Food Discoveries

I had no idea it would be so difficult to blog during these first few weeks home! Along with discovering what it's like to be in a family and the English language, our daughter is also discovering our food. We are also learning a lot in regards to food as we go along this journey with her.

Many people and everything I read had said to do my best to prepare food for her that she was familiar with. I kept my eye on what she was eating at the orphanage, got a menu of food she ate while there and observed Russian foods that were served in the hotel & restaurants. I was prepared for basic--very brothy--soups, tomatoes, cucumbers, brown bread and tea. I wasn't exactly going to break out the Borche (is that spelled right?), but I would make an effort to make similar foods.

From the very get-go we ordered the above foods, but she wanted nothing to do with them. We found during our first week with her, while still in Russia, that we were wasting our money by ordering special food for her. We eventually resorted to giving her food off of our plate and if she was hungry she would eat it. I had also brought dried cereals like Cheerios and Kix and some Goldfish crackers for snacks. Pretty much between what she could scrounge at meals and the snacks in the hotel room she survived. However, once we arrived in Moscow and introduced yogurt to her at breakfast and picked up a banana at one of the fruit carts on the side of the road--we were on to something.

Here we are a few weeks later and I still have to say that yogurt and bananas are still at the heart of her diet. When we first got home and all she wanted all day long was yogurt, yogurt, yogurt I was wondering what we were going to do with this problem then I quickly realized what I dork I was to think it was a problem. I could have a child that wanted only junk food. Instead we have been blessed to discover her likes and dislikes as we go along. All of her choices are great! In fact when we've offered her a sip of soda, a bite of a chicken nugget or fry--she's not interested!

Here are some of the things that are a sure-fire hit with her. Yogurt, bananas, pears, hard-boiled eggs (she pounded 5 of those down at lunch today), flour tortillas, shredded beef, tomatoes, quesadillas, apricots, popcorn, chicken and some pastas. Now, of course, she'll take candy any day, but we've managed to hide that so it's not an issue! Again, I can't complain. She's choosing healthy things and when she turns up her nose at what we offer for a meal, she's generally pretty good at trying new things if we reward her with the foods she likes. That's how she discovered that she liked quesadillas! 3 of those went down the hatch that night.

Speaking of food, here are some pictures of our daughter collecting apricots from our tree in the backyard. She was so delighted to walk back and forth from the tree to the kitchen to deliver apricots to me 2 at a time. She even started at 6:30 am one morning because she was so excited about her ability to help and be a part of the family. It was even more motivating to her when she discovered that she could eat fresh fruit straight from the tree while she made her deliveries. Bet she never had that opportunity in the orphanage!

1 Samuel 1:27 "I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him."

Dancing at Church

Since our daughter has been home for a week, she has been doing so well, and it's our first functioning Sunday we thought we would try going to church and see what would happen. I'd love to tell you how wonderful it went, but it wasn't quite a victory.

My expectations for church today were low because I wasn't really sure what our daughter would think of everything, especially all of the people, but what caused her anxiety was not what I anticipated. Our plan was to drop off all of the older kids in their Sunday School classes and then take our new daughter with us to "big church." We figured we'd have her sit with us in the back of the sanctuary or maybe even in the hallway. Before we even got to the sanctuary she began to panic. Honestly, I'm not totally positive what "set her off", but I think she either thought we were putting all of her siblings in Groupas in some sort of American orphanage or she just plain did not know what to do without her siblings. We tried having someone who speaks Russian ask her what was wrong, but she wasn't talking--that's how foul she was.

We tried the route of taking our oldest daughter out of her Sunday School and keeping her with us also, but that didn't seem to give our new daughter any comfort. Frankly, our new daughter never really relaxed in this new situation. We stayed through the singing and a little bit in the hallway through the sermon, but I could quickly see that this concept of being without her siblings was not settling with her so I decided to head home early today. I have to take her to her first doctor appointment this upcoming week and don't plan on taking her siblings so she's going to eventually have to get used to the idea of going places independent of them. I figure that maybe next week for church I'll have our Russian speaking friend explain to her about what is going to happen (maybe that was our mistake of not talking her through it previous) and try to have her stay longer than this week. My thought is that if I continue to take her each week and stay just a bit longer each week that it will eventually work out.

Here we go again...the dance steps begin. One forward and one back.

1 Samuel 1:27 "I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him.

First Week Home

As I write, it has officially been 1 week with our daughter home. We have had an amazing week. It started off a little tough with the language difference, jet lag and all of the tasks to be done to recover from a month long foreign adventure, but we've ended well.

