Day 4 "Family of Four" - tummy trouble (double click for pics)

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Monday, August 7th “tummy trouble"

Privet from KA3ACTAHCKNN.

Where O’ where to begin…..We can tell that these next few days will be some of the hardest as we are ready to get home. Kim and I had a good laugh last night, after writing our post, talking about what we miss about home….and what we will not miss here. This was very good therapy for both of us, but made us anxious to fly home.

We had a meeting with our attorney set for today at 12pm, so another chance for us to work on our “baby efficiency” skills. We were actually only 5 minutes late…for those who know us well can appreciate what an accomplishment that was. I think we were usually + or - 5 minutes without a baby. Before the meeting at 12pm, we had a lot going on around the apartment.

We slept in until 7:40am….yes, that’s sleeping in here lately. Landen had a good night, but he did wake up around 2am….I felt his little hand on my back and when I rolled over, I was greeted by those big brown eyes and a smile. Kim heard me rolling over and started to get up when I told her I would take this one. Landen was in need of a little love or telling me to quit snoring…I’ll pretend it was the loving. I was glad to assist him going back to sleep by holding him and singing some soft songs to him. He was back asleep by 2:30am and the rest of the night went off without any issues.

We started the morning with a bottle and cereal, Landen had eggs over easy and cheese toast. Just kidding, he had the bottle and cereal with a banana. He seems to really enjoy bananas and all different fruits (At least the 3-4 he has had with us). Everyone got a little play time together this morning, as we all got in the floor and crawled, laughed and played ball. The morning seemed to fly by and before we knew it, it was time to go to Svetlana’s office. When we arrived at the office, Lena was outside awaiting our arrival. She jumped in the van and we went immediately to the notary’s office to sign a power of attorney for the passport handling in Astana. We had Landen in one of the new outfits (the yellow one), with a bib for the likely spit up. The entire morning went by with out any incidents, and the afternoon appeared to be going the same way…..but as fate would have it, the moment we removed the bib….we were targets for his “spit up” rockets. While we were in the lobby of the notary, it happened. Kim took the brunt of this one and we laughed as it figured when the bib gets removed, we became fair game. All paperwork was completed and we were getting ready to get back in the van to go back to Svetlana’s office, when I decided to walk. To draw a picture of the distance from the Notary’s office to Svetlana’s office: Golfer - it’s a short par 4, Shoppers - it’s the distance from Target to TJ Maxx (Newnan), as you can tell, not very far at all. I was quickly told to get in from my wife, Lena and even Rylee. Kim made some room on the row Rylee and she were occupying, so I got in. I did not really have a good reason to walk (beautiful day, short distance, room in the van, etc…), but something told me I should have walked the minute I shut the door of the van. I was correct! I, along with Kim, took a direct shot from the “spit up” rocket. The poor little fellow is having some reflux issues and we already have an appointment when we get home to get this under control. The short drive now seemed to take hours as you are helpless until you get out. When we got out of the van, we quickly cleaned up to go and meet with our attorney. Well, all of the cleaning effort went to waste as I took another direct shot with in seconds of walking in the door of her office. Speaking of her office, it also took a direct shot on the floor….Kim was so embarrassed, but there is not a lot you can do, nor can he. Svetlana has 2 children as does Lena, so they fully understood and we all smiled as we cleaned up the mess. Rylee has now been named the “best little girl” they have meet! Both Lena and Svetlana went on and on about how good she is and what a great big sister she will be. Things we already knew, but of course you can’t hear that enough…

We stayed in the office for the better part of an hour (Rylee worked them for 2 pieces of chocolates) and we got the passport application completed for the final piece of the return puzzle. We had hoped to possible return a few days earlier, but those were shot down and we even had to pay some extra to ensure a speedy turn around in order to make our flights now. We have really enjoyed being here, but it is time to be home…. We did find out something interesting from Lena today; she gave us the name of the medicine Landen has been on for the spit up’s or what we think is reflux. Nice to know now..... We have been seeing an increased amount of spit ups after we picked him up from the baby house on the 4th. We will endure without the Russian medicine (no way to get it here), and on our return we will see Dr. Plokin.

The main street of Pavlodar was our next stop after the attorney’s office. We walked, of course, (our time of use with the driver-Sergey has passed until Thursday when we go to the airport) and found a few little store to check out. We have been past the point of spending and only window shopped to get some exercise in and allow Landen to see his home town. We did stop by the movie/cd store that is below the Russian restaurant to see if we could exchange some DVD’s we had purchased some time back, as they are region 5 and the US is region 1. Basically, they would not play in the US. One of the workers speaks pretty good English, so we did not have any problems exchanging the movies. The movies should be fun for Landen as they are in English, but have some Russian through out. He is picking up some English words, but when he hears someone speaking Russian his little head swings around and he is all into that conversation. After another couple of episodes with the spit up, we decided to head back to our home away from home.

It’s a good thing we got back to the apartment when we did as Landen’s tummy is having some major issues. It’s gotten to the alarming point now and we decided to have Nana call Dr. Plokin and see what we can do, if anything for now. We will have a call with him around 12:30pm today (GA time). The evening was spent loving on Rylee and Landen through the upset tummies and Rylee scraping her tummy on a cabinet door handle. One of the cutest things we saw was Landen playing the drums on a pot. He had a nice beat as well. We even put some water in the pot and he really enjoyed slapping the water and playing with the little toys we put in there. Check out those pics. Well, we will sign off for now, but promise to give everyone an update on the “tummy troubles” tomorrow. Poka, poka…