Our last day at nursery school

Today was magical, fun and bitter sweet. It was the last day of nursery school. All the children went on a hike to a small river bed this morning. They had so much fun playing in the water and discovering new and exciting things.

After the hike they returned to the nursery school. Ms. Joya called all the children inside to prepare for the end of year play, "Billy Goats Gruff" (a modified version). Igor and Ethan were the trolls. It was so sweet. We ate lunch and then Ms. Joya told the sweetest story about children who came to nursery school in the fall but by summer were ready to go on to school. She teared up as she shared how much she loves our children and will miss them. All the mom's with a 5 year olds were weepy.

Ms. Joya presented all the graduating 5 year olds with a beautiful glass heart.

The 5 year olds were to put on a puppet show but in the end, there were too many emotions..... Ms. Joya had us gather around the puppet table so we could enjoy the children's handy work. The older children made their own needle case and puppet.

Goodbye Ms. Joya. We love you. Thank you for loving our son. Someday, BOC will be part of your nursery school. We cannot wait!

Celebrating Igor's Birthday early

Nursery school ends tomorrow! Since Igor's birthday is after school closes Ms. Joya suggested celebrating it early.

Birthdays are a big production at nursery school. The birthday child gets to sit in a chair covered in their favorite color. Igor picked pink! He also picked out red for me and blue for Rob. Igor sat in the chair of honor. The children sang songs to honor our little boy. Candles were lit to acknowledge Igor's current age.

Each child presented Igor with a flower. Ms. Joya told a wonderful, magical story of how Igor lived in Russia and was united with us at age 3. She went on to share some highlights of his life since we have become a family. Then one by one each child walked up to Igor providing him with a birthday wish. It was so sweet to hear what each child said. Some of them whispered in Igor's ear, "I love you, Happy Birthday". It was the sweetest birthday celebration I have ever attended.
Igor received a present... jewels... they are small polished stones.... they are a treasured gift.

Will your child be healthy?

Before we adopted from Russia we attended a 5 week course designed to prepare us for international adoption parenthood. While our social worker educated us from her perspective, having a international adoption doctor educate us based on his experience working with adopted children was priceless. One night the class focused on health concerns of the adopted child.

Children in orphanages could potentially have lice, scabies, exposure to TB, Hep A, rickets, internal parasites, ear infections, eye infections, upper respiratory conditions etc..

We've been asked, will your son be "healthy"? hmmmmm..... By US standards, maybe but maybe not. He could have one or more of the ailments listed above. We will not know our son's complete health picture until we arrive home.
The ailments may sound a little overwhelming but honestly, they are all treatable. The IA doctor recommended taking our adoptive child to a pediatrician within 2 weeks of arriving home for testing. We did that with Igor and we'll do it for BOC (son #2) as well.

If you are in the process of adopting internationally and are seeing the list of ailments for the first time don't freak out. Many adoptive parents, including us, have gone through several of the ailments listed and we/our children made it through treatment. Educate yourself, make sure your pediatrician has worked with IA children or is willing to learn about them. Ask your pediatrician to refer to the "Red Book" for standing testing protocol when you return home with your child.

Our conference call with AWAA was today. Duni confirmed the wait time for toddlers remains at 7-9 months. That's great news for us since we are in month 8! Stay tuned, we may have a referral this month.

Life is funny sometimes

After nursery school Igor has a snack and is allowed to watch an educational DVD. This afternoon I was VERY busy refreshing the The Kidds, The Cordells, Holly & Paul's and the Gardners blogs that I forgot the snack. I heard very strange noises coming from the kitchen. I peeked around the corner. I saw Igor had gotten a chair, pulled it up to the counter and was getting bread out. When I asked him what he was doing he said looking for some butter. The little guy makes me laugh. Once I buttered Igor's bread, I was back to the computer checking out the AWAA families in Ethiopia right now. They all met their little ones today. The pictures are so sweet.

Air conditioner update- Our A/C needs a new coil, it's running for now but without a new coil the freon will continue to leak out. We have a home owner's warranty on the house until September. The warranty company must approve the replacement of the coil before anything can happen. Warranty company don't let me down, please pay for the coil.