I'm not super great at remembering to take pictures, but I tried to capture a few of the highlights of the week. Although I do have to say that the biggest highlight of the week cannot be captured by picture. Many people have said that our daughter will catch on to English quickly, but I never imagined that she would already have some English under her belt. I have been amazed to witness how well she understands what is being said to her already. For example, she will put her hands up when asked to (like when I'm helping her get dressed). She understands that if she stays in her bed at nap I will keep the door open, but if she gets out of her bed, I will close the door. She will go get her shoes when I ask her to.

In the last 24 hours, it has gone beyond receptive language to her actually speaking some words/phrases in the appropriate context. She asks to "brush your teeth" at bedtime, knows how to tell her siblings, "Stop (insert name here)!", says "be careful" when caution is needed. We are shocked at it all!

This is what I call, "the two peanuts" playing together. My two youngest have their "moments", but for the most part enjoy playing together. My favorite moment was when I found them curled up together reading a book.

Bath time has become our daughter's favorite time of the day. I've taken to giving her a bath in the morning otherwise she will ride me all day long about taking a bath. Sometimes she even asks me later in the day about taking a bath even though she's already had one. I think she's hoping I've forgotten and will give her another one! The other kids think this is great and take turns bathing with her. Our youngest son who also loves bath time is "in heaven" at all of this tub time!
The two girls are having a fabulous time together. My oldest daughter has owned up the job of big sister more than I've ever seen her step up before. She has been such a great example and teacher to her sister and has totally humored me as I've used her to help "train" her sister as to what needs to be done. For example, when I needed to teach my youngest daughter that I wanted her to lay down in her bed and rest for a bit in the afternoon, my oldest daughter laid in her bed and showed her how it's done. It was so helpful! I don't know how people do this without other kids around to show the new child what to do!

Probably one of the sweetest memories for me of this week was during one of those nap times when I laid in my bed listening to the two girls down the hallway during nap. My oldest daughter,who has struggled with reading, was indeed reading "The Very Hungry Catepillar" to her new sister. I couldn't help but get sappy over that one!

1 Samuel 1:27 "I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him.

Last Pictures in Russia

The pictures on my camera go back further than I thought so here are some of our last pictures before we left Russia. I will do the next post with pictures of here at home. The above photo is of the group of Americans that were staying the hotel with us. One couple traveled with us from our agency and the other we met while there and was with the other agency in the area. In this picture, two of the couples have their child (including us), but the couple on the left received their child the next day. It was great to have the fellowship!


Here is Natasha doing her "grounding" routine. Every time we would come into the room, she would want me to sit on the closed toilet and she would sit in my lap and play in the sink. For whatever reason, it was very theraputic to her. In fact, I found that if she did not get the chance to do it, she had a harder time with transition.

1 Samuel 1:27 "I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him."

For the Love of the Internet

Well, I finally unpacked enough to find my camera cord, but then our internet went down for 2 days. It was pure torture! To be experiencing this awesome first week of our daughter in our home and I couldn't share it with anyone!

She is keeping us busy and certainly knows my name is "Mommy." Oops! She's calling me now so stay tuned until she's tucked into bed and I will update you on our week.

1 Samuel 1:27 "I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him."

Home

We are finally home. Well, we've actually been home since about 11:00 pm on Saturday. Boy, does it ever feel good to be home in the good ol' USA! I would love to post some photos for you of the past few days back and home, but I can't find the cord for the camera to do that. I'll have to get back to you with photos when I find it in the midst of all of the unpacking.

Here's a re-cap of the last few days. We had a seamless time in the airport, processing out of Russia, and on the flight home. It was 12.5 hours from Moscow to LA and our daughter did an awesome job on the plane. She fought the good fight against sleep until the last hour of our flight which would've made it about 2:30 am to her little body, but she did finally give in! It made our flight seem longer than we had hoped, but she really didn't give us much of a problem (yet she wasn't perfect), didn't cry and we were so glad to be able to get off the plane and not feel like everyone on the plane hated us. Whew! I do have to say though that the last hour was quite a relief! God certainly knew what He was doing because her sleepiness made her "out of it" as we went through passport control and immigration which made it easier since she didn't want to get down and run around in an inappropriate situation. My arms felt like they were going to fall off after an hour of holding her, but it was worth it to not have to chase her everywhere!

Once we finished up at LAX, we hopped into a rental car and made the 4 hour drive home. Again, our daughter slept--all the way home. It was kind of nice to turn off my brain for a bit. Of course, where do you think our first stop on the way home was? In-n-Out Burger! Once Nate's belly was full of his favorite meal the hardest part of the last leg our our journey was trying to keep him awake! At that point, we had not slept for the whole flight and it was getting to be over 24 hours without sleep, but we did manage to make it home.

We arrived home about 11:00 pm with my parents and Nate's parents there waiting. When we pulled up into the driveway of our house and got out, we pulled out our daughter's "Family Book" and showed her the picture of our house and then showed her how it matched the house we stood in front of. There seemed to be a light that came on because her eyes sparkled a smile broke out on her face.

