Learning to Crawl

Hi All,
So our little boy learned to crawl today. The weird thing about adoption is that everything seems to be on fast forward. We have passed the newborn stage, smiling, rolling over and now we are on to bigger and better stuff. He is already, in the 4 days that we have been there, sitting up for more than a second which he couldn’t do before, making noises when he was pretty much silent the first day, and now today he crawled for the first time- several hand/foot combos at a time. It is amazing how much these kids blossom once they get some one-on-one attention. I mean, the kids all get some attention from the nannies but it is a whole other thing to have a person or two totally and completely devoted to you. And he seems to know who we are already. He watches Peter like a hawk. Rinat too. When I am feeding him, it is sometimes hard because I put him in the high chair and then Rin and Peter and our friend from Canada’s daughter play while the kids eat. Sumo has trouble focusing on actually eating and is craning his neck around trying to see what his dad and brother are doing (usually playing football or trying to keep the balloon in the air). Just when I think I have a spoonful of food in, he whips his head to the other side of me and cranes his neck to see where they have gone. And then today he kept doing ‘crazy baby’ as my cousin Kevin calls it. It’s when he flings his head from side to side like he is giving an emphatic no. Kind of hard to aim for the mouth when it’s a moving target that I am supposed to fill with watery potatoes and minced meat. He ended up with it all the way up to his eyes. But truly he just couldn’t be any cuter. We had a good long snugglefest today. Aside from when I am trying to feed him, he seems content to just sort of hang out. He will go after whatever it is that he wants but he also seems to like just being still and watching everyone. And we have found a few things that make him smile- like when I blow in his face or get his tickle spots on his chest, legs, and under his chin.

And Rinat was much much better at the baby house today thank goodness. We had a major talk when we got home yesterday afternoon and I laid it all out. So he had a good lunch today at the Cosmonaut (which is super nice by the way- I wish we could stay there for a night just for a mini vacation. I wonder if they do laundry…) and it also helped that Oxana came in the afternoon and kept him entertained. He loooooves Oxana. And she is truly wonderful with him. And way more patient than I am.

The babies all seem to be getting sick and the baby house was full of sad little cries today. Sumo even got a bonus bottle of blazing hot water to drink before we put him down this afternoon. As we said goodnight to our little man, I am just hoping that he is not among the sick when we show up tomorrow.

I hope you all are safe and sound tonight and your world is full of love. Much love, -m