Settling In

We are finally home and getting settled in to our new normal around here. After all the problems Artem and I had with our initial flight to Moscow a month ago, I thought lightning wouldn't strike twice and we'd all have an easy flight home, but oh how wrong I was.


Our aircraft from Moscow to Atlanta had mechanical problems and we sat for almost 4 hours in our seats while the mechanics frantically worked to fix the problem. The four hour delay caused us to miss our connecting flight into our home town, which was the last flight in for the night, and Delta had to put us in a hotel for the night. It was a quaint little place in a business park that probably holds a two star rating at the most. It wasn't a complete dive but I shudder to think of how many women have made a living on the place I had to lay my head for the night.

Our first order of business upon returning was to get Andrik a haircut. The boy is a head sweater and he needed to get his hair cut much shorter to handle this Texas heat. He also has a rather large bald spot on the top of his head where no hair grows and we had to figure out a way to cover it and hopefully after getting some good nutrition and vitamins in his system, we can get the hair to start growing again.

Much better!!

As far as how things are going with settling in...we'll just say it's a work in progress. Andrik and Artem could not be more different and it's been a challenge getting Andrik settled into our family. The novelty of a little brother has worn off for Artem and the reality is setting in that the new guy gets into Artem's toys, takes time away from mom and dad, and cries a lot which drives Artem crazy. We haven't heard a lot of laughter yet from the boys, mostly we hear Artem screaming, "NYET, NYET!!" and Andrik crying.

And speaking of crying, Andrik cannot handle the word "nyet". He comes unglued if you tell him not to do something and throws himself on the floor, beats his fists on the ground, kicks, and bangs his head on the floor. It's quite a production. He has screamed and cried so much since picking him up from the baby home that he is now hoarse and lets out a little squeak when talking. Ask him to leave the pooper scooper alone, he starts crying. Tell him he's not allowed to pull the nightlights out of the electric sockets, he starts crying. Show him that construction trucks go on the floor and not our coffee table, he starts crying. You get the picture.

Getting into his big brother's train pieces....

Randy and I are really making an effort to let Artem do some special big boy things since he's having to give up so much of his time with us and so many of his toys with Andrik. The night before we left Moscow we put Andrik to bed and let Artem stay up and have hot cocoa and cookies with us. This morning the three of us got up early and we let Artem make the waffles. He LOVES to cook so he was in hog heaven making breakfast.

Andrik is our picky eater and meal times are proving to be a battle ground. When we brought Artem home, he would have eaten the silver coating off the fork if we'd have let him, he loved every kind of food we gave him. Andrik has turned up his nose to several foods, hit us during mealtime, pushes his bowl away and refuses to eat what we serve him. He loves all the breakfast foods we have given him but lunch and dinner are hard. He has access to snack cups of Cheerios at all times so he can see that food is always available but last night we finally had to start removing him from the table every time he tried to smack the food out of my hand that I was feeding him. He was removed four times and placed on the floor next to us screaming his lungs out and once he calmed down we let him back up to the table and tried to feed him again. After the fourth removal, he ate his entire meal. Tonight looked like it was going to be a repeat of last night with him shoving his bowl away but after being removed once, he decided to eat his whole meal even giving us a "yum" a few times. Hopefully he's figuring it out now.

Sleep is a much better subject. He's not a very happy child when he wakes up where Artem bounds out of bed happy from the minute he wakes up, but Andrik is a great sleeper like Artem and sleeps soundly through the whole night. We've started our bedtime routine with him, bath, book, rocking and bed and he's doing great with the routine. Artem HATED bath time in the beginning but Andrik is in heaven in the bathtub. He's so happy to splash and play with the toys and never fights me when I lean him back to wash his hair. He watched Artem get his teeth brushed the first night we had him and after that as soon as I take out the toothbrush he'll open his mouth and say, "ahhhh" as I'm putting the toothpaste on the brush getting it ready. He's so good with brushing his teeth and it's cute to hear him say, "ahhh" the entire time I brush his teeth.