Once inside, we introduced her to her Grandmas and Grandpas and showed her their matching pictures in her book and she seemed to know exactly who they were. It was so neat. It made the work I put into her "Family Book" totally worth it. After the grandparents, we woke up each of the kids one by one and introduced her to them. The kids were each so excited once they woke up and realized that we were finally home after 25 days and we had brought their sister with us. This was the sister they had prayed for over the last 2.5 years and she was no longer just a picture, but the real thing right in their home. It such a sweet moment in time! I hope I never forget it.

After a few hours of mid-night bonding, we all headed off to bed until the morning came and we could spend more time together. I'd like to say that the first night went well, but it was rough for our daughter. The second night was better.

We had a great day together yesterday as a new family and even ventured out to Costco to re-stock our food. It was probably crazy, but necessary. We had really scaled ourselves down to nothing so that no food was left to spoil while we were gone. I do have to say that it was weird to keep track of 5 instead of 4, but I will quickly get used to it--I have to--don't want to having anyone go missing on me.

Well that sums it up for now. I will keep you posted as we get adjusted to our new family life. For now, we just try to recover from jet lag, get through the mountain of laundry, put things away and give ourselves plenty of time to bond and give our daughter time to acclimate to her new home. Thanks for coming along on the journey...yet the journey has just begun!

1 Samuel 1:27 "I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him."

The Embassy

This morning we had pancakes....pancakes! With real syrup! Aeniah-Natasha had two helpings of yogurt...she really loves yogurt and was very excited about getting that. Then we went for a small walk and took in some sights.

This afternoon we went to the US Embassy here in Moscow. Again, with American passports, you get to just walk to the front of the line. Fortunately, the immigration portion for adoptions was not super busy. We walked in and sat in a room with a bunch of other adoptive parents and their children and while we waited Brandy and I met a new single mom who is adopting her first child. She got delayed in her region for 7 weeks! We became very thankful for our 3 weeks at that point. It felt really good to just sit and talk with other Americans and to deal directly with American officials. They had a little play area for the kids while we waited and the Director of Immigration just wandered around and talked with couples and chatted...it was really cool. When our number was called, we went to the counter, made an oath that everything in our packet was acurate and true and a few minutes later we were waltzing out the door again with our daughter's entrance visa. The whole process only took an hour and a half.

Aeniah-Natasha will indeed hold dual citizenship with both the United States and with Russia. We originally had the understanding that she would lose her Russian citizenship, but this is not the case. So after we land in America and go through passport control and immigration, she'll officially be an American (and a Russian). How fun is that?

After the Embassy visit, we went walking again and went to buy Aeniah-Natasha a traditional Russian dress and headress. She will look so cute in it! Along the way, we bought her a banana and discovered she can really pound those down...she'll fit right in with our other kids at home! Here's a picture with both cheeks full and wearing her Russian headress upside down. She liked wearing it like a visor instead of a crown.


Tomorrow we board a plane...Aeroflot has a direct flight from Moscow to LAX and is only 12 hours...awesome. Then a short drive home. Please pray for safety and for Aeniah-Natasha to be patient as we wait for our plane, enjoy the ride, be calm, to sleep a bit and to just have fun. Oh, and you can pray for patience, sanity and creativity for me and Bran as well.

See you when we get back!

Love, Nate and Bran

Adventures in Mosow

Yesterday, here in Moscow, we spent the morning getting our daughter's American Embassy Medical check done and filled out all of the paperwork necessary to get her visa into the USA. We will go this afternoon to pick up the coveted "packet" that we absolutely cannot open--only the immigration officials in the USA can open it.

Once we had all of that done, we headed off the Old Arbot Street and picked up a few more gifts and, of course, stopped in the only Starbucks in Russia. It was so yummy to have a Peppermint White Mocha after an unintentional 25 day fast from them! We were able to pick up new Moscow mugs--very excited about that since they broke after our first trip here. Now the trick is to see if we can get them home in one piece and juggle a child on this trip!

After a little rest after our adventures, we hooked up with a blogger friend of mine that lives here in Moscow. She, her husband and children are American citizens living in Russia. It was so awesome to have a "local" take us around the city a bit and show us some sights on the way to and from our destination--because we got stuck in a lot of traffic. I've heard it's worse than New York here! Our friend has posted about the destination she took us to on her blog. Click here and you will be taken to read about it and see some pictures of our daughter and some video. I could post it myself, but why--when it's been done already? If you are an adoptive parent on your way to Moscow, I would encourage you to explore her website. She's got some awesome info about places to visit with children in Moscow. Apparently, Russia is not very child-friendly so she's done a great job of exploring the city with her daughters and digging up the places that ARE do-able for children.

