2nd Visit, Day 1

Hello everyone! We are “back in the USSR” after 1 month of being away from our son, Jakob (or Mian – Russian name).

We had a long journey here (about 24 hours), but we made it on Saturday, January 26! Well…Wayne, me, and 2 out of 3 of our bags. Yes, the one that did not make it was mine! It has been a long and frustrating story about the 1 bag…I won’t bore you with all the details, but it has gone from Houston to London, to Newark, and is expected to then go to Frankfurt before arriving in Moscow sometime on Monday evening! I was able to buy make-up in London and also found a really good deal on a business suit on Arbaat street, so I am set for now. Continental plans to reimburse us a whole $25 (which will be argued later).

So, back to more exciting stuff! We were able to visit Jakob today for about 90 minutes! He definitely remembered us, but was still a bit shy. When we showed him the photos from our last visit, he just smiled. I asked him “Good-Yeh Mian” (Where’s Mian?) and he pointed to himself. When I asked him Good-Yeh Mama and Good-Yeh Papa, he pointed to me and then Wayne! I thought that was really cute!!

Wayne quickly pulled out the Nutri-Grain bars as we knew it was around his lunch time. He scarfed them down and was picking up all the crumbs off of the floor and Wayne’s pants. Poor thing…he is so hungry…and skinny. I think he is shrinking. We also fed him some Cheerios which he really enjoyed and then they brought some cookies in for him before finally deciding to take him away for 10 minutes to feed him his real lunch. Yes, it only takes 5-10 minutes to feed these kids as they have got it down to a science…no messing around or playing with food here!

When he came back, we could tell he was not feeling well. He seems to have a bit of a cold as his nose was runny and his head and back were really warm. Another couple, Lisa and David, also joined us in the room with 18 month old Patrick that they are adopting. Their son was sick as well, so guess something is just going around.

We did have a really good visit with Mian…he was so excited when we found all of the musical instruments he played with before. He also enjoyed the books that make noise that we had the first time. He seems to be responding with a “yes” by nodding his head when we ask him if he likes something (which he had not really done the first time). Mian was also a little cuddler today since he was not feeling too hot.

Tomorrow, we will leave around 7:30 AM to go to court. It will last about 20-30 minutes and we will then be granted custody of Mian! There is a 10 day waiting period, so we won’t get to bring him home this time. We will; however, get to take him out tomorrow in the car to get his passport photo. This will be the first time he will ever remember being in a car, so it should be an experience.

Well, I better run for now. We are about to have dinner with The Relf Family! Jeff works for Accenture and he and his family have been kind enough to let us stay with them this visit (even though he is back in the U.S. for training). It is really nice to not be in a hotel, in more of a home environment, and see how the expats live here! I’ll post more tomorrow after our court date!

P.S. We are having video upload problems, so we'll test posting again tomorrow night.