After bath he is loving when we put lotion on him. I massage his legs and arms with lotion and he goes limp and is so relaxed when I'm massaging him. It's sad to think that this is probably the first time he's enjoyed a lotion massage on his little legs and arms. Such an easy treat but not when a caregiver has so many children to look after.

We get him dressed for bed and then read a book to him and spend some time rocking him and singing to him. He crawls right on to our shoulder and snuggles in. Artem used to fight me on holding him close and would keep his hands fisted up between me and him but after a couple rounds of "Twinkle Twinkle" Andrik is totally relaxed on my shoulder and by the time I stand up to put him in bed, he's arms are completely limp and hanging by his sides. He doesn't resist the bonding the way Artem did. Also, as a sidenote, when we brought Artem home and would carry him around, he never held back. It was like holding a sack of potatoes and it took a good six months before Artem would hold on to me when being carried. I can still remember the aisle in the Walmart parking lot where Artem finally held on to me when I carried him; it took so long. Andrik has no problem holding on to us when we carry him, he's also a lot lighter than Artem which is always helpful, but he's so much easier to carry around.

Tomorrow morning we are going to take Andrik shoe shopping. The foot measurement the baby home gave us was not accurate and he doesn't have any summer shoes that fit. When we were in Moscow, I just put thick socks on him and tied his shoes tight to keep them on his feet but it's too hot here for socks and shoes so he needs some sandals that don't look like clown shoes on his feet. He loves wearing Artem's Crocs which are wayyy too big for him so it looks like a pair of Crocs are in his future tomorrow. Speaking of shoes, I am amazed to watch Andrik put on his own socks and shoes, and on the right feet, by himself and he's not even two. When we get in the house, he goes to his room, takes off his shoes and stands by the closet doors signing, "Please" while he waits for me to open the door so he can put his shoes away. The baby home trained him well.

Tomorrow night is Artem's first kickball practice and I can't wait to see a group of three and four year olds learn to kick the ball and run the bases. It's sure to provide some much needed comic relief.

Headed Home!

We got the green light late Wednesday afternoon to return to the states so we are leaving this morning (Thursday) for Texas!! See you in a few days with our newest US Citizen.

Day Five

Today's post is entitled, "You Be the Judge"...

You be the judge...messing with your children while they are napping because you are bored out of your mind is, A) completely inappropriate, or B) fair payback for the times he embarrassed you at the grocery store.

You be the judge...washing a family of four's dirty laundry in the hotel bathtub is A) bloody genius and makes good economic sense, or B) borderline redneck.


You be the judge...Watching Artem "shave" is A) totally 100% adorable or B) too grown up for his mama to handle.

You be the judge...watching an older brother read a bedtime story to his younger brother is A) enough to send my mush-o-meter into the red zone and explode my heart with happiness or B) well there really isn't anything else; A wins!

And finally, we really need your help on this one because it's a hot topic in our household hotelhold at the moment...

You be the judge...dressing your boys in cute matching or coordinating outfits while they are little is A) totally adorable and Susan should milk it for as long as she can, or B) too girly for their father to handle.

Day Three

The weather was really nice today so Randy and I decided I told Randy I wanted to head to the Red Square for the traditional St. Basil picture and he wholeheartedly agreed my idea was perfect. It's an easy walk to Red Square from our hotel and once at the Kremlin we let the boys walk around picking up acorns and leaves before making our way to St. Basil.

From there, the madness ensued.

First of all, we were being stalked by Japanese paparazi. Two women would not leave us alone and kept taking pictures of Artem and Andrik, calling for them and getting in my shot when I was trying to get my family staged for a picture. Artem wouldn't even look my way, he just kept posing for the Japanese women saying, "Cheese!" and I was yelling at my three boys trying to get them to look at me. I finally gave up and started taking pictures of the women taking pictures of my family. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Look how proud Artem is to pose for the women. Mama who??

After the women finally left we decided to give the boys a chance to stand for a picture. We told Artem he was going to have to help us keep Andrik close and get him to stand next to him by holding his hand. I'll let you decide how well that worked out...

