Stahlke Adoption

Activities

We meet with Mikola twice a day--from 10:00--11:30 am and 3:45--5:00 pm. If the weather is nice, we spend our time outdoors on the orphanage grounds. He loves to explore, and I'm sure he takes us to places that are normally off-limits for the children. We watch carefully that he doesn't pick the cultivated flowers, although the abundance of prickly rose bushes keeps him away from most. Wildflowers, however, call to him, and he responds joyfully. When he picked a morning glory for me, I imagined David doing the very same thing in our carport.

When we see other children outside, two or three caretakers walk slowly with them while the children march in pairs, holding hands. I always say "dobre dehn" to them, and they look surprised that I am able to speak. Then they say "dobre dehn" back to me with delightful smiles. The group of children is sometimes taken to playground equipment, and then they break ranks and play. All of the kids wear coats and hats, since the weather is starting to get chilly. One day when I played with Kola in shirt sleeves, a caretaker asked me with concern about my own sweater.

It's been raining a lot, so on most days we meet with Mikola inside. On the first day of inclement weather, we were assigned to the music room. The photo of Mikola on the First Lady's website was taken there, right under the "sun" decoration on the wall. Mikola's fascination with balls, however, proved too much for the music room, and ever since, we've been sent to the sports room. Here there are tricycles, hoops, balls, and even some musical instruments for him to play with.

Mikola finds snacks to be an important part of each visit. The first afternoon with him began with a banana. From that first visit onward, we have always required that he sit ("ce di") while eating (yes, we have learned some things from our other five kids!). We pointed to the curb along the sidewalk, and he carefully brushed off a spot before starting to sit. Jonathan was already perched on the curb, and Mikola changed his mind and plopped onto Papa's lap. We found out later that the children are forbidden from sitting on the curb, which is often dusty. I'm impressed that he at least kept the letter of the law!

Mikola ate the banana with great care. After pulling down the peel, he carefully ate every string he could find. Then he tackled the body of the fruit, eating slowly with great calm. I'm convinced that the only time he sits still is while ingesting food! After finishing, he tried to put the peel in Jonathan's carrying case. We told him no, that it was too dirty ("brudni"). Mikola took the napkin that we had given him and wrapped the peel in it before placing the whole thing into Jonathan's bag.

We've tried several quiet activities, such as coloring or playing with clay. Only on the first day was it possible to do anything of that sort. Jonathan wrote his name with crayons--MIKOLA. Mikola looked at it, exclaimed "Papa!" and then wrote his name correctly, in Ukrainian--MИKOLA. Since that occasion, our attempts to persuade him to draw or write on paper have been pretty futile.

Cutting paper is another story, however. Paper chains are a big hit, especially ones with six rings--odin, dva, tri, chotyri, pyat, sheest--one, two, three, four, five, six--Ruslan, Bogdan, Luda, Lena, Misha, Kola--Paul, Adam, Rachel, Sarah, David, Peter. "Mikola!" he countered. (I don't think that his English name is real to him yet. There will be plenty of time later for that.) Mikola showed the paper chains to his group over lunch and returned for his afternoon visit with the chains completely intact. They must be very precious.

posted by Stahlkes @ 10:22 AM