1 Samuel 1:27 "I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him."

The Art of Cramming

Today was a very busy day! In the morning, I went with one of the other Americans to pick up our daughter's birth certificate and adoption certificate. Then we went back to the hotel, finished packing and loaded the van. All of us were crammed into the van (both families with new daughters) and we stopped by to pick up the girl's Russian passports. This was quite an experience...we get there and about 30 people are outside this little tiny run-down building, all waiting to get inside to work on getting passports. We met our coordinator Yuri there, talked for about 60 seconds and the door opened. As everyone crammed to the door, Yuri walked past everyone else, told the guy at the security counter who he was and we all just waltzed right passed the whole crowd. We could here some of the people yelling and asking the security guard why we got to jump ahead of the line. I literally walked into the room, signed my name in two places, they handed me Aeniah's passport (which was already completed) and walked out. It was very cool...but I could kind of feel the stares on our backs as we walked out of the building.

My daughter has a Russian passport...how cool is that?

We immediately got back into the van and went to the airport. It's about a 30 minute drive that seems like 60 because of the mass of potholes. I learned that if you drive fast enough the tires "will indeed" float across the air to the other side of the pothole with minimal dipping. I always wondered until today.

At the airport, both families together went through 3 sets of check points...none of which are large enough to hold two people leave alone six with luggage. But since we've been here for what seems like an eternity, we have truly learned the "Art of Russian Cramming." We waited for a short while in the airport...again the waiting room is much too small for this number of people...and Natasha walked around introducing herself to EVERYONE and their dog..and cat. Yes, there was a dog and cat on our flight. After cramming the entire plane load of people onto just one bus (see previous posts in February for an explanation of this) we all stuffed into the plane...which was a very nice plane by the way...much like our first trip here.

Aeniah/Natasha (we still waiver on what to call her...she's going to have identity issues when she grows up) was very excited to see the airplanes (semilote in Russian) and go inside one. She did very well and was quite pleasant for the whole trip.

So now we are in Moscow...whew! Moscow is getting ready for the big soccer game this weekend so the streets were pretty crammed. We met with our Moscow coordinator and made arrangements for the doctor visit for Aeniah tomorrow morning. Then we'll go to the US Embassy to get her entrance visa to America on the next day. I've been told we'll be with a bunch of other people and that the room we'll be waiting in is pretty small.

Oh, for the art of cramming..........

From Russia with love,
Nate

Settling In

Again, this will be brief because our daughter is keeping us on our toes. We don't want to count our chickens before they hatch, but once our daughter fell asleep last night, she slept seemlessly all through the night and we have had no crying today so far. We're glad we got to visit her during that 10-days of waiting, but still not sure if it was really helpful or not. Hmm....

We did have to suffer through one more crying fit last night when she realized she was going to have to sleep here. I'm sure our neighbors loved us, but oh well. Once we pulled the drapes and put our own pajamas on and showed her that we were all going to sleep, popped in "Horton Hears a Who"--in Russian--we were good to go. Mind you, we had to watch it twice and she was still awake, she seemed to understand my basic Russian when I told her it was time for bed. I think she was so tired, she didn't have anything in her to argue with me at that point.

We have spent many a moment in the bathroom going potty (she even slept through the night with dry chonies), washing our hands, brushing our teeth and playing with the bath toys in the sink (we have no tub in our room). And then starting this process all over again.

This morning, we were able to eat some breakfast in the hotel resturaunt & borrow our friend's tub in their room (she had such a good time she was in there for about 1 1/2 hours). The 6-year-old girl our friends are adopting and our daughter had quite a good time together and speaking Russian to one another. It was really quite helpful to have their daughter talk with our daughter. She talked her through taking a bath and also told her all about how we will all be going on 2 planes and then on our way to America. It seemed to help our daughter to see and hear of someone else who was going through this. We will see how tomorrow goes when we board the plane together.

We also enjoyed lunch with them outside the hotel, fed the pigeons at the park (while it was snowing!) and did a little shopping. Below is a picture of our daughter as she enjoyed a little afternoon tea and watched out the window in a much better mood today. Guess we'll be having a spot of tea every afternoon for awhile. That might be nice for us as we deliberately slow down our life and adjust to our new family!

1 Samuel 1:27 "I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him."

She Is Ours!

Woo hoo! Our daughter is finally officially ours! This will be brief because she is keeping us very busy. So far she's done decently. Nothing like a good flailing tantrum through the lobby of the hotel. We thought that going out to eat and for a walk would be a good idea for our daughter initially, but she proved us wrong on that one. We gave up on the eating out when she pitched a major fit in front of the restaurant and all the way down the street and back.

The one thing that got her to calm down was Nate's genius idea of making hot tea in our room with some snacks. My hat is off to the big Papa!