This big brother stuff is much harder than Artem expected. Sometimes it's like herding cats little buddy!

We were invited to our translator/driver's house for supper this afternoon. What a special treat for our family. Pasha was our translator/driver for Artem's adoption and we stayed in touch with him over the past two years and he worked with us again for Andrik's adoption. Masha his wife, went with us when we met our first referral back in July to give us her input on the different medical conditions we might see in a child's file and has been a good friend to our family as well. Pasha made a big pot of borscht and different traditional Russian foods and we had a great time visiting with them. I really liked the borscht and had avoided it in the past because of the beets, but Pasha's version was really good and he topped it with cilantro and sour cream. Yum!! After dinner we had homemade apple pie compliments of Masha; a little Russian and a little American at the meal, and finished everything with some black tea with herbs.

After dinner we all went outside to let the kids run some energy off and Randy, Artem, Pasha, and his son Nikita challenged each other to a game of soccer.


Andrik played a little soccer as well...

But most of the time he walked around cheering for the others and looking cute.

Well except for this, this isn't really cute but I'm not quite sure what my son is doing and I was the one taking the pictures.

But this is definitely cute,

And so is this, so I guess we'll just let the other picture slide.

Tomorrow Dr. Boris comes to our hotel room at 8:00 a.m. for Andrik's Embassy medical exam. I'm sure we'll get the same spiel he gave us last time and say the same thing he says to all the parents, "Don't baby them", "He's so handsome he's going to be a movie star", "He's going to have so many girlfriends"... Anyone want to place a bet?? After that I think we are headed to Old Arbat street for one last souvenir that I had to special order and then we are free until Wednesday when we have our Embassy interview. It sounds like we might be finished up by Thursday and if that's the case, I am thinking of calling Delta to see if we can get out a day early.

As always, I'll keep you posted. Dasvidanya!

Day Two

We are settling in today as a foursome and things are going well so far, touch wood. We moved out of our scuzzy apartment and returned to the Marriott where we stayed for our first trip and for court. Any place that has a chicken talking on a cell phone as the kitchen decor is not the kind of place I want to spend a week.

Now that we are settled into our new digs we are trying to get into a routine and get the boys on the schedule that we keep at home. We ate at the hotel diner tonight which has some of the best food around and then explored the hotel playroom. They have it surprisingly well stocked with blocks, kitchen toys, a table and chairs, a chalkboard, and other toys for the children to use. We were having a really good time until someone went and spoiled the party with a stink bomb in his diaper. He shall remain nameless but he can build a pretty good block tower...ahem...

The boys are adjusting to each other as well as can be expected. We know it's hard for Artem to one day be the center of attention and the next day there is an almost two year old competing for our attention and making off with his toys. But for the most part, the boys are getting along well and Andrik spends a good portion of his day copying everything Artem does, good or bad.

I'm saving this one for one day when they are fighting like cats and dogs.

Up until today, Andrik has not cried when he got hurt. He cries and SCREAMS when he doesn't get something he wants but you don't see him react to pain like a normal child should. Tonight that changed when he shut his fingers in the dresser drawer. He cried and cried over it and Randy immediately picked him up and held him, patting his back, and rocking him. For the next half hour when Andrik was playing he would stop and walk up to one of us holding his fingers out with a pouty look on his face and want one of us to kiss his fingers and rub them.

But no amount of finger pain could stop the dog pile the boys did to Randy tonight. It was so good to hear Andrik belly laugh and have fun wrestling with his dad like children should do. This might become my favorite picture.

Tomorrow we have been invited to our translator/driver's house for dinner with his family. We still aren't sure yet when we start our adoption meetings. We need to get the Embassy Medical completed for Andrik but Dr. Boris is out hunting this weekend and said he'd call our translator when he returns this week to set up our appointment. We also have our US Embassy Interview but that's not until later in the week, maybe Thursday. So until then we'll just continue to hang out and maybe if the weather permits, we'll head to Red Square to take the traditional St. Basil's family photo. Until tomorrow, dasvidanya!

