Ana Gets Her US Visa

1. Attack Seal!

2. Ana licking the powdered sugar off her apple pastry at the department store's cafe

3. Communist party demonstrators

4. Ana walks the line

5. With giant baloon at Friday's

6. Playing the fishing game in the apartment

[Robin]

We had a good night's sleep last night, once I got into bed with Ana. She feel asleep in about 10 minutes. This, unfortunately, meant that Phil was relegated to the couch.

When I woke up, I was face-to-face with the sleepiest angel. She is SO cute when she is sleeping. She has this cute Pooh-body and it is especially precious in a sleep-mode.

We woke up and had breakfast (not of champions--more like bread and juice, as we couldn't make it through the line last night for eggs). Then we walked in the pouring rain, dodging puddles and trying in vain to keep three people under one umbrella (an ASE one--Dr. Martin would be proud!) to St. Sophia's to try to get a taxi down to the main market area. We finally got one and got dropped off in front of the main department store in Kiev. We walked up to the second floor to the kids' area. We proceeded to buy (with Ana's pointed assistance) two undershirts/undies, three pairs of shoes (slippers, rain boots and regular sneaks), a puzzle, a "fishing muppets" game and two pairs of socks. Then I bought a traditional Ukranian tablecloth and napkins (in preparation for the Ukranian feast for my family around Thanksgiving). After the shopping, we got lunch at the department store's cafe--cappucino for mama, ham/salami sandwich and beer for papa, apple danish and water for Ana.

We could not get a taxi on the way out of the store. We had to walk past a political demonstration, then up a steep street and down another long one to our apartment. It took forever with bags and a 4 year-old's pace. We finally settled on trying to speed her up by chasing pigeons (sorry, Colleen and Barb!) to get her to move/run.

We got back to the apartment and tried to get Ana to take a nap on the pull-out trundle in the living room. You can guess what happened. Tears and wailing. We listened to about 20 minutes (we could barely stand it) of crying before we thought to tell her that if she couldn't stop that we would put her in the other room (this was related in Russian, so you can guess who was the bad guy). She immediately went quiet and settled down into a deep sleep. The bad news was that this could only last 20 minutes because our driver called and said traffic was really bad in Kiev and we needed to leave early for the Embassy.

Nikolai picked us up (thank goodness we didn't have to wait for the taxi gods to smile on us) and drove us through very heavy traffic to the Embassy. When we arrived, there wasn't even a line in front (weird!) and we just walked into the metal detector area. Phil sounded the alarm because he had brought the camera with us....I sounded the alarm with lipstick. We had to be "tagged" to come back and pick them up later. Ana charmed even the guards who smiled at her and gave her a fake wanding to her giggles.

We then proceeded to the waiting area and it was packed with people--some of the same parents and kids that we had seen the day before in the medical office! Ana was so good--just sitting on my lap calmly and hanging out while we waited. One of the other parents asked "is she always this calm?" We said no. But, honestly, she really is good the large majority of the time. I think Phil being able to communicate with Ana has been a life-saver--he can tell her what it happening so she has no reason to freak out. The other parents just have to distract the kids as best they can.

[Phil]

I'm finally getting to write now that Robin and Ana are in the bedroom. While Robin was writing the entry above, I was playing numerous games with Ana, including "The seal pup is going to get you", "I'm going to act like a barking dog, please pick me up by the feet and throw me on the couch", "Let me measure everything in the apartment", and of course "Let's inventory the contents of the toy bag".

Bedtime again tonight was again a major cause for crying. I listened for a while and then finally told Robin, "Maybe we tell her that if she keeps crying, we won't go to the store tomorrow. I mean, that's the way the caregivers in the orphanage deal with them -- it's "stop this unacceptable behavior or else there will be consequences." Robin thought that the store threat was too harsh, because we need to follow through on any consequences. Instead she suggested that I tell her that Mama will have to move to the other room if she keeps screaming. This worked like magic. She immediately stopped crying, and I told her, "Ana we love you, but the screaming is unacceptable. All of us are tired and want to go to sleep. We've had a long day, and we have a big day tomorrow -- going back to the store, going to the park, and seeing Colleen. We need to sleep. Understand?" She nodded, and I told her that she was a good girl.

I think they're now both asleep. It really was a long day -- I can't believe it's only 10:30. There's a lot about today that I want to write about, but fatigue is setting in, so I'll do the lazy writer's method of just mentioning some of the highlights of today without any real narrative:

The demonstration near the store was by the Communist Party and other pro-Russian parties, apparently because Yuschenko just made it illegal to deny the Soviet involvement in the Ukrainian famine of the early 30's... One of the Americans that we briefly met at the embassy was a man who works as a humanitarian aide to Ukrainian orphanages. He was adopting a 12 year-old boy that he's known for several years through his work. He told us that he had been in-country for 4 months for this adoption, because the government makes it extremely difficult for single fathers. He said he was the first since 2005 to be approved... We got a nice phone call from Kostya today, just to see how everything has been going. He said that he had to be in Kramatorsk all day, and that it was strange to be there without us... When we first came to Ukraine, we thought we'd never go to TGI Friday's, but after 6 weeks here we were dying for a burger. The burgers weren't actually all that great, but the staff was super-nice to Ana (and she got her own rolling high-chair, which we pushed around our little area)... Warning to all potential Aerosvit customers: if you can't get your actual physical ticket (i.e., if you buy online), you have to pick up your ticket at one of their offices. I waited in a line at the office today that literally didn't move for half an hour. I finally gave up and decided to return tomorrow with my ipod and a good book ("Everything Is Illuminated" -- very topical for our situation!).

Okay, I have to get some sleep. I actually managed to get some eggs tonight, so I know Robin will be up early to make some scrambled eggs. For the past couple of days it's been bread and yogurt. Ana doesn't seem to mind.

By the way, as the title of this entry says, Ana did in fact get her US visa today. We're now free to enter the USA. Woo-hoo!