Hugs

The boys have started giving spontaneous hugs. :) By that I mean that they give us hugs, not just respond when we hug them. We haven't pushed them to respond with physical affection, knowing that as they learn to trust and love us they will respond at their own pace. Zhenya tends to be much more affectionate than Dima, and has been giving hugs at bedtime for quite a while now. But Dima would just lay there and let you hug him (smiling) and not hug back. Until a few days ago... :)
We were at the park last week and Zhenya came down a slide, and then for whatever reason ran over and gave me a big hug. It turned into a game, and Dima decided to participate. Since then, Dima has been giving hugs much more freely, and will stretch out his arms at night for his bedtime hug. I'm so encouraged to see this emotional opening in him. For our boys, they are old enough to know and remember a lot about their past, Dima in particular. And I think Dima's personality being what it is, he has taken a lot of what has happened to heart, in terms of being sent to the orphanage and more or less abandoned. It's still going to take a long time for him to accept that he is really home--that we are not a temporary stop on the way to somewhere else or that we are not going to send him away. Both of the boys are really doing well with attachment and I'm excited to see the progress. It's slow, but it's definitely progress and based on a lot of research I've done I think they're doing great.

Yesterday the boys and I went and applied for their social security numbers. It was sort of a last minute decision, but I decided to try it and see which documents our local office wanted. Some people have had a hard time getting their local offices to accept the documentation that is required, but we had no problems. I took--well, I took ALL of the documentation I had, but it wasn't all required--the boys' passports, their Ukraine birth certificates with us listed as parents, and the court decree from Ukraine. The worker also asked for any "normal" documents with their names on them, like insurance cards, which I had. They took all of our documents and after about 20 minutes gave me a receipt and said we would have the new SS cards within 2 weeks! Wow! That was a lot easier than I expected, but I'm certainly happy it went so well. The boys' certificate of citizenship should be arriving in the next couple of weeks as well, and then we'll go ahead and get them US passports. They've got Ukrainian passports, but depending on where we travel they might need visas as citizens of Ukraine, so it's easier to go ahead and get US passports.

One of the boys (I can't remember which one--it's too early this morning) has his first pediatrician appointment this afternoon, and the other has an appointment tomorrow afternoon. I'm really excited to meet the pediatrician we've found. He specializes in children with developmental delays, so he should be well-prepared for our boys' delays and be able to help us decide what needs to be done, if anything. I'm hoping if the boys need any shots that I can wait and have both of them done tomorrow, otherwise I'm not sure I'll be able to drag them back to the doctor's office tomorrow afternoon. :) :) :)