Sunday, February 18, 2007

And then there were five...



"Let us always meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of love... " ---Mother Teresa

We received news from our adoption agency a couple of days ago--the court date in Kyrgyzstan was on February 13th, and our adoption is now final! We really didn't expect there to be any hitches, but you never know. Now there is a 30-day "appeal" period, but again there is rarely any issue that would reverse a court decision. So, we should be able to travel back to Kyrgyzstan about mid-March, to pick up the kids. We thank God every day for what can only be His divine intervention in connecting us with these children. It has taken so long to get to this point, and finally the end is in sight....or, should I say, the beginning...?

Our son Zachary, pictured here, is pretty excited about having a brother and sister. He understands all this in whatever way a 4 1/2-year-old can understand. We fear that he really thinks that this is a big sleepover, and that these two kids are going home in a few days.... We're sure we are in for quite a period of adjustment, for all of us. Zach has been the "king of the roost" for a while now. But--the truth is that he has wished for "two brothers and two sisters" for a very long time, so we are hoping that one of each will, eventually, be the best thing that ever happened to him.

Monday was President's Day, and we took advantage of furniture sales to pick out new bedroom furniture that will accommodate our new family. We plan to put the three kids in the same room initially, and see how that goes. So Zachary (and his best frog-friend Hoppy) helped us pick out a blue bunk bed for the boys, and we picked out a nice white, "girly" bed for Rita. There is still a lot to do before their arrival, from buying clothing, to making travel arrangements, to figuring out appropriate schooling, and time is moving quickly.

Everyone has been asking, so FYI--we have decided to retain each child's given name, in some fashion. Rita's given name is Margarita, which we will keep as a first name; however we will call her by the more "American-style" shortened name (for Margaret) of "Maggie". We will add the middle name of "Mae", after John's grandmother. So, Margarita "Maggie" Mae (OK, maybe also a nod to Rod Stewart!). Sergey will be called Samuel "Sam" Sergey, keeping his given name as a middle name. I guess we will see if kids this age (6 and 4) will respond to new names! But this way, if some day they ever want to go back to their Russian/Kyrgyz names, they can easily do so.

Well, so far we have no firm travel dates for the second trip, but we will post again when we know this. Debbie's sister Diane will travel here from Venezuela, to stay with Zachary while we go on the second part of this journey....

Love to all...