We Got Him!!

I don't even know where to begin except to say, "We got him!!" It is so awesome to be a family of four! On the drive home Artem asked, "Do we get to keep him mama?" and when I told him that we do get to keep him, he hugged me and said, "Oh thank you mama, thank you, thank you for my baby brother."

The director (flowered jacket) and the doctor are such nice women and made this day so special for us. We really felt loved at Andrik's baby home, which I hope to explain more about another day, and they had tears in their eyes as they saw us leave the home with Andrik and asked for us to send updates on how he's doing. They gave us his baptismal gown and certificate and we gave them some seeds for Texas Bluebonnets and told them to sprinkle the seeds on the grounds of the baby home and when they see the flowers bloom each Spring to think of our family and the sweet boy they loved for over a year. The ladies already have a spot picked on the grounds for the flowers.

And in keeping with his older brother's trend, Andrik gave us one heck of a car-sickness-projectile-vomiting show on the ride home. We are 0 and 2 on the barf meter for Gotcha Days. I didn't get a lot of pictures of the boys together in their cute little outfits and thought I could get a few when we arrived home, but Andrik had other plans for his clothes.

Notice the bruise on Andrik's forehead? That would be compliments of his brother Artem from our visits before court. The boys were running and Artem accidently knocked him in the asphalt face first. We don't even have him out of the baby home and he's bruised up from his brother.

The caregivers have been working with Andrik using his picture book to show him our pictures and Andrik was already calling Randy "papa", along with all of the other kids in Andrik's groupa. As soon as we walked into Andrik's room the kids ran up to Randy saying, "Papa, papa!" Andrik can also find Bella's picture in the book and says, "woof woof" when he sees the picture. It's really cute.

After we arrived home, we put Andrik into the shower with Randy and de-barfed him and then got dressed for dinner. We ate at TGIFriday's where Andrik dined on a grilled cheese sandwich and Cheerios. He didn't like french fries, steak, cheese potatoes, or green beans. Looks like we have a picky eater since Artem gobbled up anything we put in front of him.

Andrik is dressed for dinner with one fine looking comb over. Andrik has VERY thin hair with a bald spot on the top of his head, but what hair he has is really long and just kind of hangs everywhere and is in the beginning stages of a mullet. I already have a hair appointment made for him two days after we get home from Russia.

We are checking out of this apartment tomorrow at 2:00. It is the world's scuzziest apartment and there is no way I can do a week in this place. We stayed in three different apartments when we did Artem's adoption and they were fine but this place is an absolute dump and I can't get back to the Marriott fast enough.

The boys have done really well together and bedtime was pretty painless. We have two little cuties asleep in the room in their pirate jammies and after I hit "publish" I'm going to retreat as well, except I won't be wearing pirate jammies.

I'll leave you with some pictures from previous visits. Thank you for all the prayers and good thoughts, I told Randy tonight that it's only been a few hours that Andrik's been with us and I've already forgotten about all the waiting we did for him; it's all a distant memory now.

Past Pictures:

The first time the boys met and all Artem had to say was, "He's so little", and immediately headed for the playground.

The boys quickly found some common ground; collecting pinecones.

We were so excited to see Andrik dressed in boy clothes compared to the pink tights Artem was wearing when we met him.

Andrik was very resistant to me holding him in the beginning and only wanted to be with Randy. This picture is sure to be a timeless momento from our trip.

But by the 3rd day he came around and didn't mind me holding him. Now that we have him with us, I've been using the sling and carrying him everywhere we go.

Our first picture as a family of four a few days before court.

Ah, there we go, finally some girl clothes on our son. The Russian's didn't let us down. It's a shame you can't see his pink flower socks in this picture.

Fun on a scooter.

Look at that smile. We look forward to a lifetime of these in the years to come.

Ten Days and Counting

It was a successful morning for us in a Moscow Region courtroom. After fifty minutes before the judge and prosecutor, we were read the court's decision on our petition to adopt Andrik, and it was the words we were hoping to hear; "The petition is granted." The hearing was even easier than the first time since we knew what to expect and the questions from the judge weren't anything difficult or unexpected.

