First Trip, Fourth Visit

Today was our last day with Artem and it was one step back, one step forward. We were able to see him after his nap, but instead of his normal three hour nap, he only slept one hour. Artem definitely was feeling worse today with his chest cold. The caregiver told us the flu is going through his room and over half the children have had it so we are sure Artem is next to get sick. Today he was pulling at his right ear when he would cry and he didn’t want to play with any toys. Nothing really made him happy except being in my arms. I tried to switch my seating position a few times and he started crying when it made him feel like I was putting him down. The majority of our time was spent with me holding Artem and rocking him in my arms. Eventually he put his head on my shoulder and just melted into me. Randy and I have decided that Artem will not be a child that needs to be entertained when we bring him home. He will need lots of snuggle time and soothing and will probably be joined to my hip. This is all fine by me since this little guy has never had anyone rock him to sleep and sing lullaby’s in his ear.

Artem let Randy get close to him today and he would touch Randy’s hand while Randy was holding a book for him to look at. He enjoyed Randy feeding him the Gerber puffs but still cried when he thought I was putting him down. Eventually it was time for us to go see where he slept and ate. I had to put my shoes on so I passed Artem to Randy. Bring on the tears! He cried and held himself as far away from Randy as he could get, but within 30 seconds he calmed down and the tears and drama stopped. Success! Randy carried him into his sleeping/play room without a peep but as soon as Randy tried to put him down he started to cry again and grabbed on to Randy. Finally, he wasn’t trying to get away from Randy, but he was clinging to Randy. We saw where Artem sleeps and the table where he sits in a regular chair and eats his meals. He has a little locker where they keep his clothes and boots when he goes outside. We saw the other children that live in his room and a few of his caregivers. The medical doctor and Artem’s caregiver felt his head and must have agreed he was feverish and getting sick because the caregiver took him from Randy to put him to bed and that was that. Our time was up and we left the room. Before she took him away I got in a few kisses and told him “Yellow blue vus” which is “I love you” in Russian. I started crying so I turned and looked at Randy and he got me out of there. It’s hard to think about the wait we have ahead of us until we can get Artem home with us but we are lucky to be in a region that moves very quickly and our court date should not be far away.

Before we saw Artem today we did some sightseeing. We saw Red Square, the Kremlin, St. Basil’s Cathedral, Lenin in his tomb, Stalin’s grave, and the Russian version of the Eternal Flame. We were lucky to see the changing of the guards at the flame as it was impressive to see the pomp and circumstance that goes into it.

Tomorrow around noon we are going to have our medical examines at the clinic. We’ve heard several versions of how the exam will be so it will be nice to get it over with and hopefully it will be easy and uneventful. Tomorrow night is our last night here so several of the families are getting together at TGIFridays. We’ve been there several times and we did try to eat at another restaurant the other night but when we told them we were a party of six they said, “Nyet” and wouldn’t let us in. Saturday we leave at 1:00 pm along with several other families with our agency. We are eager to get home and get the clock started towards our court date and get Artem home with us.