport at 3:30 am Thursday morning. Can’t wait to get home!