Alex is here!

I no longer have any time but I have Alex, I got his adoption certificate, I got his birth certificate and I got his passport. Now all I need is to get out of Russia and get home so I can start life with Alex and share the playtime with Chris so I can shower at a decent time. It has been pretty hard these past few days but very worthwhile. Alex is precious, very sweet, and already getting attached to me. He is a typical little toddler (I don’t know why I keep calling him baby Alex…) who wants to grab everything, open it, taste it, you name it! Thank God I haven't had any mishaps but that is only because I don’t take my eyes off him. I'm too afraid to do so.

I went to the orphanage on Monday and spent my usual two hours there. I brought Anastasia the clothes I wanted Alex to wear on Tuesday and from her I got another schedule for naps, snacks, medicine I should give him etc. All in Russian and of course I can’t make sense of any part of it! What an alphabet...The P looks like our R, our X with an extra line has an A sound, and to make it even more confusing, they using a bunch of numbers as letters. I was told today their alphabet has 42 letters. Yeepers! I bet they don't have the A, B,Cs song here...

Monday Roma also had a successful trip to Kudymkar. He left Perm very early, got there at 8:30 and got back to Perm in time to pick me up to go file for Alex’s new birth certificate, which we got on the spot. Doing that saved us a couple of hours on Tuesday morning. Roma picked me up at the usual time on Tuesday and we went to the passport office. We were both trying to figure out what sad story they haven’t heard yet so we would use to convince them that we needed to have a passport on Thursday but after all that, we didn’t have to. The passport official just asked us to come back at 10:00 the next day. I asked Roma to asked her if that was for sure because they only issue them on M-W and Fridays and I didn’t go buy a ticket to Moscow then have the pick-up time be a mistake. Roma told me he wasn’t translating that, and instead he just told the woman that we would see her tomorrow, meaning Tuesday and we got out of there really fast.

We called the orphanage to let them know we were on our way but were told that since we didn’t make it by the noon hour they told us we would now have to wait until 3:30 to go get Alex as the Director had to leave and would not be back till then. Being that we had over two hours to kill, we decided to grab a bite to eat then head out to get the Moscow tickets. The travel agency was just a small desk at the lobby of a near-by hotel; she was not in a big hurry and did our tickets in between several phone call – Regardless of the Russian, I could tell they were not customers but we couldn’t say anything, not that I could, but we didn’t complaint for fear it would take longer. We had to call the orphanage and let them know that we would not be there until 4:00. That is precisely when the bad traffic starts here so I was growing very concern about getting Alex on Tuesday, and I guess it was evident to Roma that I was getting a bit ticked-off. We did get there at 4:15 and of course had a big commotion with all the caretakers. The shift that is done at 4:00 waited because they wanted to see him off.

They dressed him up and Anastasia told me to give her a few minutes alone with him and also allow her to take him downstairs so he could say good-bye to his little friends. I was in tears the whole time. Happy to get Alex out of there and tears of sadness for the woman who do get attached to some of the kids then have to see them off. I don’t know how they can do this job. May God continue to bless them and give them all the patience and strength this job demands. The worst thing for me was to see quite a few people out of the different windows, particularly the window with three little tiny kids, including the little boy who was outside once and recognized us as Alex’s parents. I can’t stand the thought of what this little three-year old was thinking or feeling as he waved good-bye to his little friend and crib buddy. Alex did not cry but I also was trying to keep him from looking at the windows or the orphanage. I tried to stay focused on Alex on the ride back, but it was quiet for Roma, Alex and me.

As soon as we got to my very small room at the hotel, Alex took over. I had some of the toys that I had been taking to the orphanage during the past ten days laying around my room just to have familiar things around for him. It was like he had been here for a week and I made sure he was having fun. It is such a wonderful feeling to having with me now and knowing we are getting closer to going home.

Bedtime was a whole different story – I could tell he was missing his previous surroundings. It was too much to give him a bath on the first night here, especially after he had just had one earlier in the day. I changed him into fancy pj’s he got from grandma Kaminski and I played the lullaby CD I got from my friend Julie at work. What a God-sent and thoughtful present that was! He was rocking himself and stopped right when I started the CD. A few hours later he woke up screaming at the top of his lungs, just as I was dosing-off and I think I levitated from the bed.
Oh my Heck…can this kid scream?

Today was a whole different story. We got up early, went to breakfast and he had a feast! We played at the playground, I changed several diapers, Alex took a three hour nap next to me which means I watched him for three hours straight. He just so precious! Tonight, as well as last nice, he was pretty active until the phone rang, then he lays down and starts dozing off. I wondered if they had some sort of a ring at the baby house that they rang when it was time to go to sleep. I have asked Chris to call me at the same time tomorrow, it works! He is sleeping now so I get to take care of my stuff and pack.

The last part of this journey starts tomorrow!