One Week with Sasha

One week ago today, I was packing up my apartment in Balta preparing to leave the next day after picking up Sasha from his orphanage.  It was a day filled with excitement, anticipation, and a little bit of nervousness about how it would go.  We left early Friday morning, picked up our adoption decree from the court house, picked up a social worker so she could go with us to the orphanage, and headed out to Pishanna.  Sasha seemed happy to see us and not fearful or sad at all to leave everything behind.  He changed into the clothes we brought for him, we filled out even more paperwork, and off we went.  As we were driving away, Sasha looked back at the orphanage, waved, and with a smile said, "Bye bye."  We drove straight to Odessa to apply for a new birth certificate and a passport.  We now have the birth certificate and are waiting on the passport.  It should be in today or tomorrow.  We have taken him out for pizza, which he did not really like, have gone to a park down the street a few times, which he does seem to like, and have played games in the apartment.  He loves the iTouch we brought him and he is spending too much time on it but I have decided if it is keeping him happy while we wait to go home, I can live with that.  We have worked on some English flashcards and the alphabet and he is picking up some words just in conversation.  We will get a lot more serious about it though once we get home.  We are staying in Odessa for another week and will then go back to Kiev to get his medicals done and to apply for his visa.  So far, Sasha has been a joy to be around and seems to be a happy, easy-going, sweet boy.  He is eating well, enjoys just hanging out, loves his showers, and once he gets to sleep, sleeps well.  He has enjoyed Face Timing with Scott and Jocelyn and Ellie Grace and has even 'met' his grandparents through Face Time.  Sasha will show J and E his flashlight and they will run get theirs to show him.  He will show them an almond and they will go get an almond.  It goes on and on with all of them laughing all the while.  I love modern technology!  We are very blessed to be this sweet boys parents.