The Dance of Parenthood

OK, I'm playing catch up so you will get a couple posts at once

February 4- Wednesday- DAY 1 of waiting period
We woke up late. Elijah was up many times in the night and none of us are feeling very well. We had decided it was best if Keith worked in the mornings and I went and saw the girls by myself… well, with Elijah. I didn’t want to go because I wasn’t feeling well and we were late, but felt like I should. I’m really glad I did!! They had a person come in and put on a show for all the kids (except the school kids, of course). She was dressed as a mouse with big ears and had races and things for the kids to do. I couldn’t understand a word she said but she was very animated and gave out candy. A2 gave all of her candy to Elijah. She really is very kind, when she isn’t being mean.  But I sat in the little chair with Elijah on my lap and a girl on each side. I put my arm around them and they seemed reluctant to leave and go up to participate. I felt like we made some big progress in the physical touch/ show affection area. Also, after it was over and we were playing in the room again, R was upset about something (I can’t remember what, right now) and she let me hold her and rock her for a long time. Just as it was nearing 12:00 the kids brought out more toys and lunch wasn’t ready. So I ended up staying until about 12:30. I met Keith coming down the stairs just as I walked into the building. He was worried about us.
I really wanted to sleep for our lunch hour, but we felt like we needed to get a start on the clothes shopping or it was never going to get done. So we rode a bus to the new mall that the Cox’s told us about. In the mall there was a K-Mart-type store that had a little bit of everything. There was one style of pants for girls in a bunch of sizes and one style of boys. We decided that we would get the pants there. We picked up some underwear and undershirts. There were some other things we were able to get as well; fingernail clippers (finally), an extension cord (so our adapter doesn’t keep falling on the floor anymore), more juice and water, some notebooks and colored pencils for the trip home, a car and some animals for Elijah (he’s getting pretty bored with the train tracks). We spent about 500 grivna (~$60) which isn’t bad for 4 pairs of pants, 8 underwear, 8 t-shirts and some other miscellaneous stuff.
Getting on the bus was interesting. There was one seat open so I sat in it with the two bags of treasures, while Keith stood. The nice lady next to me took my bags and put them next to her so I was able to hold Elijah and the bottle of water and allow Keith to hold on the rail. Thank Heaven for nice people!!!
We took the pants to the girls to try on as we were still kind of unsure of the sizes. They all fit, K’s not as loose as we would have liked and R’s a little bit looser than we would have liked, but definitely good enough to “make it home” as everyone keeps telling us. The girls all seemed to like the pants. We thought later that we should have bought a pair for Miriam. We’ll see if we can make it back and do that. So now we need to get backpacks, coats, hats, gloves, scarves, shoes and tights, pjs and dresses. Wow, when I look at that list it feels like we didn’t accomplish much. I think if we don’t get to the dresses we should still be ok, but we need all the other stuff.