Day 20 - "Baby Bop" (double click for pics)

Monday, July 17---Day 20 Visitation (5th extra day)

First of all, Thank you Nana for assisting us with Rylee’s little melt down last night. After we posted yesterday, Rylee became home sick for all of you, Scarlett and her dogs. Fyi, Bailey is undergoing surgery as we write this post, so we are waiting for some good news. Thanks for the prayers as everyone knows our pets are like kids to us.

We had a nice breakfast this morning that included scrambled eggs with cheese and biscuits (thanks to Diane and Bob for sending these). As time grew near for our visit, we still had not heard from Lena. When we got in the van with Sergey and noticed Lena was not with us, our minds started to wonder..was court moved back, was there going to be a delay, did something happen? Since Sergey speaks no English, my SpanEnglishRussian language would only make the situation worst. Kim felt Lena may be with him when we are picked up from the visit. Was she correct?

The visit was different from any of the past visits. Kim said when she got to the room; our little boy was in the walker crying up a storm. This is tough to see as we can not go into the room and get him, so Kim waited patiently as the caretaker dressed him and gave him to her. It appears that going without a visit on Sunday had upset Landen more than we thought as he wanted to be held close all visit. We had brought the clothes to try on for sizing, but he was not too happy when we tried to change him. Hard to say what was going through his little mind, but Mommy made it all better by holding him tight. We introduced bubbles to him and had a lot of laughs watching him try to touch them-- then seeing them pop. Not sure if he realized where they went, but we all had a good time. Rylee had brought a ball that she got yesterday at the fair for Landen to play with. He is too little to do much with it, but he seemed to approve of the taste. One funny thing was when Rylee had her head in my lap and Landen was in my arms holding a hard plastic toy and she wanted him to tap her head with the toy. Rylee had seen Landen hit me in the head a couple of times and thought it looked fun-- I guess. She started grabbing his arm and making the hitting motion with the toy. Well, you can figure out what happened next... We had a little girl with a tiny knot above her eye where her brother got her good. Kim and I enjoyed seeing both of them learn from this. We were advised of something new today… in the baby rooms there is one “mother” for every 2 babies. Landen’s is Kim’s favorite caretaker. We will include a photo of her. She also has a little girl, but we do not know which baby she is….

Kim was correct about Lena; she was there at 2pm to pick us up. She said our phone must be having problems as she had called several times and could not reach us. She did not have the exact time of court, but felt it was still on for tomorrow. For court we need to take some pictures of the four of us with the dates on them (no problem as he have thousands already), so we went by the baby store where they have a “Kodak station” and we got 24 photos printed off. After that, we went back to our apartment for a simple lunch (left over soup) and chilled out for a little bit.

When we got into the van for the second visit, Sergey handed me a note from Lena.
Court time will be at 2pm tomorrow (4am EST). We are expecting calls at 4:30am to get an update, so set your alarm clocks….. Just kidding. We will have the, hopefully, great news on tomorrow’s post. Our understanding of the significance of court is…We will be asked questions around our adoption and there will be a prosecutor for the state giving the reasons why the child should not be adopted. Factors that come into play are known parents, reasons for child being in the baby house, etc.. Our attorney feels good about our adoption case and expects a successful decision tomorrow. From that point, the laws here state the decision will be left open 15 days for appeal. If the decision is successful and no appeals occur, we will be able to pick up Landen in 15 days. He will be viewed by us and the baby house as our child tomorrow, if court goes as planned.

The second visit was another great time for all of us. Kim said he was asleep when she got to the room and they had to wake him up for her. He was blinking his eyes while trying to wake up and smiling at his Mommy. Today he was dressed in a red and white outfit with what appeared to be an American flag on it. Of course, we took a lot of pictures with his stylish look and his sucker today. It’s amazing to watch him when we go outside as he can not get enough of the trees, wind, flowers, brick walls, etc. The visit ended way too soon for us and Kim took him back up to his room. The caretakers had some music playing in the background and he was glued in to the sounds. I bet mom has music playing all the time when he gets to come home with us!!!

We had spaghetti tonight and it was, again, very good. Nice to have a change from the chicken! After finishing this post, we plan to play a little UNO and call it a night! Please keep our family in your prayers, as it is a HUGE day for us tomorrow.

Until tomorrows update, Poka, Poka!