So here we sit patiently in our hotel room while she goes in and out of happy and sad. We've got enough snacks and drinks here to sustain her, but not sure about us. That's the next thing to figure out. We've figured out that staying in our hotel is our best bet since she needs to realize that this is "home" and we are not going back to the orphanage. At this point, she keeps telling us she wants to go home and asks us to take her there.

We haven't been able to get her jacket off or her snow boots yet and she won't put on her regular "inside" shoes because I'm sure she thinks that if she puts those on it means she really has to stay. We've worked her hat and scarf off because she was sweating bullets, but once we get the jacket and shoes off we'll know she's settled in a bit. Until then, I'm off to be with my daughter and enjoy that I have her no matter how tired I am!

1 Samuel 1:27 "I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him."

Here It Comes!

In less than 12 hours, we will finally be on our way to pick up our daughter and receive custody of her. Woo hoo! We've waited almost 2 1/2 years for this day. Yippee!!

Our daughter blessed us with minimal crying today (maybe it helped to have the white coats all off today and not there to swarm around her). We are praying for her to continue in her bravery and to feel safe and secure with us as we take her from the orphanage tomorrow morning at 10:00 am. That would actually be 11:00 pm on Sunday--your time. We would covet your prayers to cover us during that time. Any tears will only delay our departure from the orphanage so please be praying specifically for no tears.

We took her departure clothes today so that she will be dressed in them when we arrive tomorrow (at least that is our hope) and we helped them gather all of her things together. Once we have everything in order we will be on our way to the mall to celebrate. Meet you back here tomorrow with hopefully celebratory photos!

1 Samuel 1:27 "I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him."

Change of Heart

Well, we've had a change of heart. We are going to go to our daughter's orphanage on Sunday for a visit. When our translator called today to tell us how our daughter was doing without us, she said that she's missing us. The translator also said that the orphanage director suggested that we come on Sunday. We said, "Great, but no thank you. We will come again on Monday."

Next thing we know, we've got a personal meeting with our coordinator this afternoon. He came all the way to the hotel to ask us our reason for not wanting to return until Monday. We expressed our feeling of being in an experiment and he understood our position. However, he also explained to us that he had gone to the orphanage and talked with our daughter and her caregivers. Apparently since this is a big holiday weekend, many parents are coming to the orphanage to visit their children. This has caused anxiety in our daughter because she is missing us and is very worried as to why her parents are not coming to visit. Once he explained it in that light we understood why she would be so much more concerned than usual. So we decided to pull up our bootstraps and go for a visit tomorrow (Sunday) afternoon. I guess that would be a Mother's Day gift to myself. Let's just hope she gives me the gift of happiness and no crying.

By the way, when do I celebrate Mother's Day? Tomorrow or the next day? When I receive custody of my daughter on Monday here, but it's really still Sunday (Mother's Day) at home--does that count as the best Mother's Day gift ever?

1 Samuel 1:27 "I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him."

A Decision Made

We made the decision to not return to the orphanage until Monday when we have our decree in our hand. We decided we were tired of the microscope and hopefully this way our daughter will miss us and be happy to see us on Monday. Our hope is also that she'll be ready to go to the mall with us since we promised her that. Of course, this is all just hopes, but we'll see how it goes when we get there on Monday. All we really know for sure is that we couldn't see what good would come from 2 more days of our daughter crying, the orphanage staff watching over our shoulder and then coming in to "save" her and lie to her.

Yesterday (Friday), we slept in and then had some lunch in our favorite cafe and then enjoyed Victory Day here by going for a walk down to the city center. While there we saw lots of people enjoying their day off and listened to a Russian concert. Nothing too exciting, but at least it got us out of our room. If it were up to me, I'd stay safely in our room unless it was necessary to leave. Frankly, I wouldn't even be here in another country except for the fact that it's the only way to pick up my daughter. Nate, on the other hand, he's got an adventureous spirit. He's the reason we get out of the room at least twice per day. He can't stand being cooped up and drags me out with him. I can't say I ever regret it so I'm thankful we make such a good team!

Off to enjoy another relaxing day and explore (because I know Nate will make me). :)

1 Samuel 1:27 "I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him."

Playing With Our Food

So we went to Cafe Leto again today. Every time we go, we try a new kind of hot tea. They have lots of different flavors and we've really enjoyed this part of our free time. Brandy has determined to buy a hot tea server and cup set when we return home because Natasha likes hot tea and is used to having it often in the afternoons. We think this could be fun with all of the kids at home too.

With every cup of hot tea or coffee, the cafe serves a little chocolate truffle like treat. I happen to think they look like cartoon eyes, so when our friends were with us, I put one in my mouth and pretended it was an eyeball. Brandy then decided to actually put one IN her eye. We all laughed hysterically...and disrupted most of the restaurant. It's no wonder the people here think Americans are too loud and obnoxious.

