Day 2 "Family of Four"(double click for pics)

Saturday, August 5 “Just as the directions noted”

Privet from KA3ACTAHCKNN.

I will try to express how awesome of a feeling it was to wake up to a smiling baby beside me, but bare with me as it may be impossible….

The mornings are definitely going to be different around here now. We managed to get all four of us in the bed (It is a King)…Rylee and I on the ends, Landen was between me and Mom. We have started out great with the sleeping…Landen went to sleep at 8pm and did not wake up until 6:50am. I checked him a couple times during the night just to make sure everything was ok and Mom checked every 30minutes, again just to make sure he was fine. We have spent hours just looking at him, whether he is sleeping, eating, playing…it does not matter; we just enjoy the feeling of “IT’S REAL”.

Back to the morning…I was awaken by the touch of a little hand to my head. When I turned over, I was greeted by the cutest little smiling face. Rylee was also awake and looking at Landen (she said she had to feel of him and make sure he was breathing as well). Rylee said she watched him open his eyes, look around and then say Dada and touch my hair. Landen can say Dada pretty well from Kim singing him the song. Mom opened her eyes as Rylee was saying how cute Landen was waking up his Dad…then Landen spotted Rylee and gave another big smile. He then noticed Mommy and had to roll over and grab a hold of her. It was such a wonderful moment seeing the look on his face as he realized where he was and who he was with. We stayed in the bed for approximately 30 minutes tickling, giggling and loving on each other. You could not see Landen’s cheeks for the big smile he had on his face…Wonder what he was thinking…..

Kim got up and prepared his first bottle. We had purchased some formula and he seemed to approve of the taste. We followed that up with a little cereal mixed with fruit. Feeding him will be one of the biggest changes from the baby house. He is used to getting A LOT of food, from a very big spoon and all given in a short period of time. We are going to reduce the amount a little at a time, downsize the spoon and take our time to eat…He is not too happy about this change…so a little at a time…. When he is ready for the next bite, he will raise his arm and start moving it up and down. Although he has been trained how to eat from the time he was born, we could see him changing to our style by the end of the day. The boy loves to eat!

After breakfast, we had play time!!! Not much beats getting to watch your children playing together. They pulled out tons of toys, balloons and the empty water bottles…Landen has made this one of his toys… After playing, it was time to get the first bath. We were a little anxious, because we did not know how Landen would feel about a true American bath. He passed with flying colors. When we first put him in he stood there and would not sit down…we think they must have them stand up for their baths at the baby house We finally convinced him to sit down….He was all smiles after that. He immediately started splashing and did not stop until we got him out. He was loving have the water splash him and the rest of us in the face. He had a blast! Whew…that was a lot easier than we thought and a ton of fun for us as well. After bath time it was nap time (according to our directions), sure enough…he went right to sleep at 9:30am and slept until 11:30am. Unbelievable! When he awoke we fed him a lunch of rice and some meat mixture and broccoli. Yum, yum. It was then time to load up and go to the grocery store for the last time…. We had planned for Sergey to pick us up at 12pm, but Lena called around 11:30am and asked if 1:00pm would work as he was running some of our paperwork around town. Hey, anything to make sure we stay on schedule!

Landen got to experience his first grocery shopping outing and again, all went very well.
I carried him most of the time to allow both of his “moms” a chance to shop. Most of the buying was for baby food, but we did pick up some what we think is ground beef and vegetables. We could not resist the rotisserie chicken on the way home, so I gave Sergey the chicken sign and he fully understood where to go. The chicken sign is me flapping my arms like a chicken….Just imagine what he thinks when I do this!

When we got home we, played a little more, then…..another first….poopy time.
No doubt when it happened as one could not hide the look on his face when it was time to go. We were glad to see that all the plumbing was working, just getting past those fears of changing his diet. Mom changed the diaper (not to get too detailed, but it was solid to the point Kim was worried he may be getting constipated). This was soon ruled out, to say the least. After the diaper change (seems to work like that doesn’t it), he went back to it. Rylee after weeks of saying “I won’t change a dirty diaper” was going to change this diaper. She was so excited, so she and I opened it up…to a big surprise. We hit the jack pot, the mother load, the real deal…none of the solid stuff Mom had, we got 3 diaper fulls in one and it was anything but solid. She did not change her mind, to our surprise, but I sure did. Kim started laughing and I knew it was all mine and Rylee’s. My first diaper change in years and I get a 5lb’er to deal with. Needless to say, we did a fine job and all was well again.

After the explosion, it was naptime again. And yes, the directions were correct…he went right to sleep at 3:30pm and slept until 5:30pm. We all actually took much needed naps today. When we awoke it was dinner time, so we fed Landen another rice mixture and squash and apple. He gobbled it down!

Kim and Rylee had planned to go ice skating where Landen and I were going to watch, but the time got to be a little late to have him out, so the boys stayed home while the girls played. The boys night out was a lot of fun. We played, sang (poor child having to hear me sing) and crawled around on the floor. The only thing that could stop our playing was some spit up. We had several breaks during our play time if you know what I mean. Nothing more that a labor of love…

The girls soon arrived home (Rylee with some extra bruises from the falls) where they were greeted with a big smile. It was getting near 8:00pm, so Landen was winding down for the night. He had a bottle and his moms put him to bed. Just as the direction said….

We have had so much fun during our first full day with Landen that we sat back and reflected prior to me writing this blog. The one common theme that we noticed today (besides the huge smiles, belly laughs, giggles, etc…) was Landen followed the “directions” perfectly. The schedule given to us by his caretakers is almost to the minute….Wow, a baby with directions… How cool is that? Poka, poka….