Wednesday

The rebellion has become less visible, the kids bedroom door now has a sheet of plywood on the inside. We have placed locks on the adult rooms and have put security bars on the windows to keep the accidental fall from adding the emergency room to our tours of DC.

I'm not prod of a Mini-Max kids room, but when you send them to their room, they need to stay there.

Big Max, our facilitator who traveled with us to keep the kids in check, stopped by on Tuesday night. He sat down and talked to them all for about 20 minutes. He found many interesting things, like the orphanage doctor had ordered them all not to talk about their home life to anyone. They all have memory of their home life including a very abusive alcoholic father and a mother who loved and protected them until the father ended up in jail. Then she found a "new fiance" and left them. (Ages 7, 6, 5, and  3 at the time). I put Max on the shuttle bus to Dulles Wednesday.

The kids are progressing in settling in.Heidi has slayed the Military benefits dragon and we have three medical appointments on Friday.

She had rooted around and found the name of a Russian speaking specialist in Northern VA. Somehow she got an appointment for us to take Christina in on Friday for a induction session. He has several of his own children who he adopted from the former USSR and was a groundbreaking practitioner for detachment disorder. Unfortunately Tricare does not recognize him. We are going to do this one out of pocket.

I contacted an organization called Families for Russian and Ukraine adoption (FRUA), that provides International adoption information for families interested in Russian adoption, Ukraine adoption, and adoption from neighboring countries. They have 250 members in the DC/ NoVA/ MD area. When I told the their Representative that we had an appointment with this Therapist she said he was "the" authority in the central east cost. She was very impressed that Heidi had Christina on the list for this week since he is usually scheduled out two months.

Heidi's Brother Jerry flies in Today, the dog has a hair appointment and the church organized meals keep coming. We toured two parks with the kids yesterday and most improtantly to me, we hand a 7 participant tickle fight/wrestling match on the sectional.

Most importantly was that Tayna was a player in the tickle fest. She has always been at arms reach, so she came out of her shell another inch. Christina is doing better, but Maxim shows a lot of wear and tear in his short life. Sasha keeps delivering as the mostly good boy, like when he was the first to cross the "No Chili on my plate" picket line at the diner table.

Every new food is meet with jeers and derision at first, except the Strawberry Shortcake.

Dawn Breaks on Thursday, gotta go!

Erik