Yesterday Dan, Olia and I went shopping for a new sofa for the living room.  Our cat Benson, who is old and failing a bit, has been urinating on our living room sofa.  I have cleaned it several times, but it is impossible to completely remove cat urine.  We posted a curb alert on Craiglist about the sofa and put it outside.  I wrote a description about the sofa, said it needed more cleaning from cat urine, and someone took it.  We were sure it would go to the trash!  The sofa looked great because we rarely use our living room.  So we went shopping for a new sofa.  I only want to get leather or faux leather because Benson may do the same thing again.  We try to keep him locked in the kitchen and family room, but with Olia and Dasha all summer, that was impossible.  They didn't always shut the door and the cat ran to the living room.  Olia loved furniture shopping.  She wanted me to buy every item in the store.  I think Olia may be am impulse buyer when she is older.  She had to try every single sofa, especially the ones that had built in foot rests! She liked the fake food that was used on the kitchen and dining room tables.  She had to touch each one because they looked so real! Olia gets a kick out of such simple things.  And she is so happy to experience something new. She wanted me to buy a wrap around sofa that had built in cup holders and a storage area for snacks!  She said she would never have to get up if we got that sofa! We didn't find anything we liked in our price range so we'll have to keep looking.  I guess I have never been a really big fan of leather, but it's durable and seems to hold up well.

   While we were driving to the furniture store, Olia wanted to play a game.  We usually play the alphabet game, finding words on billboards, signs, etc that begin with each letter of the alphabet.  Olia said.....I think we must be the smartest family in the world because you always make us play learning games.  Reading all the environmental print really helped Olia with reading and spelling.

    Last night Olia and I watched the Sound of Music.  She had never seen a real nun.  I didn't realize that until we were watching the movie and she asked me why the women were dressed like that.  I explained to her about Catholic nuns and what they did and why they chose that life.  She just said.....those clothes look annoying and tight, especially under the chin and on the neck! And those clothes do look annoying.  There aren't that many "orders" that wear such constricting habits any more.  When the part about the Nazis came on the movie, I started to explain that concept to Olia.  She said, I know.  And she started to tell me some information about Nazis which was correct.  She must have learned something about them in fourth grade.

    Olia finished  vacuuming this morning.  Then she picked out her school clothes for tomorrow because it is her first day of fifth grade!  Surprise, surprise.......it was a Hannah Montana shirt!  She says she doesn't want to go(not that she has a choice), but I think she is excited about the first day.  We always videotape the first school day and she is already telling us not to do that.  Too bad...you live here, you get videotaped the first day!! Our older kids always said they didn't like it, but the second they got home from school, they wanted to watch the video!  And the same thing happened with Olia last year!

      Today we are going to look at campers.  We just want to get an idea of costs.  I would be happy with a used camper, but Dan only wants to buy new. Olia is so excited to go look at campers.  She finds such joy in the simple things in life. 

     Dasha must now be settled back into her orphanage life.  I am sure that she was happy to see her friends and caretakers.  She should be excited knowing that she will soon have a family of her own.  I actually think it will be a bigger adjustment for the biological child than for Dasha.  Dasha is getting a wonderful gift, something she really wants.  I think the bio child is also getting the gift of a sister, which is something that is priceless, but it still will be hard to "share" parents you are used to having to yourself. I have been reading the posts of some parents on the "older Ukrainian kids" yahoo group and some people are having problems and some people are thrilled with their older adopted kids.  I think some parents have too high expectations for their older adopted children.  Some parents expect older adopted kids to feel gratitude; that is something that doesn't happen.