WIPocalypse 2012

Tuesday, August 03, 2010

The Russia Trip- Part 5

It's been a busy few days around here- I took Joshua to check out the daycare one day last week and spent some time playing with the kids there. He helped me get all the invitations to his baptism out in the mail. We said goodbye to one of my cousins on Sunday as she left yesterday for her training for Americorps. It was sad to see her go since her assignment is at least 10 months long but we'll see her again at Christmas. And then yesterday we took Joshua to the daycare for a real stay and Erich and I took a day to relax and do some shopping. It was hard to leave him but he really had a good time there and didn't seem to mind at all that we left him. He got an excellent report sheet at the end of the day and I'm sure he's looking forward to playing with the kids again next week. We're going to try to take him at least a day or two every week until I go back to work to get him adjusted and allow him to play with the kids since there aren't any others at our house. And on top of all that we were excited to hear that there's a new little one in the family. My cousin in NC had her little boy yesterday and we saw some pics but won't see the real thing until Christmas so sounds like Christmas will be extra special this year.

Sorry the Russia posts have been a little slow in coming, probably two more to finish the story.

6/5/10-6/7/10:So I left us patiently waiting out our ten days before we could take custody of the baby. We got another visit with him at summer camp and took along his new shoes to make sure they fit. Not only did they fit but he loved them and the noise they made on the hardwood floor!

Trying out his new shoes 6/10


Smiles 6/10


The expected chain of events was that the two families would leave us on 6/6, the single mother Erich and I were traveling with would have her second court date on 6/7 and Erich and I would get Joshua on 6/8. Not quite what happened but it worked out. We did lose two families on 6/6 as they started their journey home that day so the rest of us went shopping, played with email, and had dinner. We found a really neat Lego set of St. Basil's Cathedral which I'll have to take a pic of sometime soon. After we got settled back up in our room that evening we got a surprise phone call from the translator that we would be able to pick up Joshua a day early, tomorrow! We were very happy to have done most of the food shopping for him a day or two earlier when the other families had gone to the store for their children but we still had to pick up a cake. It is apparently the custom in that region to bring a cake to the orphanage workers as a thank you/goodbye present from the child that is leaving with his family so we set out on a quick walk down the street to the bakery and picked up this...

Joshua's good-bye cake 6/10


First thing the next morning when the translator came to pick up the other adoptive mom for court (we would be traveling solo with the driver to the summer camp) we arranged for a crib to be brought to our room and the sweet cleaning lady made Joshua's bed up special for him.

A crib in our hotel room 6/10


This bed made specially for Joshua 6/10


We made it to the summer camp near lunch time and were shown to an office and then were taken back to the playroom and Joshua was brought in. We got him changed and played while we waited for everything to be ready.

Getting dressed to leave 6/10


Ready to go 6/10


We waited and waited and unfortunately weren't sure what we were waiting for since we had no translator but it turned out the orphanage wanted to make sure Joshua had lunch before he left. They brought in a huge bowl of soup and cup of something to drink and fed him one last time before saying goodbye and finally we were on our way. It felt so strange to not have to give him back this time and a little scary but it was finally real, he was really and truly ours. He was a good boy on the way back to the hotel even though we had to make a stop at the orphanage for a few more bits of paperwork.

On the way to the hotel 6/10


We got him back to the hotel room and within about 15 minutes could tell it was getting close to nap time so we changed our first stinky diaper and laid him down in the bedroom area of our hotel room. Thankfully this room had sliding doors that closed off the bed area from the little sitting area so we had somewhere to go while he napped. He went down easily and quietly so we checked after awhile just to make sure he was okay and found this...

Nap time 6/10


Now when I left him he was facing the other way with his head on the pillow and covered up with the blanket but apparently that was not his preferred sleeping position:) He slept like that for a few hours and shortly after he got up we had the other adoptive mother we travelled with knocking at our door to let us know that her court session had gone well and she would be able to pick up her new son and daughter in approximately ten days. Unfortunately because of her extended stay she would definitely have to leave for the ten day wait so we would have to say goodbye to her that evening as she was flying out early the next morning. So we had one more dinner together at the nice little restaurant down the street and treated ourselves to tea and pastries from the bakery around the corner afterward. It was sad to see our last traveling companion leaving us but we were very happy that she'd been able to complete her adoption and that we were that much closer to getting home too.

Russian sweets 6/10

I've never seen such pretty sweets as those we saw in Russia. It's hard to see in the picture but the one on the left in back had little mushrooms made of wafer cookies and little berries made out of icing on top. I wish I'd been able to take pics of the things we didn't buy in the bakery but wasn't sure how the lady behind the counter would feel about that.

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