Goodbye Dear Friends! and 30 Days

Hi all!


Today we said goodbye to our friend from Canada and they will be badly missed. We have been spending a lot of time with them at the baby house in room #4 and in between visits too. Rinat has really enjoyed playing with C (who is 5) and I have enjoyed having another woman there to talk to. It was nice to have a friend for a short time. They had court on Wednesday and happily the judge said yes (“Does he always say yes?” Rin asked. “We’re crossing our fingers, Honey” I told him) so we met up on Weds night to celebrate. We had dinner at Assorti in the mall and then we left the kids with Peter while D and I had some girl time. We went downstairs and got dessert at Charlotka (the place with the amazing lattes) and chit chatted about their time here and about life in general. The Froth and the Reforma cakes are both pretty darn good. It’s going to be a lot harder at the baby house without a friend for Rinat I think. Since we started visitation, Rinat has pretty much spent the whole time playing with C while we got to focus on our Sumo. Today (Thurs) they hung out all morning playing, then we went to lunch at their apartment, and then in the afternoon they spent the whole time making a tent with the blankets in the anteroom. They pretended to be camping- they had ‘flashlights’ (baby toys that light up), they had ‘walkie talkies’ (baby toy phones). It was nice and quiet in the baby room. I’m not sure what Rin’s going to do to occupy his time now. We do have the option of trading off afternoon visits while one of us hangs with Rin at the apartment I think. But I’m hoping he’ll be OK because I don’t want to miss a single second with our adorable little boy. And I don’t want Rinat to either. He’s been really sweet with him overall. Yesterday he did tell me “Mom, I really want you to give Sumo to Daddy please” so he could sit in my lap. He asked so nicely that I complied. But he’ll periodically come over and pat him on the head or give him a little kiss or tickle him under the chin. It’s cute.

Mr Sumo was not sick at all this morning thank goodness. Most of the babies seem to be on the mend too- not as much crying today. And he was raring to go too. He was crawling up a storm. He went probably 3 feet all crawling, no belly scoot. I was so proud. And he is sitting up for a pretty long time too. And talking much more. I think I heard a ‘dadada’ out of him- pretty good for the 4 days we’ve been with him. But best of all was when Oxana came this afternoon and commented on how much more he is aware of the world around him and is watching everything instead of just looking with a blank stare. And she noticed he’s more smiley too. It’s gonna kill me to have to leave. But I guess I will get past it knowing that soon I will come get him and I will never have to leave him again. Until I need a break, that is 

And two quick pieces of news- we are meeting with the social workers tomorrow at the ministry of education so they can ask us a bunch of questions and make sure we are going to be good parents and can afford to adopt him. And also, can you hear the angels above singing? That’s because Natasha says that we should be able to get out of Kaz before our visa runs out. She is going to plead our case to the prosecutor and so we hope to be heading out of here on the 5th. Now I just have to contact our travel agent and see if there are flights out on that day…

I hope you all find a minute today when you can take in everything around you like our boy finally is. The world is pretty amazing. Love to all, -m