Autumn Morning at the Orphanage

[Robin]
We arranged to meet Kostya at the orphanage this morning. We had breakfast in the hotel and then walked through their central park and down a tree-lined boulevard to the entry gates. We found it easily, and it was a much more pleasant stroll on a sunny day. We then met Anastasia’s caregiver, who told us that Anastasia had slept with the bear we had given her. Anastasia then came in dressed to go out (hat, coat, etc.), and it turned out that one of the pieces of paperwork that needed to be completed was that she had to be seen by a doctor at an area hospital for a medical check-up. We then walked with the orphanage’s doctor and Kostya to take her to the hospital which was just a couple blocks away. Good thing that it was close; I carried her the whole way and let me tell you—she is solid. Phil had to take over to carry her up the stairs. I apparently will be gaining some much needed arm muscle in the days ahead.
[Phil]
We were only at the hospital for 15 minutes. She apparently got a clean bill of health from their staff. On the walk back to the orphanage, Anastasia pointed and yelled out "koshka!" I turned and looked, and there was indeed a cat walking across the street. A few minutes later she saw a dog and said "sobachka". Once we got back to the orphanage, her caregiver said we could take her out to the backyard and play with her. It rained a lot in the past few days, so the ground was pretty muddy. This didn’t deter Anastasia at all. She first went for the swings. She had no fear at all, and kept swinging higher and higher, letting go of the ropes from time to time. I was sure she was going to fall out, but she was fine.
[Robin]
She then walked from one piece of playground equipment to another. She particularly liked the spinning ones (not a chip off my block here!) and seemed to be quite the daredevil—she wanted Phil to spin her faster and push her higher on almost all the equipment. The only thing she didn’t want to do was to go down the slide, and it wasn’t because she was scared of the height, it was because it was dirty and she saw a bug (neatness in an orphanage is a big deal). The thing that delighted us the most was watching her on a see-saw board where she stood and rocked back and forth. She had a great sense of balance and looked like she was born to surf. We also colored in a coloring book with her and Dasha, another child from the orphanage. She seems to be bonding well with us, as she is happy to have either of us hold her and help her.
We gave the children in her play group some cookies and Anastasia wanted to share hers with Phil and me (how cute is that!).
[Phil]
Once we left the orphanage, we went to a notary and back to the social worker’s office. This took most of the day and involved a lot of sitting and waiting in lobbies. We had to sign an official form stating that we want to adopt Anastasia. We also decided on what her official name will be on her passport, which barring unforeseen circumstances will be "Anastasia Caroline Hammond". The name she is called here is "Nastya", which is a perfectly normal name in Russian but doesn’t translate to English very well. We plan to start calling her "Ana" (Ah-na), which is at least part of her real first name. When she’s old enough she can decide whether to be "Anastasia" or "Caroline" or "Ana".
Tomorrow we need to travel to Anastasia’s home town to meet with the social worker there. We hope to be back in time for the 4:00 p.m. visiting hour.
[Robin]
By the way, since we spent most of the day waiting in one venue or another, we had a lot of time to talk to Kostya about the similarities and differences between Ukrainian and American customs and lifestyles. It was interesting to find out how important notaries are here: they are lawyers who do everything from signing wills to assigning registration of a car from one party to another. One of the more interesting stories to me was that if you want to borrow someone’s car here, it is not that simple; you must sign a power of attorney over to this person to allow them to drive your car and to show that they have gotten your consent.
[Phil]
This explains why the notary offices here are so crowded. It was like being at the DMV. And like the DMV, everyone just resigns himself to the fact that he’s going to be there for a while. I’ll remember to bring a book next time.
Okay that’s all for now. We’ll try to write post again tomorrow night. We loved all the responses to yesterday’s post and are touched that so many people are following our blog and are rooting for us.
Do zavtra.