Day 5 with Jakob

Hello Again,

The Turpin family is back with another blog update. We had a pretty fun day today, so we wanted to share.

Jakob got a bit better last night going to bed. I was cuddling him a bit, he was fighting it, and then I just let him do his own thing (which is what he has been used to). It seemed to work and we were down to 1 hour 30 min! Slowly but surely making progress.

Today we ate breakfast and then played in the lounge area for a bit. A guy from Austria was in there and was saying his son has the same "Winnie the Pooh" book that makes different noises. I then started explaining to him that we have had that book since day 1 with Jakob and it was what made him come to us for the first time at the orphanage. The guy was SHOCKED that Jakob was not our biological son. He thought for sure the way he was dressed that he was American (oopps...guess I should have kept him in stockings...not). He also thought he looked just like me (which I've received about 1 million times since we've been here). It is so amazing the number of people we have crossed paths with here in the hotel from around the world who are seeing this beautiful story with all 4 families here...and of course, via our blog as all of you read and watch. I can't wait to share it with Jakob one day.

Ok, so enough Oprah story.

After breakfast, we got Jakob dressed in his snow gear and both took him over to the park. It was great to have Wayne there this time as he was able to get him up on the slide while I was at the other end, we played on the see-saw, etc. He absolutely loved it (both Wayne and Jakob that is...)! Jakob wanted to take his gloves off so we let him as he wanted to touch the snow. Once he realized it was cold he was like, "Ok, you were right, I need those gloves back." It was also very cute to see him try to catch snowflakes in his mouth (I swear...that kid will eat ANYTHING) without us even showing him that. After an hour or so, we headed back to the hotel. We then decided to do an earlyish lunch since we would have to leave to go to the embassy around 1:30. We ate at the German restaurant (as usual, not many choices). He is ok once the food arrives, but a typical fussy kid throwing things up until that time.

After lunch, we tried to put him down for a nap. It only ended up being a quick 20 min. power nap after his fussing, but he seemed to be ok.

Once at the embassy, we had to go through about 3 security checkpoints. The first asked you to leave all cellphones, cameras, cords, etc. with them. So, we emptied what we thought we had. Then we had to go through another checkpoint 1 at a time (except the kid could go with 1 parent). I took Jakob through and they found my cellphone...which I forgot I had since it has been off this whole time. They gave me a long lecture, wanted me to go back and then to the end of the line, but I just quickly opened the door, gave it to Wayne, and kept going through. Wayne then came through with the diaper bag and they got upset because he had Jakob's Fisher Price cellphone! We just rolled our eyes and laughed! I could not believe it. A little harmless toy. So, they made us leave it behind to pick up at the end. When we got to the next checkpoint, they asked us to had them a ticket....what ticket? The ticket we were supposed to pull...pull where? Then the race was on..."The Amazing Race: Russian Adoption Edition." All 4 families were in on it and we were also racing around looking for tickets, going to windows, hoping our turn was next, etc. It was so funny! All of the other couples and kids thought we were nuts! Hey, it just made the time go by faster.