We were allowed to have Artem in the courtroom with us during the hearing and his behavior was excellent! He sat quietly as still as a three year old can sit during a boring court proceeding in a foreign language, but afterwards the prosecutor, our translator, and the baby home social worker kept telling us over and over how they could not believe how well behaved he was. Our translator told us that Russian children would "never behave so well" and that children are "practically forbidden" during the hearing. We were very proud of him. He sat on a bench behind us and at one point during the trial I could see the prosecutor looking at him smiling and laughing and I turned around to see him only to discover he had untucked his shirt and completely unzipped his tie. Despite that and a few announcements that he had just drawn a dog for us in his writing tablet, we couldn't have asked for better behavior.

Now we begin our ten day wait and anticipate getting Andrik from the baby home late in the afternoon on Friday the 17th.

Arrival & Eight Doctor Medical

Artem and I are finally in Moscow after a very difficult trip over. We started on Tuesday morning at 5:00 a.m. and made it from our town to Atlanta to JFK without a problem. But once we boarded the plane at JFK and pushed back from the gate, the aircraft had maintenance problems and it all went to hell in a hand basket after that. From sitting on the taxiway for three hours while maintenance tried to fix the problem, to finally calling the flight cancelled at 11:00 in the evening because the crew would be past their work visa permits to enter Russia, to trying to get a hotel room in Brooklyn at 12:40 at night, to finally trying to get out the next day at 3:00 pm only to have a tug run into the airplane and damage it; it was a challenging time in New York. Thankfully Artem was a trooper and only had one meltdown but I couldn't have asked for better behavior from him.

After we made it into Moscow we ran to the hotel, had 30 minutes for a quick shower and headed out to the baby home to see Andrik. He didn't remember us at all and didn't want to leave his group and caregivers to spend time with us. I offered him toys but he threw them to the ground and turned his head away from me. Artem was only slightly impressed with seeing his new brother with his initial response being, "he's so little" and instead wanted to play on the playground equipment. It wasn't exactly the Hallmark Movie moment we were going for. Fortunately we get to go back to the baby home tomorrow to visit with Andrik again and hopefully he's a little more interested in us but me in particular. Unlike with Artem's adoption when Artem wanted nothing to do with Randy and would cry if Randy went near him, Andrik wants nothing to do with me and only wants to be near Randy. We have some beautiful family photos of me with the boys, Artem hugging me and smiling to the camera and Andrik screaming his head off. They are lovely and I can't wait to share them with you. Of course the pictures of Randy and the boys turned out great and Andrik is happy to be in his arms. Andrik is going to be a tough cookie to crack and is much more attached to his group than Artem was. Great news for us on the attachment front, but I think he's going to have some problems the first few days separating from his caregivers.

We had our Eight Doctor medical today. It was a piece of cake and Lauren, if you are reading this, I didn't have to take my bra off. :-)~ We didn't think we were allowed to take Artem with us and arranged for a babysitter to come to the hotel to watch him but when we arrived at the doctor's office the manager of the medical process told us that if he was here with us they would have given us a private room so he could remain with us. She smiled and said when we return for a third child, we can get a private room. The doctors were very nice and the hospital was EXTREMELY clean and I had no hesitation about doing my blood work there.

Tomorrow we are going to see Andrik again and then head to the market to do our souvenir shopping. Sunday we are spending the day at the park with our translator Pasha and his family and on Monday we have court at 10:30 am. We were planning on having Artem sit outside the courtroom door in the lobby with Pasha while we are in the hearing since they typically only last for 45 minutes but we were told today that Artem would be allowed in the courtroom with us if we want him in there. We have the same judge that we had for Artem's adoption and if she allows it, we'll bring Artem into the hearing with us. Artem already tells us about seeing the judge to ask her if Andrik can be in our family so we know he understands the process and we think it will be neat for him to be a part of the day.

I'll let you know how it goes on Monday. Hopefully we'll have good news after out hearing.