"Gotcha Day!"

Sorry for the delay on the posting. Gotcha Day was actually 2 days ago, but it has been a crazy two days. When we went to the orphanage to pick up Dima, we were informed that he had a bad fever and throat infection. So, instead of celebrating with pictures and video we ended up going to a pharmacy and then home to put Dima to bed. Dima had several prescriptions. One was an inhaler to help with the throat infection (Probably Strep). He loves the inhaler. He opens his mouth really wide and takes it like a man. Another prescription is an antibiotic in tablet form. Dima is a pro at taking tablets. He just chews them up and washes them down with a little water. These are not flavored tablets either. These are adult tablets cut in half and we all know how these things taste, don't we? Interestingly enough, when we give him the grape flavored Tylenol for the fever, he almost gags on it.
Yesterday and today we were working on getting the paperwork completed for Dima's passport. They informed us that it might not be ready until September 8th. So, now we are back in the apartment packing our bags to head back to Kiev to wait on the passport and then get his visa. After that, we get to bring him to the U.S. Unfortunately, Dave will not get to stay the entire time because he has to go back to work. He is just about out of time to be off and needs to get back. This should make for an interesting journey for me to bring Dima back along with all of our luggage. We did buy a stroller over here so at least I won't have to worry about Dima running off. Of course that is just one more thing for me to haul around.
All in all, the last few days have been great, once Dima started feeling better. He is smiling a lot more and really opening up to us. He still has his shy moments but gets over them more quickly. One note...he does not like elevators. As soon as the door closes, he screams and cries until they open back up. Did we mention that we are staying on the 16th floor? That's a lot of screaming and we have heard comments from people saying that they have heard him scream all the way up. Today, the power was out in the complex so we got to take the stairs. Dima walked up the whole way without one complaint...though he did take a long nap afterwards!
Well, we need to get back to packing. We leave for Kiev in about 7 hours and still need to get some sleep. We will try to keep the blog updated but we are not sure how much internet access time we will get.

We're almost home so keep those prayers coming!

Candace and Dave