Day 4 - December 17, 2007

TODAY WAS THE DAY...WE FINALLY MET MIAN (a.k.a. Jakob)!!!

We started our day very early (5:30 AM) as neither of us could sleep. We got ready, ate breakfast at our favorite little cafe, and went for a walk. We met the driver around 9:30 AM and made our first stop at what we thought was the orphange. It was a really nice red building and he called to say we were a bit early...only to find out that was not the right place (it was a govt. building we will go to tomorrow). We then spent another 45 minutes driving to the real orphange...which from the outside was not as nice. The inside; however, was spotless...very clean, neat, organized, not what we expected (we were pleasantly surprised)! We met with the orphange director and had a chance to ask some questions (this was after starting and stopping about 10 times with interruptions...we've become very patient).

After being there about 30 or so minutes, we were taken into a small room that they use for speech therapy that also had some toys in it. A few mintues later, Mian the munchkin came walking through the door. They said some things to him in Russian and then he waived to us! I quickly pulled out a book that made noise and he was in! He came over and started playing with it immediately. Everyone else saw he was ok and left us there with him to play for the next 90 minutes. We had been told that he might be a bit shy with Wayne as he does not really see men much, but that was not the case. Wayne turned on his charm (ha ha) and Mian was drawn to him immediately. We played with books, crayons, toys, more toys, etc and had a wonderful time with him. He is just such a sweet boy! We can't wait to fatten him up a bit as he is a bit skinny (and I'm dying to get him a decent hair cut). We brought an Old Navy outfit to hold up to him to see how it would fit. The 18-24 month old clothes seem to be about right...maybe even a little big for him at this point (especially his short little legs...think he'll be taking more after Wayne than me in that area). His Russian outfit said 24 months and fit about right...also maybe a little big.

We were even able to use some Russian with him (he pointed to Rosco and Bailey when we asked him in Russian where the dog was, so that was good). He is definitely a boy....loves building and stacking things, was not really into the stuffed bear we had for him...and when he heard a truck outside, he wanted to look out and see it, so Wayne had to lift him up so they could watch the truck go by. Wayne and I both felt he was very quick to catch on to things...he mimicked everything we did, followed our direction if we showed him how to do something and was also very polite in letting us know when he was ready to move on to the next thing! When he was sitting on Wayne's lap, I said to him "good-YEH Papa" (where is Papa) and he pointed to Wayne and said "Papa!" Not sure how he knew that or if he has just seen that in books, but I was impressed. Of course, Mama did not work out but hey, we've got time. Wayne says we have to work on Daddy next as he does not really want to be called Papa...I told him that maybe when we start to call Mian Jakob he can work on that as well :)

I've included some videos and photos from today. We expect to get in 2 visits tomorrow, so hopefully that will be the case.

After the orphange, we just had the driver take us to Gorky Park where we had lunch and watched ice skating before heading back over to Arbat Street. Sitting in the hotel is pretty boring, so we are trying to get out as much as possible despite the cold and snow.

Thanks to everyone who has sent comments through...we've read them all and love getting them!

Make sure you click the play button on the 2 pictures below as they are videos (adding this comment in as some folks have been missing it).

We'll post more photos tomorrow!
Love, Courtney, Wayne and Mian (Jakob)