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.

Let's Get This Started

Court is only a week away and we are thanking God over and over that we were able to get such a quick court date. We were told while we were in Moscow on trip one that court wouldn't be until mid to late September. One of the great things about the Moscow Region is the relatively fast turn around between trip one and trip two. I was so upset to know we had to leave Andrik in the terrible heat wave that Moscow was experiencing and then for the situation to be made worse by all the forest fires that covered the city for days with smoke. I prayed every night for a fast court date and every so many days I was told by our agency not to expect anything to happen until mid September at the earliest. But I still prayed, "Please Lord, please give us a quick court date so we can get Andrik home." And again I was told, "no court until the second half of September" and then I got an email two days later, "You have a court date...September 6th" and I just smiled and said, "Thank you God."

We have three days until we board a 6:35 a.m. flight (what was I thinking?) to Moscow! Artem and I are flying out on Tuesday and will arrive in Moscow on Wednesday to meet Randy. We are hoping to go to the orphanage on Thursday and see Andrik. I am so excited to see him again I'm like a giddy little schoolgirl.

We have court on Monday and found out we have the same judge that we had for Artem's adoption. We had already planned on bringing Artem with us to court and have him wait in the lobby with our translator and now we are even more excited to bring him and show the judge what a wonderful little boy he has become. I bought him a white dress shirt, a tie, and some brown dress shoes to wear with a pair of khakis. I can barely handle seeing such a big boy outfit layed out on his bed; I'm not sure how I'm going to breath when I see him dressed in it.

Speaking of clothes for the trip, I have one more entry for my "You Know You Are In the Middle of An International Adoption When..." You know you are in the middle of an international adoption when...you pause for a moment of silence before putting your suitcase on the bathroom scale, praying to the suitcase gods that if this bag can make it under the weight limit, you promise to never over stuff a suitcase again as long as you shall live, amen.

After court, we'll have our mandatory ten business day wait until we can get Andrik from the baby home and the three of us are taking an easy five hour flight to Abu Dhabi and wait out our time there. Randy can continue to work without using extra vacation days and it's on the same time zone as Moscow so it will easier on Artem to travel. After that time is up, we'll head back to Moscow and get Andrik on September 17th, spend a week in Moscow processing his visa and passport, take him to the doctor for his Embassy medical, and then finally do our exit interview at the US Embassy before being given our walking papers. We fly home to Texas as a family of four on the 25th of September. Whew!

A Word From Bella

To Andrik,

My blonde hair, blue eyed brother-from-another-mother, I would like to ask you for a favor. Please do everything in your power to get home quickly. I need someone else here to entertain Artem and get me out of our daily bonding sessions.



I'm not saying I don't enjoy an afternoon tea party or a rousing game of Red Light Green Light, but my recent medical exam was more than one dog should have to endure.

Sure, he loves me...


Loves me more than necessary at times...

But the tea parties have to stop and with you here, I'd be left alone to find a quiet spot in the house to dream my doggy dreams.

Macaroni and cheese again? Please Andrik, hurry home!

Wait a minute...is that peanut butter?

Focus!!

So Andrik, as I was saying, Artem needs a playmate...and FAST!

Because I can't get him to understand that no matter how many times he forces my leg to kick the ball,

I'm never going to be the soccer pro he hopes I'll be.

Hurry Andrik, I can't sit through another afternoon tea. Hurry home and let me return to afternoon's of sunning myself in the backyard. You are better suited for this line of work than I am.

Love,

Bella

Court Date!

Just a quick note to let you know that we have a court date and it's much sooner than we expected. We have to be in Moscow by September 1st so we can get our 8 Doctor Medical completed and see Andrik a few more times before court on Monday September 6th!! Which means we should be able to get Andrik on the 17th.