We've decided!

Today we told the Klaipeda Child Rights office that we have decided to adopt the boys! (Our hearts were already saying yes after the first couple of visits- but we needed to make it official)

From our earlier visit at this office, we heard that it is possible and desirable for us to have the boys live with us even before the court date. However, when talking to the director today, we got a different story. Since the baby house is legally responsible for the children until the court date, the director was not excited about having the children away from the home there.

We don't know how long it will take to get documents registerd and get a court date. So now we readjust our thinking again... and we know we have more time for adjustments and getting ready. The director suggests we can tell the boys that we cannot take them now because we are getting something ready, or getting something at the store.

So, we are a little disappointed because it was starting to look like things could move significantly in the next 2 weeks, but probably that is not the case.

We will benefit from the time to get to know the boys routines, likes and dislikes, behaviour tendencies and so on. And for us to build some stamina, after all they are little boys!

So far we do know that they get up at 8am and have breakfast, at 9:30 there is snack, at 12 is lunch, at 3:30 is snack after nap time, and 7:30pm is supper at which point their schedule slows down in preparation for bed by 8:30 or 9.

They are well trained to cooperate in a group (except when they are excited in the presence of visitors). Today the speech therapist told me that the children may not like going to preschool because local preschools are run basically the same way as the orphanage and it may be memories they try to get away from.

The speech therapist says both boys are developing well intellectually and the few sounds they have difficulty pronouncing should develop better with time. (getting r and t mixed up or being unclear seems like the same challenges other preschool children I've known have)