Beautiful towns and amazing sights- Wednesday

On Wednesday, after another hilarious breakfast with Magda at the hotel, we again visited A in the morning.  He was not only ready and waiting at the door to play with us, he barely let Case get his coat off before dragging him upstairs to play.  When he saw us, he yelled "Hello!".  It was super cute!  Magda was with us again the whole time and while the boys we playing, we got to talk more specifics about A.  Overall, he is very healthy.  There were concerns that he was possibly ADD/ADHD and we talked about what that meant and what we thought.  Both Brian and I being in the medical profession gave our two cents from what we had seen so far.  In my nursing, I have done clinicals with in-patient child psych where I saw true ADHD (not pretty, let tell you) and being a school volunteer for years and current PTO president, I have a good grasp of what it means for sure.  We told them that from what we had seen so far, he appeared to be a normal, active 7 yr old, with little if any diagnosable ADD.  The big thing to remember is that this is not why he qualified for adoption, so we weren't afraid to share this with the foster mom and Magda.  Still, we decided to test him out to see.

We sat down in the family room (while Magda and the foster mom chatted downstairs in the kitchen- its kinda a split level house) and got out UNO to play.  UNO is a fabulous game because its easy to learn, you use colors and numbers, and eventually you can use it for math skills in adding up rounds etc.  We love it and it definitely helped Case learn his addition and subtraction early.  So it seemed the perfect game to try. 

Case and he were in A's bedroom, which has a door off the family room.  Case came out and we asked A to come out and join us too, but at first he was being a little willful and wanted to keep playing computers.   We stayed where we were and just decided to play and see if he would eventually join us.  True to all little kids that age, he realized we were probably having more fun and his curiosity got the best of him, so he came out to play too.  I knew it, lol!  We starting playing and ended up playing 3 whole games.  It was even better than we could have hoped.  Not only was it fun and a first "family" activity, but more importantly there were 3 things we observed: 1) he was able to focus and sit still enough to play the game, 3 times in fact; 2) he is very smart and picked up the rules, even with the language difference- we got to practice and use Polish words for colors and numbers and he practice English; and 3) he interacted with us great and had fun!  From that alone, we definitely saw no big evidence of extreme ADD/ADHD, which was encouraging as well.

We visited until lunch again and then left for a break in the afternoon.  Magda said she had an errand to run in the bigger town so we were on our own until about 3:30pm.  And then true to how funny she is, she finally just admitted she really had to go to the mall there to go shopping!  Apparently, Magda loves the malls, lol.  We laughed and I said I was just so totally excited there was a mall!  lol  She obviously felt very comfortable with us because she then started telling me about what she was thinking of buying and that she would show me when he got back, etc.  We were totally gabbing like girls, lol!

We had lunch again at the same pizza place and they totally remembered us.  We started realizing that not only did we probably stick out because Brian is 6'4" and we spoke English etc, but more than likely all these people knew each other in this small town and we definitely were new.  LOL!  It was delicious again and then we set out with camera in hand to explore the town square and surrounding streets.  The sun had come out and the skies were clear and the town looked lovely!  Here are a few pics:

Beautiful town square- totally picturesque!

Case and Mom- is he really that tall??!

Small street off the square

Church built in 1505

Monument to Polish soldiers that served in WWII (at least we think that's what it said, lol)

Close up of monument

Ok, Case wanted me to take a picture of this. Obviously, no "you know what" in town square. lol!

Cool architecture

We then decided to walk to the church.  Outside, on its left was an intricate monument dedicated to Blessed John Paul II, who as you know was from Poland.  It was in a very nicely manicured courtyard and as you can see from the candles, many people visit it to pay their respects and pray for his intercession.

We then went inside the church.  It was really cool!  And I mean that two-fold: it was very interesting and very cold!  Definitely never upgraded the 16th century church with heating.  The architectural elements were so amazing.  Here are a few pics:

Front view

We wondered if these were stained glass before the war

View down the aisle

Mosaics gracing the central aisle

More mosaics

Saints depicted in stain glass- beautiful!

Side altar for prayer

Original pulpit- up high, above the people

Side altar for prayer

Central altar (love the flat screen added on, lol)

We did not stay long and in the time we were in there, many ladies came in to pray and reflect.  It was really nice feeling the comfort of the Catholic Church and the fact this is an extremely religious, catholic country and town.

Just before we left, we saw a plaque next to the inside door- it said that during WWII, the church had been used as a headquarters/gathering place for Nazi troops.  Talk about a sobering reminder of what this beautiful town and country had to endure.  Later came the Red Army, who in many ways were worse.  I just can't imagine.

In the afternoon, after Magda returned with some totally cute clothes and shoes etc (lol), we went back for our second visit of the day.  This time again, the other kids were home from school.  It was fun and we played with them as well (UNO again) and we shared iPads and played Sonic and Angry Birds.  It was very sweet.  However, we realized two things: that we weren't getting as much time with just A and that the kids were really trying to get our attention and we didn't want to confuse them that we were there for them (the older kids especially).  So after we left, we talked with Magda about maybe only coming the following morning or until the kids came home.  The other kids were great, no question, we just wanted to spend time with A before we left.  She totally agreed.

We left around 6:00pm after another great visit.  We really felt totally comfortable with everything by this time and as Brian said, he just wished we could take him with us now.  A had definitely taken to Brian the most and wanted him to hold him alot.  Brian is like a big teddy bear, so I think his size was comforting to A.  he liked Case and I as well; but Brian was the favorite this day by far.  :)

We met Magda again for dinner and we went into town to another restaurant recommended by the foster families bio son.  Totally walkable but Magda insisted she drive, lol.  The restaurant was in an old fabric manufacturing warehouse that had been renovated obviously. It had really great food and was totally eclectic with a blend of things going on, which made it even cooler !  Kinda pub-like with an aerobics studio above us and a B&B attached next door.  Our waiter (super cool guy) took Brian over to see the rooms and he said they were nice!  Then they put on the big soccer match between Chelsea and Barcelona in the other room on their gigantic tv and by the time we left, it was packed with an interesting blend of regular guys and women who had just come from step class.  But it wasn't like a pick-up place- they were all only there to watch soccer, drink pivo and eat.  Like I said, eclectic, lol!

We returned back to the hotel with the plan that we would accompany the foster dad and A to an appointment in the regional town to have him evaluated for ADD.  Good fortune smiling again because believe it or not, they had asked for the appointment a year before and it just happened to fall during the time we were there.  That's God's hand right there.  And also folks, unfortunately that's socialized medicine right there.  Still, we looked forward to Thursday and taking a little trip.

Next up- Thursday, what we found out, and the advantage of Brian being there, lol.