Surprise, today is NOT Ava's birthday

Meredith offered to take a photo of the 3 of us (Oh, yeah, we haven't done that yet). So thanks, Meredith.


Viktor, Indiana Jones, our facilitator. (I'm not sure how he felt about being licked on the face).

We thought all along that Ava's birthday was February 2nd. A couple of people remembered that and acknowledged. Thank you for remembering! The better news, though, is we get to celebrate her bithday with her brothers and sisters, and aunts and uncles, cousins, and hopefully some grandparents too, (if they don't go back home too soon). Her actual birthday is Feb 20th. In Ukraine they say last names before first names, and when they write dates, they write day, then month, then year. So her birthday in Ukrainian looks like: 20-02-2004. I think that is the reason for the mix-up. So Simeon, you should be glad that Ava's birthday is only 3 days after yours! And maybe we can celebrate together.

I got to sleep with a little angel on the train last night. Boy, is she a sweetheart! Everything happened so fast yesterday, we didn't really have a chance to get detailed instructions from the caretakers on her routine, little quirks, etc. As soon as we got in the taxi with this child I barely know sitting on my lap, I said to myself, "NOW WHAT??!!!"

I tried to get her to go to sleep last night on the train, and all the tricks I've used on my other kids DO NOT work for my little Ava-girl! Liesel likes her back scratched, so I tried that. Ava misread it as tickling, and giggled instead of going to sleep. Jude always liked to have his ears rubbed, but Ava doesn't want anything near her ears! Simeon liked me to stroke his eyebrows and his eyelids. But even Ava's eyebrows and eyelids are ticklish. So that didn't work. Hope likes me to lay with her and tell her stories. But Ava found my big head in her face absolutely hysterical, and she giggled and giggled instead of going to sleep.

We had the privilege of seeing Mike and Meredith again, as well as Joy and Kevin here in Kiev. They all came over to our apartment and we got to show off Ava as well as catch up on each others' adventures. Both couples are also adopting children with Down Syndrome as well, and in a country where people think we are crazy, it was nice to be in familiar company.