Day 8

Maria's View-
Morning visit-

We have a good routine going!  We do pretty much the same things every day, especially with our little man.   Getting to the orphanage was a little different this morning due to our driver needing to take another family to the train station.  He called to let us know that "Egor" would be taking us to the orphanage but it came out as "Eu-dor"... so we went out to the curb, a taxi arrived, I walked up to his window and in my best Russian, asked him "what is your name, please?"  He didn't understand a word of it and I'm certain that I said it right. ha.  He just motioned for us to get in.

We arrived and everything was pretty quiet... no groupas in the halls, not many people out walking around, we traded our passports for "Finn" and headed outside.  We did our usual things with him, play, tickle, swing, walk, and he's still just as adorably sweet as ever.  After about 30 mins (yeah, we try our best to stay out longer than just 20 mins), he started tugging at the sleeves of his furry suit.  We headed back inside.

The moment we put him down on the carpet to remove his suit, he stuck those 2 fingers into his mouth and started shutting down.  He is SO cute when he does this, but we don't want him to go to sleep!  So we pulled out the cellphone and that was enough to perk him back up.  (UGH, and I just realized now that we forgot to buy him a toy one at the store while we were there.)  He crawled and cruised around a bit but he was tired.  I really think that our visits must run into his nap times. 

He played a lot with the little giraffe rattle that I made for him.  It was actually one that I made for another adorable little boy but it didn't turn out just right so I kept it and made another one for my friend.  I brought it just in case and I'm glad I did.  He has really enjoyed playing with it!  I'm going to make him a few more when I get back home because I think I will probably leave this one with him at the orphanage when we go home for our 10 day wait.

Another part of our morning visit involves his daily poop. YUCKO.  When this happens, there's not much more we can do but take him back to his nanny.  And since he's pretty tired anyway, we don't mind it so much.

Afterward, our driver took us to the mall and I tanked up on a McD's cheeseburger and fries.  I don't mind exploring new foods but every other day I need FOOD.  I felt like I was starving all day yesterday.  I just sent my hubby out to see if he could locate some Reece's PB cups and I guess they don't have them here.  I don't know how I will make it X amount of days without my PB cups!!  I'll make due.  He did, however, find me a KitKat Bar.  I love him.

While we were finishing up our McD's, our facilitator called and said that we are to meet our driver outside and he would take us to the social worker's office and then to court.  So we jumped in and headed to the social worker's office where we had to sign a document.  Then she followed us out to ride with us to the courthouse.  On our way to the curb, we were all looking at traffic in order to cross the street, the social worker decided to wait for traffic but Chris decided that he wasn't... and he practically pushed her out into the street!  She was like, "ahhhh!" and we grabbed her and pulled her back onto the curb, and then I gave a look to Chris like, "please don't kill our social worker" and thankfully she was laughing, which made us laugh... then of course, she had to give our driver the Russian version of it.  Thankfully, everyone is still alive and well.  I have no idea what she did at the courthouse.  We had to wait in the car.

Evening visit-
Our evening visit went great!  It is a beautiful day outside today, warm, and in the 60s.  We made our way to his room and the nanny opened the door with him in her arms, dressed and ready to go outside!  AND he wasn't dressed in 3 layers, only 2 this time!  He also had on shoes that weren't too small!  YAY!

So we spent a lot of time outside this evening.  I took him into one of the play sheds and let him cruise around.  I grabbed one of the cars that he could sit on and scoot around, thinking that he really wouldn't know how to use it, WRONG.  He immediately started scooting that thing all over the place.  Loved it!  It's not that I think he's not capable of doing these things, it's just that I don't know what they have taught him, so we are learning as we go!  He's teaching me things!  We then moved on to the rocking see-saw and I put him on one side and I hurried to the other and he was already rocking it, trying to make it go!  I'm one proud momma!  He is so smart!  He's also very determined!

He seems to get overstimulated once he's played a bit so we took that as a cue to go indoors.  Once inside, he immediately began to shut down on us and tried to fall asleep.  We were able to perk him back up with his toys.  He was particularly interested in his Mickey Mouse book this evening.

One thing I have noticed about him is that he doesn't multi-task at all.  Once he sets his mind on something, it's just on whatever THAT is.  If he's cruising, he's cruising, so he won't hold his rattle and cruise at the same time, etc. 

He's definitely a fun boy!!  Very, very fun!  And kissable and so lovable!





Chris's View:

Last night was pretty crazy!  All night long with the dogs & cats in the courtyard going at it.  We have noticed since we got here that there are stray animals EVERYWHERE.  Dogs are the most out in the open, while I have only seen a few cats, just in the courtyard at the apartment.

Last night it started with the dogs.  It sounds like roaming packs of dogs encroached on another pack's turf and a war ensued.  It would get loud and then calm down again.  It is much what I think Michael Vick's place sounded like on weekends before he went to jail!  LOL!  Sorry, poor humor, but it's funny cause it's true!  Anyway, as we got into bed last night, it sounded as if a cat magically appeared in the middle of the turf war.  Man, it was all out chaos and that cat surely sounded on the losing side!  Screeches and hisses all over the place.  It was much the same as the dogs too, with the ruckus then calm.  Eventually though, one side either must have won, or all of the animals got tired and laid down and went to sleep.

I am throwing some photos on here of our walk home from the Karavan.  It's not the cleanest, nor does it look like the safest area, but so far, we have felt reasonably safe.  The first is the Karavan itself.  The next, just on the other side of that wall is the roughest looking storage sheds... at least I hope they are storage sheds and not where people live... that I have ever seen.  The next is more of the sheds.  The last is our apartment building.  It looks pretty bad on the outside, but the lady we are subletting from has fixed it up real nice and it is more than adequate for our time here.  She works at the orphanage as a cook... can't speak a word of English, but she is really nice!

Sorry for not having much to write about today, the call to go to the social worker's office and court kind of took up much of our exploring time today.  I think we are going to go do lunch... at the Karavan of course... then go across the street to what our facilitator called the bazaar.  I know I saw that we could buy an air compressor there, but hey, who knows what other gems we may find in there!  LOL!  What we are really looking for is some small items to give to our little dude on the anniversary of his "Gotcha Day".  Hopefully tomorrow we will have more pics to share.

See ya'll later!