Day 22-A Special Moment

Maria's View-

Today, Griffin drifted off in his Papa's arms... I wonder if he's ever fallen asleep in any one's arms before.  What a special moment between father and son.  I'm so thankful that he is relaxed enough to do this around us now.  Chris said, "it's a good thing that we only got ourselves approved to bring one child home, or else I know for a fact we would bring home as many as we could."  But is that really something to be thankful for?  I watched Griffin sleeping peacefully in Chris' arms and I said softly, "he doesn't deserve to be here in this place." to which Chris responded, "none of them do."  So true.

Little dude has been in a great mood today and he's such a pleasant little boy.  A highlight was when we picked him up, the nanny had him in "Old Man Shorts"!  LOL!  I'm dealing with a migraine, unfortunately, but it hasn't gotten the best of me yet... Hopefully it will ease up before the evening visit. 

When it was time to pass him off to his nanny, she took him inside, leaving all of the others outside to play in the play shed.  She placed him in the play pen where one little girl was asleep and another was crawling around.  Griffin propped himself up against the play pen wall and just stared at us... like, "why are you leaving me here?"  No smile, no nothing.  Just a look like, "are we done with this yet?  Can I just go home?"  Soon, hopefully, little boy... soon.

Our evening visit went well and went by pretty quickly.  This evening, we gave him a cracker!  He did very well with it, chewed it correctly, even used his hands to push it into his mouth.  I love learning these little things about him.  I could tell that he wanted to put the whole cracker in his mouth but I held his hands down so that Chris could just hold it for him and let him nibble on it.  Once it was gone, I could tell that he wanted more but I redirected him by making him walk and he was fine.  He didn't get aggressive so that's a good thing.  I think he would have shoved them all in his mouth at once, though, if we would have given him the opportunity.  He also drank several good sips of his juice! 

He has started responding to our 'come here' and 'go there' Russian phrases.  If I'm walking him around, Chris can call out, "ee dee syu da" and he will turn and start walking to Chris.  It's pretty sweet!  He is really fond of Chris and I'm so thankful for that since Chris will be going back alone to bring him home after the 10 day wait. 

Stay tuned for another blog post later on today!  Yep, 2 in one day! 

Thank y'all for praying!  Please continue to pray that we get a court date soon!

Chris's View:

Football is just around the corner!  You do not know how excited I am for this football season... both of them... yes, both of them.

My fantasy football commissioner... my brother Keith... sent an email out reminding me to set my keeper picks for this season.  I started thinking, "Is it that time of year already?"  Look it up & sure enough, the NFL & NCAA seasons will be starting real soon.  I am so excited about this as this will be the first season of many that I will get to enjoy with my son!  Wow!  I mean, Big G will tolerate a little football with Papa, and Little G, she sits for about 9 seconds before she is off doing something else, and Maria... unless she is in the stands, it's nothing to her.  There is something about a father & son bonding over a game that is uniquely American.  I have to teach him from the very basics, shoot, he's probably never seen an American football, much less watched any sort of game.  I have to begin early instilling that deeply seeded love for all things Saint's, Golden Eagles, and how the SEC will always be better than the Pac & Big 10 or 12 or whatever they are these days.  I get to teach him about Tony Doroset and Walter Peyton, Archie Manning (the only REAL quarterback in that family!  LOL!) and (simply because we are a Saint's household) brown paper bags.  I have to teach him that there is no bandwagon jumping in the Solomon house! 

I can't wait for the day to introduce him to Seymour and hear him yell SMTTT!  I'm sure he has experienced blackouts here in his country due to the poor electrical infrastructure, but I cannot wait to show him what a REAL blackout is!  To take him on his first trip to the Eagle Walk in to M.M. Roberts, of course, that's after parking somewhere out past Reed Green & the Pete!  I know this is about as clear as Greek to some of ya'll, but it's things that I have to teach my boy, and no, he doesn't have to be a fan of the game to enjoy all these things... they are rights of passage for him, since they are how I grew up.  I'm sure you all have some things  like this too.

But remember, I said two football seasons.  Just as I am going to introduce him to the football I love, I am going to teach him about the football that his people love too.  That's that European version... soccer.  Admittedly, I do not know a lot about soccer.  I took Big G to the Women's World Cup Final in Frankfurt, but that is the extent of my soccer experience.  I do know that his city has a soccer team that has a pretty storied past, and that is something I want him to know about.

For those of ya'll who have never been to Europe, the one thing you must know is that they take their soccer seriously.  It is a mix of SEC fandom meets WWE ring side seats!  To them, the love of their local team... win or lose... is lifeblood for the cities.  The people seem more up beat when their team is winning, and unfortunately, more upset when they are in a slump.  They have huge rivalry games between clubs, but unfortunately, they are like some Raiders fans and like to beat people up after the games... er, matches.  They have hooligans, even for the smaller city games.  In fact, 1F.C.K, the local team in Kaiserslautern, Germany, set up a family friendly section, so families can go enjoy the games without the hooligan issues... I've heard they do a good job of keeping the troublemakers away from this section, so that's kind of cool.  I remember when I was in Poland last year on TDY, walking back from a restaurant when the soccer fans overtook the town square after winning a big match.  There were reports of fights and busted beer bottles all over the place... sounds like the parking lot outside Neyland Stadium in Knoxville, Tennessee, on a Saturday evening after a loss to Alabama!

I have some learning to do about this whole soccer thing, but it will be fun learning it with my son!

See ya'll tomorrow!