Feb 25 - Jakob's Arrival

Hi everyone,

I'm sitting here in the dark doing this post, so hoping little Jakob will stay fast asleep so I can tell you how our day went.

We had a WONDERFUL day picking up Jakob...we could not have asked for more!

When we went to the orphange, we went to his room and he recognized us and gave us a big smile. The other bigger kid in his room yelled out, "Mama, Papa" as he always does...poor thing...I felt like taking him too!

We worked with the caregiver to get him changed into the clothes we brought for him. She seemed a bit surprised that we did not have stockings for him (sorry, but not in fashion). We took a photo of her and Jakob together (btw - she didn't seem to be calling him Jakob, so not sure they were able to keep that request going). She seemed happy, but sad to see him go. Since it was a public holiday today (Man Day), there were not a lot of people in the orphanage, so his other caregiver was not there. We got him all rugged up and then went back in the hallway where David and Lisa had Patrick and there were a lot of other caregivers there waiting. We all said our goodbyes and headed off.

Jakob seemed a bit better in the car today. He was in a car seat that the driver had and cried a bit initially until the NutriGrain bar came out and then he ripped it out of my hand! He seemed to look around a bit and seemed ok.

Once in the hotel, he was so excited to look around. We've figured out he is a crowd pleaser....loves to go up to people and look shy and show his little dimples. (Family in Houston - I might have been wrong about individual visits...he seems to love bigger crowds, so we'll play that one by ear...).

We went to the room, showed him some toys, played, and then headed down with others for lunch. Our $80 lunch consisted of goulash (which he pretty much ate on his own), mashed potatoes, saurkraut and sausages. Finding a green veggie in this place can be difficult. He loved eating at the restaurant with us, Lisa, David and Patrick.

We then took him up to the room for a nap. I managed to get him to sleep in about 30 min. by singing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" about 40 times. I ended up sleeping on the roll away with him which he seemed to like. The agency said not to worry about developing bad habits here as the main thing is for him to know that we are always here and not going to leave him. We all slept for about 3 hours (typical for him). I kept waking up to make sure he was breathing as he likes to sleep on his knees with his face buried in the bed. We woke up, had a snack, and went out in the common area on the club level and he had some more snacks, milk, etc. He LOVED going up to everyone at each table. When everyone found out this was the first day we had him, they were shocked....everyone said he looked so comfortable and happy with us (whew, what a blessing)! Lisa, David, and Patrick also joined us and we enjoyed playing chase with him and he even got in the stroller and let Wayne push him around (although Wayne was not allowed to stop).

We then just went back to our room, ordered room service, gave him a bath, fed him, and put him to bed. This time...it took 2 hours to get him to sleep! Welcome to parenthood, eh?

A few funny things...

1. He is obsessed with looking at his legs. I think because they have stockings on him all the time, he does not see them. He kept pulling up his pants to look at them and kept pointing to show us.

2. Steph - love the navy monkey baby gap pjs that you gave us that Ben had, but he was so excited to have animals on this clothes that he kept getting up when we were trying to put him to bed and wanted to show us all the monkeys on his pjs. I think we'll be going with more neutral ones tomorrow night.

3. He will be picking up English very fast we think. He is already starting to repeat words in English and has started to convert to "Dad" instead of "Papa" quite well. Now, if i could just remember to call him Jakob and not Mian!

4. He only likes to drink out of clear cups/glasses. If they are tinted in anyway, he won't drink out of them. He is also struggling a little bit with a sippy cup, as most of them do, since they have not really been taught to use them. We'll keep working on that.

Tomorrow we will be going to apply for his Russian passport as well as taking him to get a required medical in order for him to enter the U.S. We did manage to weigh him tonight and he seems to be about 22 pounds...we'll see if that matches what they tell us tomorrow....he is so tiny! We had to switch the pants we had on him as the jeans would just slide right down him...he looked like a rapper!

We are so very blessed to have had such a wonderful day today with him. We realize everyday might not be like this, but you can already tell that he feels so happy and loved being with us...and we feel the same about what he gives to us. He makes my heart just melt...he is so cute, I just want to eat him up (think he will taste better if he is a bit fatter, though).

I will post more tomorrow!

Thanks everyone for your prayers during this process...it paid off today!