Cheboksary on Thursday
Thursday was uneventful. Andrei did have a shower which he thought was the funniest thing in the world. And I think I got just as wet as he did, even though I tried my hardest to keep the door shut.
The other couple had court so we didn’t really have anything to do. Marina came by for Andrei to have his passport picture taken and we took advantage of the 20 minutes of Andrei-lessness by sitting in the quiet and reading uninterrupted. When Marina came back, she took us all to a souvenir shop and we bought a few things. The driver was busy picking up the other couple so we had some extra time to look around. The theme of the day was trying to keep Andrei from grabbing and touching everything. Finally Brent just took him and waited outside.
Lunch that day was a little stressful because Andrei’s orphanage director was there and the inspector and Marina too so there were three ‘mothers’ all telling Andrei what to do, hands off the table, sit up straight, eat your food, etc. I felt a little overshadowed and like I wasn’t teaching him. I think even someone there told me he was old enough to learn how to act at the table. I said it would be better if I knew what and how to say it. So I felt kind of bad, but the next meal I tried extra hard to ‘pick on him’ and then later complain to Brent that cleaning your plate is not going to be a rule in our home - especially adult sized portions that I could barely eat.
Later that evening the court translator and the inspector came to our room and filled us in on Andrei’s medical and family history. They also coached us for court and told us what to expect and what we should say at what times. She told us that we both had to write 20 minute speeches basically outlining everything that was already in our home-study.
She also told us about the “Song” (what the translator called it) which was asking the court to grant us parental rights, to change his name to our family name (no patronymic), to change his birth place, to leave his birth date the same, and to waive the 10 day wait. She called it the Song because we had to know it backward and forward and repeat it four times throughout the court.
That made us nervous - we didn’t know any of this stuff before. So we got ready for bed and decided to work on most of it in the morning.
The other couple had court so we didn’t really have anything to do. Marina came by for Andrei to have his passport picture taken and we took advantage of the 20 minutes of Andrei-lessness by sitting in the quiet and reading uninterrupted. When Marina came back, she took us all to a souvenir shop and we bought a few things. The driver was busy picking up the other couple so we had some extra time to look around. The theme of the day was trying to keep Andrei from grabbing and touching everything. Finally Brent just took him and waited outside.
Lunch that day was a little stressful because Andrei’s orphanage director was there and the inspector and Marina too so there were three ‘mothers’ all telling Andrei what to do, hands off the table, sit up straight, eat your food, etc. I felt a little overshadowed and like I wasn’t teaching him. I think even someone there told me he was old enough to learn how to act at the table. I said it would be better if I knew what and how to say it. So I felt kind of bad, but the next meal I tried extra hard to ‘pick on him’ and then later complain to Brent that cleaning your plate is not going to be a rule in our home - especially adult sized portions that I could barely eat.
Later that evening the court translator and the inspector came to our room and filled us in on Andrei’s medical and family history. They also coached us for court and told us what to expect and what we should say at what times. She told us that we both had to write 20 minute speeches basically outlining everything that was already in our home-study.
She also told us about the “Song” (what the translator called it) which was asking the court to grant us parental rights, to change his name to our family name (no patronymic), to change his birth place, to leave his birth date the same, and to waive the 10 day wait. She called it the Song because we had to know it backward and forward and repeat it four times throughout the court.
That made us nervous - we didn’t know any of this stuff before. So we got ready for bed and decided to work on most of it in the morning.
posted by Tracy at 10:28 AM
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