Saturday we received a notification from the IRS that we owe approximately $5,000 for 2006. ACK! I almost fell over when I read the IRS letter. Of course, it's a huge mistake. Our accountant, the church's accountant and several others are all working on resolving the matter. I will feel much better when the IRS says we don't owe the money.

Tonight when we tried to open the garage door it wouldn't open. It was 100 degrees this afternoon, too hot to be spending time in the garage. I will try to figure out what is wrong tomorrow morning. I've never fixed a garage door but I have the instruction manual and I'm ready to learn.

Tomorrow we have a conference call with our adoption agency!

Slowly Roasted

I feel as though we are being slowly roasted. Today's temp was 98 degrees. It is suppose to be 100 on Friday, Saturday AND Sunday ! It wouldn't be so bad except the air conditioner on the second level (bedroom level) is broken. It's 85 degrees upstairs and 81 degrees downstairs. I have an ice pack on my neck to help cool me off. I LOVE hot weather but this is too much too soon.

The A/C repair man will be here on Tuesday! I am tempted to buy a window unit... I won't buy one because it's against the HOA rules AND we are still saving for our adoption. Another adoptive mom reported today that round trip tickets to Ethiopia are approximately $2,200 each- ACK! Oil prices are driving the price increase. At this rate, I may need to get a part time job. Anyone hiring out there?

We did not have our conference call with our agency today because of a power outage. It has been rescheduled for next Tuesday.

Tomorrow after nursery school Igor and I will head to the pool in an effort to stay cool.

Great news!! Susan and William received a referral today. Check out their blog for all the details!

Igor and I had an interesting day. Today was the last day of speech. The speech teacher called this morning while Igor was in nursery school to ask if we could come in early. The school was planning to have a fire drill at 2:00, just when Igor's speech ends. Really, what are the odds that our last day of speech would include a fire drill? Heavy Sigh. Igor wore headphones during speech in case the fire alarm went off early. I had to laugh at the entire situation.
Thankfully we are done with fire alarms until August!

At nursery school all the 5 year olds are making puppets for the end of school program. They are sewing the puppets clothing! I cannot wait to post a picture. Last week Igor sewed his own needle pouch to hold his pins and needles. I am amazed at all the cool things Igor is taught at nursery school.

Sally the bunny and her mom (or dad?) have eaten almost our entire garden. I am thinking about getting a cat...

Busy, busy, busy

Life seems to be moving at a frantic pace. We returned from Michigan last week. We had time to unpack, attend two swim lessons, wash the clothes and repack. This weekend we visited with Rob's parents, Rob's brother, wife and kids. Rob's brother's family lives in England and we haven't seen them in a year. They are in the US for a short visit.

Igor had so much fun with his cousins. They spent most of their time swimming. Igor loves his new goggles. He and Dean loved wearing their goggles and splashing one another. They also enjoyed diving in the pool and going down the slide.

Igor is not enjoying his swim lessons. Prior to the swim lessons he has been fearless in the water. Igor will swim to the bottom of the pool to fetch something, he can do somersaults under water, he will jump into the deep end of the pool and swim to the shallow end.... However, he swims the most unusual stroke under water. He does not like learning or practicing a proper stroke. His swim teacher is so good with him, I'm sure he'll start to enjoy it soon....

On the adoption front, we continue to wait. This time around the wait is much easier. I am trusting that our son will be revealed to us at the "perfect" time. While I would like to know who this little guy is and when we can bring him home, I also know that worrying about it will not change the anything. We continue to live life at its usual pace knowing some day soon, maybe even this month, we will meet our son via a picture.

We have a conference call with our agency tomorrow afternoon. We may learn more about the time line then. Ethiopia has been experiencing a drought which is causing power outages (85% of Ethiopia's power comes from hydro-electric plants). The drought is also causing a famine in Ethiopia resulting in the worst food shortages since 2003.

If you are interested in helping an orphan in Ethiopia, it's easy. Click on the Five or Fifty campaign. For as little as $5 a month you could feed 1 orphan for a month living in Hanna's Orphan Homes.