THE day (Moscow Trip 1, Day 3)

Okay, okay, okay! I'm here blog stalkers!

Where do I start??? Someone posted on our blog once (Melissa) to be flexible. You have to be flexible in this journey called adoption - especially this first visit. If you recall, we requested a boy < 24 months of age. We knew last Friday after talking to our agency that there was a chance that we might get a slightly older referral. When I talked to C, I told her that most important thing to us was health. We didn't care if our child was blue, purple, 5 months old or 5 years old.

So.... get to the point right? We left our apartment at 10:00 this morning, headed to S's office. We met with her briefly and then to the Ministry of Education (MOE). Once we arrived at the MOE we found out that they were all in a meeting so we had to wait for 40 minutes before we could head upstairs. We were able to visit with another couple from our agency that had a rough time getting here and was quite exhausted!

Once it was time to go to the MOE, we started up the stairs. Can you believe that no one asked me if I wanted to take the elevator?!?! Let me tell you... after all of that walking yesterday, 4 flights of stairs pretty much sucked. By the last flight I was praying I would not embarass myself and have to ask someone to carry me. We got to the office, went inside and sat with S until the lady from the MOE came in.

We were first. Talk about pressure! She started rattling off the child's history and S translated. He is 33 months old. Dark brown hair and dark brown eyes. S goes to show us his picture and before she does she says "Very bad picture. Very bad. Just go see the boy". When I saw the picture I couldn't help but giggle. The Peanut had this little toothy sneer like my sister always did when she was making her mean face when she was little. :-)

The next couple received their referral, we all agreed to see the kids and headed out. We went to the town of Lubertsy. It is about 40 mins - 1 hour outside of the center of Moscow. Our driver had a hard time finding the orphanage because they had never been there before. Once we got there (on some really bumpy, unpaved roads that warrant a sports bra might I add) we went in and met with the orphanage director.

It was a short meeting because there wasn't much to say about the Peanut. He has no medical problems, his mother had no problems, the father had no problems. Huh? What? Then why is he in an orphanage? As S told us, the Russians don't want the brown hair, brown eyed children or any child with Asian features. They want blond hair, blue eyed kids. We were still very guarded because we had the great Dr. M coming to visit and maybe he would tell us something that everyone else hadn't. We found out that the Peanut was napping and we were told to come back at 2:30 and they would wake him early (nap time ends at 3).

We went back out to wait, Dr. M. arrived and about 30 minutes later we headed back in. They took us upstairs to the psychologist's room. She invited us in and ummm... then she started the Spanish Inquisition. Why did we want to adopt? How did we know we could handle it? What did we expect? What is our house like? Do we have animals? Etc, etc... oh - "Do you make porridge?" I kid you not. To be completely honest, we appreciated the fact that she took such an interest in knowing whether or not we were any good for this little guy. Too often people are handed kids that shouldn't be parents.

Okay, so the whole time we're being questioned, we're waiting for the little Peanut. In he comes and he starts balling. He grabs onto his caregiver and just cries! The poor little guy! Dr. M. gets him to warm up to him and they start playing with all of the fun intstruments. Dr. M. was awesome. He was better than anything I could have ever wished for! The Peanut kept eyeing me (I was taking some video) like "who are you lady and what the heck do you think you're doing!".

After Dr. M. was done we were allowed to get down and play with him. He wasn't such a big fan of ours, but he loved our stacking cups! This kiddo's motor skills were right on target! Not only was he nesting them but he was nesting the balls you could make of the stacking cups. He turned the play hammer on and off and was very inquisitive when one of us would do something different.

His caregiver told us he was very kind, sociable and was good at sharing. He is also very shy. Dr. M told us that he was surprised at how healthy the child is. The only thing he sees is that he is behind in speech. His health is great, his height and weight are great and cognitively he's doing awesome.

The Peanut then went for snack and then came back and played. He interacted with us a bit better but he gave us the evil eye whenever we got to close. We played Hungy, Hungry Hippo (oh yes, we did!! Jealous??) and he won of course! It helped that he raised the hippos mouth with his hands and stuffed the marbles in it, but hey... what are you going to do? We shared animal crackers and he and Keith played patty cake or something like that. At one point he said "Papa!" and turned towards Keith. Talk about a moment that will melt your heart. The social worker told him to share his cracker with mama and he turned and pointed some grubby, sticky, cracker crumb fingers at me. :-) I just handed him another cracker.

When we left he kept turning around to wave goodbye. It was almost as though each time he turned around he was wondering if we'd still be there. The Peanut was brought to the baby home at birth, then went to a foster home (we're not sure at what age) and has been at the orphanage for the past month. The psychologist was worried about the trama from leaving the foster home and I think that is why she spent so much time checking us out. He was very attached to his caregiver which, after one month, is a great sign.

So, there you have it! We'll be headed back tomorrow around 9am. We haven't officially accepted him yet but plan on doing so tomorrow afternoon once we've agreed on a name. :-) He is a cutie. I wish I could post pictures but we have a few months before that can happen.

Thanks, all, for checking in on us! It was a good day, albeit emotional. It's hard when you plan on setting sail on one course and end up going quite off path. Everything happens for a reason and this was a great reason!!

For those of you that have husbands that seem "disengaged" during the waiting process.... have faith. Keith and I did a complete role reversal today. He is so excited and has been such a rock through this! I'm the one that seems to be more unemotional and detached! Maybe I'm just emotioned out?? :-) I think the next few days will get better as he learns to like us a bit more!

Hugs to all of you!
Paka!
Becky