Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Second visit & other stuff



Today we had our second visit with our son at the orphanage. It went really well & there was definitely some bonding with Andrew!! This is huge!! We had 2 hours with him & it was more casual than yesterday. We were left alone with only our facilitator in the room, but she left us alone with him for about 45 minutes. It was so wonderful to be just the 3 of us!! All of the formal commotion really distracted him yesterday & we were happy to be in our own little world with him. He came right to me again & I had the teddy bear ready. He snuggled up against it & just let me hold him for awhile. He wrapped his little hands around my shoulders & grabbed on to me as if he didn't want me to let go. He had just had lunch & was a little sleepy at first. We gave him some time to get used to us again & then he started coming to life & playing with us. He LOVES music & really likes a musical book we brought. We would push the music button & move it away from him, then he would crawl right to it & grab it. He is very aware of what's going on around him & his motor skills seem to be age appropriate. He finally let daddy hold him for awhile & later on he even reached for him :) He has to have me in view when daddy has him, but there was definitely bonding between the two of them today! We played, & played, & played.....for 2 hours straight. It went so fast. He started getting sleepy about 15 minutes before our time was up & he was fighting sleep. I rocked him again, but he wanted to continue interacting with us. Then the caregiver came in to take him. I cried....I didn't want to let him go. Tomorrow is our last visit before we come home & it's going to be very emotional. On the positive side, we got a ton of good pictures with him today & some video of him playing. We woke up to snow this morning!! We were very excited to experience real Siberia weather (but not too much). The temps were in the 20's today & we went out exploring in a light snow shower this morning before our visit. We found the new train station which Andrew has been fascinated with in his research of Kras. The Trans-Siberian Railroad runs through there. On our way back we ate lunch at Subway....interesting. Meat here is very processed & let's just say I removed it from my sandwich & had cheese & bread :) Food has been an adventure....pizza with diced hot dog on it is considered "sausage pizza." I ate some weird fish last night that I thought was chicken. They do make really good mashed potatoes in Russia :) Our hotel has a breakfast buffet included & they have good coffee, crepes, eggs, & pastries. They do eat some strange things for breakfast though....salad, pot roast, & mixed vegetables to name a few. There is a Cinnabon here (YAY!!) & we treated ourselves there last night. There are a lot of restaurants & stores that only accept cash if you don't spend a minimum amount, & we ran into that problem last night. Andrew just stared at Cinnabon girl & kept handing the credit card to her because we didn't have enough rubles. She was annoyed, but finally took it. we have learned 3 very important words: "Da" (yes), "Niete" (no), & "Spaceba" (thank you). We do a lot of pointing at stuff, too. Traffic here is INSANE!!!! It's driving Andrew crazy. If there are traffic laws, they're not enforced. People pretty much drive how they want. There are no crosswalks, so you just stand on the corner & get across the street as fast as you can when there's a break in traffic. Five lanes of cars trying to do u-turns around the bridge...YIKES! I close my eyes a lot when we're in the car. We talked to the kids on skype this morning & they were too busy having fun to say more than a few words. Thank you does not even express how grateful we are for our support system at home. Well, we are going to head out for the adventure of dinner & we'll get today's sightseeing pictures posted tonight. Thank you all for praying us through this! The next few days are going to be bittersweet...we don't want to say goodbye to him. Knowing that we will be back soon to bring him home gives us peace & comfort, but it's still going to be tough. Two days & a wake up to go....then we'll be home. Goodnight!

2 comments:

  1. Hi Guys, So happy to hear about your second visit with your son. Can't wait for your pictures to be shown at MOMS. Take care and know that you are being prayed for all the time. Love you guys!

    Nena

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  2. Praying fite you guys daily. Thanks for the updates! Making me cry :)

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