Under the Microscope

We went to visit our daughter in the morning today instead of the usual afternoon visit. We've gotten used to sleeping in until about 11:00am and then staying up late. We had to drag ourselves out of bed this morning, but we did it for the sake of one cute little girl that has us wrapped around her finger. Actually, I think she has more than just us wrapped around her finger! I think she's got the whole orphanage staff wrapped around her finger!

Well, the good news for today is that it only took 5 adults to reason with our daughter and convince her to go with us. Once again they lied to her to get her to go with us. A few days ago in the music room they told her that her little friend would come in and play--but she didn't. The next day they told her that we would be going to the mall to meet up with some caregivers who were already there. Umm...they were there, but on their own personal time. The caregivers talked to her on the phone and told her to come and meet them. They did stop by to check on her, but she was having so much fun with us that she didn't see them. So for her little mind they didn't show up. We're we grateful that they truly did stop by so they could see how well she was doing with us and could take that info back to the white coats at the orphanage.

Today we were left without a translator and coordinator for a short period of time and during that time is when she did her crying. So the orphanage staff decided to tell her that we would be taking her somewhere in the car again today (that was not happening today) so she willingly got ready to go. Obviously since we're not fluent in Russian, we didn't know what they were telling her to make her happy so we just went with the flow. We thought they were telling her to get ready to go outside and we'd go out with her groupa who was already outside playing. It tipped us off that something fishy was going on when they directed us to go out the front door with her and not the same door as her groupa went. It became even more clear what they'd told her when we got out there and she kept going up to each car and trying to tell us she wanted to get in and refused to leave that area. She finally got to a point that she was banging on the cars with her hand and saying, "Mama, poe-ma-gee." (Help me!)

Meanwhile, my favorite part (sarcasm intended) was when we looked up at the 2nd story windows and there were all of the white coats standing in the windows and watching us. Are we under the microscope or what? This is ridiculous. Nathan and I discussed later that we should've stopped and taken a picture of them all standing in the window for our blog. Blasted, we missed that opportunity. Luckily for us our coordinator and translator came walking down the driveway and helped us explain to our daughter what was going on. Again, they reasoned her out of another cry because we weren't doing what was promised today and instead told her we'd take her to the mall on Monday.

We left today with the decision made that we would not return to the orphanage tomorrow (Friday). One, it's a major holiday and we wanted to give our tranlator a break because she's been working her rear off for us, but also number two, because the orphanage director felt that we should try not coming for a day to see if she will notice we're gone--to create a longing in her for us. Apparently, they say that when we are not there, she talks about us and constantly sits with her "family book" in hand and flips through it. She tells anyone who will listen about her family and our home.

We've also heard that the orphanage admits that since she's the oldest one there and has been there since she was born that they've spoiled her because as her departure approaches, she's become quite sassy with them. When they ask her to do things like clean up, she responds, "I don't have to because I'm leaving soon." Woo-ee! I think I'm going to be grateful we don't speak the same language so that she can't sass me! Well, she can try...but it will fall on deaf ears!

At this point, we are trying to decide whether to skip out on just one day or whether to wait a little more and return on Monday--the day we receive the official decree. Why not create a big longing and then return on the day that she's officially ours and we no longer have to listen to the suggestions of the orphanage? Why not skip out on the experiment? Still thinking on that one. We do know though, that we have decided that we will do what we promised--once we pick her up from the orphanage, we are going to take her to the mall and have some fun with her, but this time we just won't return to the orphanage. We'll take her "home" or as close to home as we can get at this point. Please be praying for us to have wisdom in this matter and for our daughter as she transitions to us next week.

1 Samuel 1:27 "I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him."

Reasoning With a Preschooler

Well, it took 1 1/2 hours and 8 adults to reason with our daughter today and convince her to go on an outing with us. Nate and I have figured out that the best way to deal with this 10-day wait and the fact that we are an experiment is by going with the flow. We don't bother to offer our opinion anymore. We just do whatever they ask and count down the days until we will be able to make our own decisions for our daughter. It took considerable effort on our part to not roll our eyes as everyone felt the need to come into the visiting room and give their opinion to us and to our daughter about her behavior.

Even though it took that long for her to agree to go with us (we felt it ridiculous because we would've just taken her earlier in the process and let her calm down in the car) we did manage to find something positive about the time sitting in the visiting room with her. During that whole period of time, she willingly sat in my lap and let me rub her back and play with her hair. That's a huge deal! So we decided to stop rolling our eyes and be grateful for that bonding time.

Once we got in the car, we took her to a mall here that has a kids area for her to play in. It was basically an arcade with a few games for littler kids to play or ride on. It was a great time of being spoiled by our coordinator, our translator and us. We spoiled her with our time and physical touch, but our coordinator delighted in buying her a balloon, some chocolate, some ice cream, sharing his green tea with her and letting her have some juice. You can tell he adores her. Like I said, we had some good bonding time over play and food. Following are some of the pictures. There were so many good ones, it was hard to pick. My favorite was when she delighted in sharing her green tea with me. Nate had a blast being just plain silly with her.

