The people that got us through

Day 4 of the journey to the motherland finds us still alive. I guess that is a good thing since we haven’t even had our court hearing yet. We were treated by a delicious breakfast at Kathou & Paypay’s. We were able to raid the last remaining items from Cathy & Nick’s fridge before they left this morning. I scored some cereal, milk for CS, and a big bottle of hand sanitizer. Obviously not in the fridge.

We spent the time between breakfast and leaving for the orphanage doing a little exploring. We found the Irish Pub that Suzanne had mentioned and hunted for the children’s store. We didn’t have any luck finding that. It is mentally exhausting trying to find things when you can’t read a single thing. I am like a 1st grader trying to sound out words. Aaaaaahhhhvvvv-tttoooo-mmmmoooo-bbbbeeeeeellllll.

We departed for the orphanage at a little after 3 pm. Kathou & Paypay were nice enough to cut their visit short so we might get a glimpse of snack time. Much to our dismay we missed it. When we did arrive our boy was wearing the infamous “1st photo” shirt. We had a good chuckle over “OK Booby.” Remind me to tell the rest of you about Pickle’s Booby shirt later.

The caregivers dressed Pickle in the clothes we had left for him in April. (they did this yesterday too) So for any wanting to shop for him he is still fitting into a 12 mo size. Go a little larger.

They brought him out and he took one look at us and pitched a fit. This was the first time he had ever really cried around us, except yesterday’s escapade upon leaving. We took him to the visiting closet and tried our best to console him. Cranky-pants was having none of that. Lucky for us I brought the mommy secret weapon! BUBBLES!!!!! Magical little spheres that float in the air and disappear when you touch them. He was hooked. This was today’s favorite toy.

I also brought a few books with us this afternoon. I showed him Goodnight Moon but he was only interested in the colored pages. I then broke out the first words book that I had so neatly translated into Russian. Of course I put the translations onto sticky notes on each page. Sticky notes + 2 year old = Mommy no longer knowing the Russian translations. So car is machina, but train is just train. Boy is Malcheek, but girl is girl.

He is finally starting to talk. He looked at a photo on the back of the digital camera and made the p – p sound. He was looking at a photo of Papa (daddy). Then seeing a photo of himself he said, “Pickle.” Of course it came out sounding much like his actual name since we don’t really call him Pickle directly.

He helped clean up and he taught us a word in Russian. Na. It means, here you go. Naturally Lena had to translate that one for us. Today was a fantastic visit! Lots of smiles, laughing, running and crawling on mommy. We did have a slight sacrifice of a purple crayon, but it is salvageable.

Sorry for the long post, but there was lots to fill you in on. I’ll let you all know how life in Russia is treating us tomorrow. We don’t have an orphanage visit so we are headed into downtown for some shopping with Kathou & Paypay. Monday is court at 11:30 am. This is 5:30 pm Sunday Pacific time. Please pray for us. Especially me. We found out this judge asks all the question to the women.

Das Veedanya!