Day 18

 This should officially be our halfway post, because:

WE GOT OUR COURT DATE, BABY!!!!

Tatiana told us that our court date is this upcoming Friday, August 26th at 10am (that's 3am if any of you people at home happen to be awake at that hour)!

The city shot off fireworks in celebration of us!  (Ok, ok...not really.  It was for an independence-type holiday here, but it was a beautiful show from our apartment!)

That means that afterwards we'll have a ten day wait, plus 2 days of paperwork here in Kh*rkov and 2 days in K*ev.  And then we pack up ALL of our stuff, and take our four year old on a plane across the ocean...

What are we thinking??!  LOL!

So, aside from our awesome court news, today was a regular day.  The weather here went from 80s to 60s in the span of 2 days.  It was pretty windy and chilly, and threatening of rain, so Danila was in his groupa when we arrived at the orphanage this morning.  Apparently he wasn't even dressed yet (we all have slow mornings, right?!) and we watched as our favorite nanny helped get him ready.  He's pretty self-sufficient, pulling his own pants on, and only needing minimal assistance with everything else.  His nanny told us that he even makes his own bed every morning.  That's a trick that I need him to teach Chase (and Ian and Gavin) when we get home!

We played on the enclosed porch of the little house he lives in, and our favorite nanny (who shall now be named OFN until we can figure out what her name is) kept bringing us activities to do- dominoes, etc.  She's so nice!

We introduced Danila to play-dough this morning.  I'm not sure that he's had experience with it before, because he was a little hesitant at first, but eventually got the hang of it.  He's got really good OT skills- he could roll out a snake, pinch off pieces, and poke holes in it.  He likes to drive trucks over it, and also throw it on the floor...which is when we moved onto another activity :)

 Mr. Independent wouldn't let us help him open it:

 Building blocks were next, which really weren't such a big hit.  He definitely liked knocking them down, but wasn't all that interesting in stacking them.  Will try again tomorrow, when we can be outside and it doesn't matter if we make a bunch of noise.

We're still signing.  So far he pretty much knows:
More
Eat
Please
Juice
Banana
Mama
Papa
Thank you
Sit

It's so exciting to see him grab onto language so quickly.  We're looking forward to seeing him thrive at home and at school.

Sidenote: I'm sitting at McDonald's blogging, and there are two people signing to each other right next to me.  I wonder if they are doing ASL, or is there RSL?  Or USL?  Do people with hearing issues speak American Sign Language all over the world? I should Wiki that.