1 Samuel 1:27 "I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him."

One vs the Other

The weather here can't seem to make up its mind. When we arrived it was still quite cold and snow everywhere. It then began to warm up (at least their version of warming up). The snow began melting rapidly, clothes came off and ice cream was being eaten. It then began to cool down again with a some rain. By yesterday morning, we were back to snow flurries again. However, despite that, the view on our walk to eat each day is certainly different than it was when we were here for trip 1. Here is a first trip view and a current view.

The other thing that we find interesting here is that it doesn't ever really get truly dark here. In the bottom picture, it is about 10:00 at night. In fact, we don't need to leave a light on in the bathroom in case we need to get up during the night. We just leave the curtains slightly ajar and we can see just fine at any point during the night. Nate has been working via e-mail from here so he tends to stay up until about 2:30 am so he has been able to verify that it is still bright as mid-day even then. We're trying to figure out how they get their children to go to sleep at night when it's not dark outside. They must have really thick curtains!

Apparently during the winter months it is the opposite of what we are experiencing. It is completely dark without light. On our first trip, we got a little taste of that because the sun was only out about 5-6 hours. That is also so crazy to think about. We've discussed it and we think we'd rather do the continual sun vs the continual dark. What about you? Which would you prefer?

1 Samuel 1:27 "I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him."

15 Things We've Learned in Russia, part 1

15 Things we've learned about Murmansk, Russia....

1-"sausage" really means hot dogs...like, weiners
2-they can fit way more people on a bus than Guinness
3-their soup spoons are the same size as American serving spoons (way too big)
4-they don't mind crowding to get to the front of the line (or in front of you)
5-they have lots of different kinds of "mystery meat"
6-snow boots not needed...just spiked high-heel boots for women
7-they love the TV show LOST (for all you Bridge Staff)
8-EVERY taxi has a picture of Mary, mother of Jesus (Greek Orthodox style)
9-they do not like the TV show The Office (also for the Bridge Staff)
10-they consume more cigarettes and alcohol than Vegas...and New York...and Brazil combined (I don't have proof of this...but you can tell by the size of the cigarette cartons they sell on the side of the roads)
11-they really don't have any clue as to what toppings should be on a pizza
12-any type of "sandwich" is extremely rare
13-there are NO pickup trucks (we thought this was really bizarre and have yet to find out why)
14-they don't mind hauling couches on top of small sedans
15-the taxi drivers insist on playing music WAY too loud even when you ask to turn it down

Nathan

One Step Forward

I am glad to be able to tell you that today was a much better day. We were able to visit our daughter in the afternoon and we took the good translator with us. We were so glad to have her with us this time!

Today was a complete opposite of yesterday. They claim to just be giving our daughter Chai Tea to calm her down. We're not sure if that is accurate or if it was some type of miscommunication about medication yesterday. Whatever the case, we had a wonderful time with our daughter and her little friend today. The two-peas-in-a-pod came into the room with serious energy and we wore them out. The room we are meeting in now is kind of like a mini Gymboree so there is plenty to do and play. Our daughter's favorite thing seemed to be the ball pit where she "goes swimming" and then says, "Mama, poe-ma-gee!" (Mama, help me!) It was quite a game that we repeated over and over. The orphanage staff was worried about all of this stress affecting our daughter's sleep, but we're pretty sure that we wore her and her friend out so that will not be a problem tonight!

Our coordinator seemed to think that everything had been sorted out and I know that we all--including the orphanage staff--were much happier today since there was loud, constant laughter coming from the room and not screaming and crying. Today we took one step forward. Hopefully tomorrow will follow with another step in the same direction.

1 Samuel 1:27 "I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him."

Guinea Pigs

I'd love to tell you how well everything is going over here. Instead, we would covet your prayers as we struggle through this 10-day waiting period. This 10-day period not being waived is new to this region. We are quickly discovering that we are basically guinea pigs in this new experiment as the orphanage tries to figure out how to do this. What I'm speaking of is the grieving that a child needs to go through as they transition to their new family. Usually, in the past, a child would go through this phase in the hotel so the orphanage directors never saw it. Instead our daughter is going through this grieving in full view of the orphanage staff and they are not taking it well.

It's a long story of what has transpired over the past few days. They have asked us to try bribery with candy, ignoring her, giving her space--all kinds of different things and no matter how much we have disagreed, we have complied because the orphanage director still wears the pants until May 12th. However, today when they changed the plan without informing us and then decided that this was all too stressful for our daughter and they were going to medicate her, we came very upset. Unfortunately for us, we happened to have the translator this afternoon that is terrible at translating and she made our situation worse by causing miscommunication and more confusion.

