We finally made it!

Orphanage visit day 1
We walked 25 minutes to the metro, rode 12 stops, got off, and got lost! We had directions from another RR family, but we took the stairs up to the left instead of going straight to the end. Thank goodness for a kind cab driver who took a call from our translator and pointed us in the right direction! Overall, it took 2 hours to get to the orphanage yesterday, but we were right on time at 9am.

We got to spend 2 hours with Micah, then had a 5 hr "lunch break" before we could see him for the 2 hour afternoon visit. That was a hard 5 hours to find something to do. We walked to the nearest McDonald's, which we thought was just up one metro station and ended up being two (about 3 miles), spent quite a bit of time resting there, and took the metro back. We still had two hours to kill, so we walked around the orphanage grounds with Annie trying to get her to take a nap...never happened. But we met a nice Canadian couple adopting a 20 month old. They've been here 5 weeks and we were the first English-speaking family they had seen on the grounds! She was so excited to speak English. Their court date is Friday, so we won't see them for too much longer.

We rode the metro home, but stopped to have dinner on the way, so our total ride home was 2.5 hours.

Total walking miles: 8 (not exaggerating). Total time gone: 13.5 hours. If we don't come home skinny, there is something seriously wrong.

Okay, now onto the part you really want to read about... Micah. The day went so great. He came running down the ramp from his room and ran into Barry's arms. We got a really good video of it, but for some reason it's not loading right now (it's been 2 hrs since I tried). I will get the blog posted and try again later. We took so many pictures so for the sake of time, I posted this album on Snapfish: http://www2.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=7422420013/a=99581526_99581526/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Bottom line: Micah was happy, enjoyed his toys, played well with Annie, ran, ran, and ran some more... all he wanted to do was go around all the paths, then he would run for the front gate and shake it. I picked him up and said, "Soon enough little guy... you'll get to see and smell all those cars and people and dogs, soon enough." He loves being held and snuggled, and laughs so hard when you tickle him. He loves kisses from Mama, but doesn't like Daddy's stubbles... he moves away from him when he tries to kiss him, but he'll put his forehead to him and bond with good eye contact and laughs that way.

He LOVED the little blue mouse we found at the market here for around $8.50. It sings something in Russian. So he would dance with it, and make it dance, and OH HOW FUNNY he was with it. When it would stop, he would run toward me, throw it at me, and I'd tell him to say "more". He would open his arms as wide as he could and say, "MORE!" (in English).

He also loved the blocks. I want to say I don't think he's ever played with blocks because he was overly excited, kicking them around and throwing them everywhere. Annie had a few near-hits. After some time, we got him to calm down and play "easy" with them. He would put them in the bag and dump them out, over and over and over. He has really good hand-eye coordination and loved putting toys away. He'd put one in and say "Da" (yes in Russian). So I'd say "da" and "yes" and "dobre din" (very good), and "good boy" each time he put one in nicely. We brought out the blocks three times over the day and by the end he did really good with them.

I was very impressed with his running and walking skills. He was able to step over curbs and know when to be more careful when the steps were bigger. He and Annie got along great. He's definitely going to need 3T clothes (which we have none of). I'll have to try to exchange some of the clothes that we bought or were given as gifts, but I took off all the tags and washed them before we came, so I might just donate the ones we brought to the orphanage and start over when we get home. There's a great kids clothing store not too far from us that has Target prices, just to get him home.

We sang "happy birthday" to him (two days late). He loves to be sung to. I sang "itsy bitsy spider" too, and then he was off to do some more running. He's very active. I have to say that I know he's going to wear me out, but I'm so excited he's that active. We came here not knowing anything about him other than the fact that he had DS. But I knew he had a light shining in him, and he is letting it BURN! We're going to have so much fun with him when he gets home. It was so hard to take him back to the nanny... he started crying (1st time all day) when she took him and made him go down the hallway. We can't wait to go back and play some more, but it would be nice to play inside too. It was probably 70-75 degrees. He was dressed in three layers, a jacket, and a hat when they gave him to us... we quickly took of the jacket, but if we take off the hat they get mad at us. The director even told us to put a jacket on Annie (she was in short sleeves). How are you going to argue with a man speaking in Russian? So we put it on her, but she took it off, lol. Today she will wear long sleeves to avoid the jacket lecture.

(I just realized I didn't post anything about his medical condition that we learned on Friday -- healthy! No heart condition! DS and mental delay, flat feet, cross eye, and that's it!!! The only hospital stay he's had was in 2008 for bronchitis.)

We are grateful to be here. It's so hard to be away from our other children, but we know we were called by God to save this little angel. We are grateful we have the right son now after a week of straightening out logistics. We are grateful for our facilitation team here for making things happen so quickly for us (some people are waiting up to a month for a 2nd appointment). And we are grateful for the sweet young lady at SDA who felt compelled to get our referral to us early on Friday so we could spend the weekend with Micah instead of having to wait until Monday. There was a hiccup, but we caught it when it was small, and now we are moving along again.

Next step in adoption process: receiving a court date (hopefully we'll know in the next week when it will be).

Other upcoming news: The Goldens arrive today! We can't wait to meet and spend time with our new friends adopting Jackson and Josiah at Micah's orphanage!!!