We are making progress with the adoption, however slowly, and hope to be home in the next week. Unfortunately, we will not be able to bring Kristina home with us, as there is a new Ukrainian passport procedure, effective August 21, 2007, that will add a minimum of two weeks to the adoption process (and this doesn't include the 10 day waiting period after our court date next week). We have met several families who been in the Ukraine for 7-9 weeks! And while we are heartbroken at the prospect of having to leave her here for several additional weeks, we are also missing Jack and Noah, very much, and family, friends, and work, etc. Our plan is to return to the States after our court date (hopefully next week). I will return to the Ukraine to bring Kristina home in about a month after the adoption is finalized and Kristina has her Ukrainian passport. is and obtain a Ukrainian passport.

In the meantime, we are getting to know Kristina each day and enjoying every minute together. She continues to delight us with her great energy, curiosity, and delight in small pleasures (e.g., picking unripe plums from a tree and eating the sour fruit with aplomb, brushing the hair of her favorite doll, and climbing on the orphanage play structures).

We've established an afternoon routine, involving a snack, games and exploration around the orphanage camp grounds. Perhaps it is easy to imagine that snack time is the highlight for Mama and Papa, who take great pleasure in watching Kristina eat eggs, fruit, cheese, nuts, and drink fruit juices, although not all at once mind you. It turns out that Kristina is an exacting eater, and one who doesn't wish to miss a crumb. One day she ate a whole apple, seeds, core and all. And while she has learned many words of English, "wipe" was among her first!

We were surprised at how much she seems to enjoy dolls, having picked one up as an afterthought at the toy store last week. In fact, the doll was so poorly made that her hair is in the style of a mohawk, i.e., a shock of hair down the midline of her head, with one row of bangs and another around each ear, and no hair in between. Kristina quickly found the brush and comb, and proceeded to remove whole shocks of the blond mohawk, while attempting repeatedly to put a rubberband in the doll's hair to make a ponytail. At the end of our visit, Doug exhibited a great deal of slight of hand getting the doll back into his backpack, in order to avoid to having it disappear into the orphanage's communal abyss.

The next day when Kristina spotted the doll, she immediately wished to play with it and was happily doing so when her particular group of preschoolers joined us on the playground. To our great surprise, she suddenly struck out at a couple of the kids with the doll as they approached us. We weren't quite sure if she was protecting the doll or us from the kids, although we prefer the latter!

At any rate, we are utterly smitten, enjoying every minute, and cannot wait to bring Kristina home.