Chicken fiasco and our little pickpocket.

First before I start – No court today. At the moment it looks like court will now be on Friday. Things got a little delayed for whatever reason, but with the 10 day waiting period falling over a weekend, we’re not gaining any extra days that we will have to stay here so far.

So, I wanted to start the post today by doing a little bit of venting about how hard it is to cook a good meal here in Ukraine.  It’s so hard to be able to find ingredients in the grocery, let alone be able to read the packages they come in.  We only have a stove top and a microwave to cook with.  Luckily, we were able to find the “instant food” section of the grocery and have been eating Ramen, Soup in a Cup, and instant potatoes.

Last night, Scott and I took a chance with some chicken.  Please realize that all food that we eat here is at our own risk, since there is no FDA.  So, I was just going to cook the chicken on the stove top and mix it with some rice.  Unfortunately when I thawed the chicken, it included more than what I had bargained for!  Not only was it VERY bloody (gross!), but the package included the entire chicken.  It literally looked like they just used a sharp saw to cut the chicken into pieces.  That dinner went straight to the trash can and we went with Plan B.

At our visit today, Jackson started testing the limits a little bit more with us.  We enjoy this because it shows that he is starting to bond with us and to treat us as a more of a parent figure, rather than people who come and play with him for an hour every day.  He threw two temper tantrums today, typical of a two year old.  The first one was when we took away the plastic golf club that he whacked the mirror with and the second was when Scott put away his iPod.

We had the iPod out because we were showing Jackson his performance from yesterday.  He really enjoyed watching it over and over again.  When Scott put it away, he whined and cried, but we distracted him with a new activity.  About five minutes later, Jackson went over to Scott and started patting him down.  It was the strangest thing, until we realized that he was looking for the iPod!  It was so funny to see him looking in Scott’s pockets and down his shirt for the shiny little black toy!

Of course he did other cute things today like playing with the train we gave him and saying “Choo choo” and giving out kisses.  He was rocking the blue painter bear shirt and overalls, like usual, so our pictures are all starting to look the same!