Day 16 - Hello Officer.... (double click for pics)

Thursday, July 13---Day 16 Visitation (yes, 1 extra)

Privet! ...We are now in a holding pattern awaiting the court date. To give everyone this update: Lena called yesterday morning and advised we “should” have it Friday or Monday. At the time of this entry (8:00am Friday morning) we have not heard back from Lena or our attorney. That would make one think it will not be today. Let’s pray for Monday. We did get some great news during the call, a package had arrived from Bob and Diane. WOW, thank you so much for the food (as you can tell Bobby is writing this one). Kim absolutely loves her Vera Bradley backpack! She is so excited to use it and show it off. Rylee loves the dress and I love the food!
The “chips ahoy” are in Rylee’s store, so I will need to bargain with her to get some or wait for her to go to sleep to get some of them. Now to recap Thursday: We had the housekeeper coming by today, so we decided not to cook this morning. I went by the local store for some pastries for breakfast. We had some doughnuts, cream filed pastry and what was thought to be a chocolate chip muffin. It turned out to be raisins, so nobody ate them.

We arrived at the baby house on time for the morning visit and Kim went upstairs to get Landen. As he came into the music room to play with Rylee and me, he was all smiles again. Kim said he had finished eating when she got up there and was ready for her. When he saw her, he started holding his arms up as to tell her to pick him up. At playtime, he would play for 2 minutes, then hug Mommy for 10 minutes. This lasted the entire time we had him. Of course, we would love to play for 2 hours straight, but we realize this is a lot for him. I love to see him bonding with Kim in this way. When he was playing, Rylee was his main attraction. Daddy was good for a tickle or two, but RyRy kept a smile on his face all day. It’s great to see him giving her more attention now, as he had pulled away from her a little bit lately. She has learned not to grab and pull him when he is with Mom, that’s a big no-no for the Momma’s boy! I had the joy of taking him back to his room after playtime. There was a new caretaker (new to me) that was waiting for him to return. Not too much excitement as he reached out for her when she started talking in Kazak. He did pull his arm from behind her and put his elbow in her chest to push off (a move I know all too well) in an attempt to get back to me. He realized I had to leave, so he was content to stay with her.

After the morning visit, we came back to the apartment for some lunch. Rylee and I had left over spaghetti (great again) and Kim had some potato dumplings, which she has been asking if they have them in the states! I guess she really likes them. As we were leaving, we met our friends at the bottom of our apartment. They had walked over to say hello. It was very nice to see their “new” family together at last. What a visual picture we will have forever.

Our excitement for the afternoon started prior to our arrival at the baby house. On the trip over, Sergi was pulled over by a police officer. The officers stand on the side of the street with a wand in their hand and randomly pull over cars. They will wave the wand and point out cars to pull over. The cars immediately stop and the driver gets out. Sergi must have not had something he needed to show the officer as he was put into a car with a second officer for what Kim and I thought was a ticket. Sergi was visibly upset during this time and tried to call someone for assistance. We all waited in the car for what seemed to be 30 minutes, until Sergi came over and said taxi… We were going to take him up on this when all of the sudden the officers said something to him and jumped in their car and took off. You could tell from Sergi’s face that he got away with one. We were back in route to see our son.

We arrived as you can tell some 30 minutes late for the visit. Kim’s favorite care taker was in the room and appeared to ask her why she was late. Kim made a driving motion and pointed at her watch. This worked as the lady smiled. Landen was again in a great mood and we went outside. We have been going outside in the afternoons for most of the visits, but this one was interesting to say the least. Several of the 3-4 year old children were in the next “play area” and they had their little eyes on us. It is so sad when 8 little kids call you Dadda and Momma. It truly breaks your heart knowing you can’t take them all. The caretaker with them started playing a game where she would throw them in the air. You could see that’s all the kids wanted, attention. Landen was taking this in. He loves to watch people, trees, Rylee and anything new. We only had 30 minutes with him, so Kim was taking him up to his room when the caretaker stopped us in the hall way and attempted to tell us we could have him for 30 more minutes. We love this lady! Unfortunately, we had Sergi waiting on us to take us to the grocery store. We had to thank her, but pointed to our watch and made the driving motion and she shook her head.

The new grocery store was the best yet. Very modern with some items we can recognize. Wow! Our friends had also planned to shop at 6pm, so we had them to show us around the store. This was neat for us as we were able to see their son in a store like this for the first time. Imagine what was going through his head.

The evening was quiet. Kim and Rylee made pizza (two days with out chicken!) and I made a “summer salad” that Rylee enjoyed. She had a little of it and said it was good, but I thought it was missing a thing or two. I will work on the recipe and share it when I perfect it. I may do an Annie and avoid giving the exact recipe where mine will always be a little better !

Tomorrow is Kim’s birthday, so we will have a little something planned for that and may be late with the next posting. Until then, poka, poka!