After much discussion about the issues at hand with the orphanage staff, they returned our daughter to us who was in a "very happy mood" now. It was such an incredible switch that we are pretty sure they medicated her right under our nose.

We have been promised by our coordinator that he will go to the orphanage tomorrow and sort everything out for us and make it right. Please keep us in your prayers. We recognize that it is only 7 more days until this is over, but it sure feels like an eternity. Please pray for us to have wisdom to know what is best for our daughter and for all of those involved in the decision making--that we would all be on the same page and that any miscommunications would be cleared up.

1 Samuel 1:27 "I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him."

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Just when we begin to take steps forward, we take a step back. When we arrived at the orphanage today our daughter was outside enjoying the 50-something degree weather. It was a beautiful day. It's amazing the changes in the weather just since we arrived last week. The snow is melting rapidly.

Our daughter's groupa was outside playing in the warm sunshine so we joined her. It was fun to play with her and her friends. The children were all referring to us as Mama and Papa and were very clearly starved for hugs and individual attention. I was tempted to politely pat them on the back while standing for fear of germs, but as I slowly walked around the building with my daughter, God gently nudged me and reminded me that I was here for more than just one orphan and that what I showed to these children may be the only love they receive. So when we got back to her groupa, I got down on their level and played and hugged away. It was a sweet time. If only adoption were not so expensive and not such hard paperwork--I think I'd bring more of them home! If anyone has an inkling to adopt--there's plenty available--142 million in the world. There's some seriously cute ones here...

Although our time in the sun was sweet, there were also some tears. This time it wasn't the kind that is shed when we leave. This time the fearful tears came out of our daughter. In her almost 4-year-old way, she is trying to be so brave, but every fews days it hits her that we are going to take her away from "home" soon. We have an incredible opportunity to be a part of her world each day but sometimes I wonder if this extra ten days is better or worse in terms of the adjustment. Is it better to just get it over with or is it better to drag it out? These are the moments that I have to sit back and trust that God knows what He's doing because I certainly don't know the right answer. We know that the moment we take her from the orphanage will be tough, but have to trust that God knows what He is doing and that these steps forward and back are all for the greater good of our daughter. At this point, at least she knows that we will be constant--no matter her behavior--that we will show up each day.

This extra time here has given me the chance to learn more of her language and I am practicing things like "It's okay. You're alright" and "I love you" so that I can assure her in her language--and not through a tranlator--that we love her no matter what. It's actually kind of scaring me how much I am beginning to understand and how much is coming out of my mouth. Just this morning I said, "Natasha, ee-dee-sue-da" without even thinking about it. I told my daughter to "come here" and she understood me. It was so great! I am terrible at learning other languages so this is an amazing thing to me. I never thought I would be able to communicate with her. So maybe there is an upside to being here just a bit longer...His ways are higher than my ways.

1 Samuel 1:27 "I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him."

HAMBURGER--Sort Of!!!!!!

Today our translator took us to what she said had American hamburgers. We could not get there fast enough for Nate. I thought he was going to physically jump for joy when we entered. He barely contained himself. It was certainly not In-n-Out Burger, but it was do-able for a day. We're not really sure that it was hamburger (haven't seen ground beef anywhere). We think it was turkey, but truly it's a mystery. Here are some pictures of Nate's first burger in Russia.

Just the Two of Us

Cafe Leto

FINALLY!! We have discovered a good restuarant with awesome food! Today, we had the two best meals of our entire trip to date. We were told of a cafe just down the street called Cafe Leto--meaning "summer." It's kind of a cool chick art deco kind of place. Very pastel colors, orange and lime with bizarre light fixtures and chairs. Anyway, they serve the "expensive looking large plate, small portion with lots of decorations made of bizarre garnishy things" meals. The plates look like they deserve a professional taste-tester to write a newspaper article about them. But the prices are pretty reasonable. They also have a non-smoking section...its the only one in all of Russia.

We liked it so much for lunch that we went back again for dinner. We had the same waitress who doesn't speak a single word of english...so ordering was fun. We played charades. For lunch Brandy had vegetable soup and some sort of hot summer tea (with cowberries, yes...cowberries) and I had fried halibut on a potato puré. For dinner I had halibut on a broccoli cloud (really, it was very delicious) and Brandy had fettuccini on chicken. Really, this was bizzarre but very yummy. The chicken was compressed to about an eighth inch thick like a thin pancake and as wide as the plate. It was very cool looking...but admittedly, we were not sure what it was at first.
So for all you future adoptive parents who are coming to Murmansk, Russia....it's on the corner of Lenin and Kap. Egorov streets...lime green building! Can't miss it.

We'll see you there!