Vanya :)

Today we got to see our baby boy! He looks a lot older since our first trip, but he's still quite tiny. It was so so so good to see, touch, hear and smell him again...we didn't want our visit to end. I wanted to run out of that place with him and never look back. :)

They brought us into the same room that we visited with him in May and before they could even bring him into the room he started crying. Apparently they had told him mama and papa were coming and he's a smart little guy. He was probably scared. :( He warmed up to us quickly though...and by that I mean there were minimal tears, but he was a very quiet little guy for the first two hours of our visit. He played with us a little and talked to us some...he said "mama" and "papa"!!! He could point to our pictures in a book and say our names. Be still my beating heart. :) He can also say "nie", the equivalent of "take" in English. He and Barry had a long game of give and take. It was cute. :) He is doing a lot of babbling and we kept wondering if he was actually saying something or just babbling...hard to tell...

About two hours into our visit we decided to take him outside since he loved it last time. Well...apparently since it's a freezing temperature of 70 degrees outside, this denotes...tights (seriously...and they were pink), pants, snow pants, an undershirt, shirt, sweater, winter jacket and a toboggan. Seriously. So he starts getting very agitated as we're changing his clothes, AKA adding many a layers...and starts crying. By the time we have him dressed and outside he's screaming. We think he was a) BURNING UP, b) thought we were going to leave with him and/or c) felt choked by the snug/tight toboggan that they squeezed him in. Poor baby...he kept getting more and more worked up so I suggested we go back inside to take off his clothes. There was just no recovering from that though, as caregivers kept coming over to help, which I appreciate, but it kept getting him even more worked up because he would see them and get even more upset. Finally the psychologist, whose office is across the hall from where we were, came in the room and calmed him down.

Finally she was able to sneak off after he was distracted by a snack of "biscuits" (graham cracker looking things) and hot tea...yes, hot tea in a sippie cup (apparently this is a Russian thing. We were told all babies are given hot tea...lovely...)...He was happy for a little while and let papa hold the sippie cup until another caregiver came in and he was reminded again that he didn't know us. :) She took him upstairs to his room while we cleaned up his snack (my goodness those were crumbly biscuits) and then we were able to go see him on his stomping grounds.

All the kids in his room (he's the oldest in there now...he was supposed to change rooms yesterday but they decided to keep him in his current room since he'll be leaving in around 30 days!!! I was soooo glad to hear he would be making one less move!) were down for a nap so we were able to spend time with him, and his four caregivers, in his room. You could tell he was so much more comfortable there and he put on a show for us. He could dance, blow kisses, sing, stomp, climb out of the playpen, and follow many other commands that the caregivers gave him. It was so fun seeing him come out of his shell like that. We got lots of video! One sad moment was when the caregivers asked him why he was being so bad for his parents. That made me so sad that they would say that to him. If he's sad, I want him to be sad...and not to feel bad about it! Boo.

While we were there, we were able to get the names of his caregivers, we gave them scrapbook paper and asked them to write Vanya a note, we learned that he eats everything (and even wants some of whatever the caregivers are having...and will point and demand for it until they give it to him), a little bit about his schedule...we were able to get the names of the maternity home and hospital he spent time in before coming to the orphanage (we were able to drive there and get pictures after we left!!)...I have a gigantic list of questions for his caregivers and will post that eventually on the blog...it may be helpful for families in the future.

Overall, it was a great visit. We will hopefully be able to go back after court tomorrow, as long as the judge doesn't keep us too long. yay! Court is at 11am our time tomorrow...11pm Alaska time (Thursday), 2am CST (Friday). Please oh please be praying! :)

And here's the view from our hotel room...very anticlimactic compared to the 100+ pictures that we took of a special someone today...but it'll have to do for the next 30 or so days until we can post anything of him. :)

 

 

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