To Russia (And Back) With Love
Saturday, October 23, 2004
Who's the girl with the spots?
That's Russian calamine lotion, the answer to a chicken pox outbreak at the orphanage!
¶ 11:35 PM 0 comments
That's Russian calamine lotion, the answer to a chicken pox outbreak at the orphanage!
¶ 11:35 PM 0 comments
Thursday, October 21, 2004
Oh, her name...
...is currently Elena (pronounced "Lienna"). What's it going to be? Anyone's guess...
¶ 11:18 AM 0 comments
¶ 11:18 AM 0 comments
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
Report from Yekaterinburg
It's late Wednesday night here. We've had a busy couple of days meeting and bonding with our little girl. With Sari, it was mutual love at first sight, she knows her mama. As for the guy behind the camera, let's just say there aren't a lot of men hanging around the orphanage for her to be used to and it will come with time; for now I feel it deeply with an occasional grab of my finger. Every day, we see her from 10 a.m.-noon and then again from 4-6 p.m. (with her lunch and naptime in between). She is brilliant, beautiful, athletic on the balance beam, cleans up after herself, eats her snack off of fine china and drinks from a teacup (the orphanage can't afford plastic, the china was a donation), and manages to follow directions in English through gestures and inflections even though she has never heard a word of it before Sunday. Amazing. She was well worth the wait of over a year...the next wait between our return home Friday and our second trip to Russia whenever that happens to pick her up (our best guess--late January or February, but that's only a guess) is the one that's really going to take its toll.
Yesterday, we appeared before the Ministry of Education and officially qualified ourselves as adoptive parents. We're not supposed to officially meet our girl or even know her identity until we go back to the Ministry for our referral on Thursday, but exceptions are overlooked with a knowing wink over here. We also got a special bonus today--permission to take her to the city zoo. It was the first "social" car trip of her life, which reaches two years on November 1. She took it all in with natural wonderment and curiosity, and with no child restraint whatsoever other than our laps and arms in a Russian minivan. (There aren't even adult restraints available.) We're filling in naptime with siteseeing and--go figure--shopping (Sari can haggle in any language).
Yekaterinburg ("Yick-ah-tear-in-borg") is where Europe meets Asia at the base of the Urals, where the Czar and the rest of the Royal Family were killed in 1918, 900 miles east of Moscow and 10 hours ahead of the Eastern US. Actually, we're ten miles east of the border, which technically puts this whole operation in Asia. Go figure, we thought we were in Eastern Europe. That's what I get for skipping out of 10th grade geography.
Fashion & style disclaimer: Sari only takes responsibility for dressing her in the purple Old Navy top and jeans. We had nothing to do with the short haircut, which was cut even shorter today. ¶ 1:20 PM 0 comments
Yesterday, we appeared before the Ministry of Education and officially qualified ourselves as adoptive parents. We're not supposed to officially meet our girl or even know her identity until we go back to the Ministry for our referral on Thursday, but exceptions are overlooked with a knowing wink over here. We also got a special bonus today--permission to take her to the city zoo. It was the first "social" car trip of her life, which reaches two years on November 1. She took it all in with natural wonderment and curiosity, and with no child restraint whatsoever other than our laps and arms in a Russian minivan. (There aren't even adult restraints available.) We're filling in naptime with siteseeing and--go figure--shopping (Sari can haggle in any language).
Yekaterinburg ("Yick-ah-tear-in-borg") is where Europe meets Asia at the base of the Urals, where the Czar and the rest of the Royal Family were killed in 1918, 900 miles east of Moscow and 10 hours ahead of the Eastern US. Actually, we're ten miles east of the border, which technically puts this whole operation in Asia. Go figure, we thought we were in Eastern Europe. That's what I get for skipping out of 10th grade geography.
Fashion & style disclaimer: Sari only takes responsibility for dressing her in the purple Old Navy top and jeans. We had nothing to do with the short haircut, which was cut even shorter today. ¶ 1:20 PM 0 comments
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