The deed is done. Plane tickets are bought. I guess we have until midnight tonight to cancel or change them, but still. We're officially going.
Christmas in Ukraine is tomorrow so we called Ira just now (Christmas Eve there) to congratulate her on the holiday. She seemed very excited. Today they went around and knocked on doors (what doors, I'm not sure), singing Christmas songs and getting candy and money from people. Tomorrow they go to a church and preform something there. Kind of like a reenactment of the Christmas story from what I understood. Little Ira gets to be a wolf. On Saturday they're all going to see a 3D movie. Our package hasn't shown up yet.
She did seem excited to talk to us still, which was good. With everything going on for Christmas we wondered if she'd be back to not wanting to come. Not that she said she DID want to come, but she did, of her own accord, say she missed us and loved us and was waiting for us.
When the orphanage worker first answered the phone and Yulia asked for Ira, BOTH Ira's showed up to talk. We actually only got to talk to our Ira for a minute before Little Ira took over. LOL She, as when she was here, was very talkative and told us all about what was going on for Christmas as well. She said something about talking to Mama and Papa and they love her so much and she wanted to talk to Grandma because Grandma loves her so much. She kept asking if we were coming to see her and when. We told her we were coming "soon" but left out exactly when. Then she asked us if we would come take her to America. Yeah. Ouch. Yulia tends to answer things herself (which is really fine with us since she's never said anything that wasn't what we would have said anyway) but that one she said she'd ask us. We really had no idea what to tell her that wasn't a lie or something that was going to hurt her. In the end we just said we don't know what will happen when we get over there. I wish it had worked out with her as well and that we could get both of them. I wish there was a family that she would work well in that would go get her. The one thing that "saves" us is that her paperwork isn't ready until spring. Even if it were right, there isn't anything we can do about it.
Yulia wondered if maybe the two girls are talking and that our Ira is a little more okay with the idea now because she thinks that Little Ira might be coming with her. My mom wondered that too a long time ago. We asked Ellie about that (having called her right after we got off the phone with the girls) and she said that it's a good thing either way. Knowing Little Ira, she would say something like that without ever saying anything to our Ira. If, however, that IS the case then she said it at least gets our Ira used to the idea of coming here and she will hopefully be more likely to say yes no matter what happens with Little Ira.
As I've thought for a long time, this trip is going to be quite the roller coaster.
