The Tarmac walk

This time tomorrow we will be walking across the tarmac, with the Siberian wind biting our faces, air plane engines roaring, I’ll have a carry- on in one hand a beautiful Russian baby girl on my hip. As I climb the stairs of the air craft I’m sure tears will be running down my cheeks. Somehow every time I arrive or depart from the Khabarovsk air port, I have tears. This time it’s a mix of relief and missing the boys at home, but mostly taking this precious little life away from the only home she knows. There is a good chance she’ll never return. When I look into her innocent eyes I know she has no idea, what she’s lost, or what she will gain. It’s a big day for both of us, but especially for her.

Even after spending 28 days in the country so far, I’m still in culture shock. That’s one of the reasons I got such a laugh out of Ellie pointing out the weirdness of the people of China. How do you think I feel? This place is the weirdest place I’ve ever been, and here we sit laughing at another culture. Also, what do you think she says about us Americans? I’m sure that’s pretty funny too. I’ve heard we are fat, sloppy and arrogant. I can kind of see their point, when compared to her. However, today I saw a couple of boys who looked about eight years old, walking along smoking cigarettes like a couple of grow men, it didn’t look like their first smoke. I saw, along with the broken beer bottles and dog poop every few feet, a syringe with a needle on it just lying in the ground by a man hole with no cover on it. These sights are tough to get use to; I think I prefer to be called fat, sloppy and arrogant, than to raise my children in these conditions.
Ellie complained about several things about the Chinese, but one was the men stare at her so much that she said at one point she turned and yelled...”WHY ARE YOU STARING AT ME!” She said he was not ashamed at all to say, “Because you are so beautiful, are you a foreigner?” I’m not sure how she was dressed that day, but generally young Russian women put a lot of effort into their appearance and dress very provocatively. I’m sure that Chinese man didn’t stand a chance to that Russian woman’s spike heels and a mini shirt! I’m sure if she came to the US the men would have the same problem peeling their eyes off her as the Chinese men do.
She also said she sees men in suits and ties riding bikes, talking on a cell phone and holding and umbrellas over their heads all at the same time.(the umbrella is to keep the sun off his skin) I’d like to see a multi-tasker like that!
Tonight there was an eerie sunset over the apartment buildings. I took a few photos around our neighborhood for souvenirs. It’s our last night in Khabarovsk. We have an exhausting 7 hour flight tomorrow, then at least two hours till we reach our hotel. The time change will be big, so we’ll have jet lag. I’m not sure if I’ll have internet access in Moscow. This might be my last blog update before I get home. Thank you for all your prayers so far! We are on our way home!

She is offically ours/ the good bye party

This morning we went to pick up the birth certificate for Naomi. The ten days are over and she is officially ours according to Russian law!!!!! We will pick up her pass port on the way to the airport on Thursday . This went fine, but involved waiting in chairs outside of closed doors again. We got to visit with Ellie a little more. We know each other from 2004 when we adopted Scotty. She is a beautiful young woman, who is the daughter of our Russian attorney. She now lives in China, and has a good job interpreting Chinese, English and Russian. She is just helping her Mom out because she’s on vacation (Chinese New Year) and her mom is busy with a lot of adoptions. She was telling us about the weird things Chinese people do. She was hilarious, it just seemed ironic to me.
We had heard that this might or might not happen. Today Ellie said at 4pm we will go back to the orphage for a “good bye party.” I tried to get more information on what we were in for, but I got nothing substantial. When we pulled up in the driveway Alexi acted like he was not going to get out of the car. Ellie had a talk with him and he reluctantly got out. Naomi was just on my hip, seemingly oblivious. We went through the door, and into to a log jam of about eight people, all speaking Russia at once, there seemed to be some confusion. Naomi and I were directed to her former room. She seemed delighted to be there. I took off her coat and she toddled to the group with a big smile. The woman caregiver was saying, ”blah, blah Sveta, Blah blah blah Svets’s Mama,” at first Naomi was standing there rocking, but pleased ,looking at everyone. Then she jumped on a toy car and started propelling herself around the floor. I just observed the room; there were 11 children about her size, and one caregiver (at that time anyway) a few seemed to obviously have special needs. Most tried to interact with me, but not Naomi, I tried to get her attention, she kind of ignored me. They were all darling. I couldn’t help but wonder what will ever become of these little children. I saw the boy who the couple from S.Dakota changed their minds on. He’s just as cute as ever, he would make a beautiful son for someone. Soon Larissa came and said it was time to go. I went to retrieve Naomi; she cried and cried, she did not want to leave. She kicked and sobbed while I gathered our things. We then talked with the director. She asked if I have any questions, then what do I think of this child, I told her she is perfect!
Ken told me how his visit with Alexi’s former group went, quite different than mine. Let’s just say Alexi ran to the car on the way out! I Told Ken my feeling was hurt a little because she obviously wanted to stay at the orphanage instead of going with me. He assured me that she would hurt my feeling many more times in the future. I laughed and said, “So I should get use to it!” I’m sure it was really confusing for her to go back to those surroundings that are so familiar to her. There also seemed to be a hint of judgment being made with this visit. I’m I taking care of her the right way i.e. how they instructed me to?I guess I passed the test, it was all smiles, the director gave me a hug and said “when we get home, feed her whatever you want.”
Once we got in the car Naomi loved me again. One more full day here.

The last Monday in Khabarosk

Today Judy, Naomi, and I walked to a children’s store. That is when I found out that Naomi likes Volkswagens just like me! I bought a leash for the wild beast, at the store. I got the idea from Ken, after I realized it’s really hard to get her in the baby snuggly with her boots and coat on. We practiced walking with it on down to Ken and Alexi’s apartment, so I could bring up my idea of giving the kid- lets o.t.c. children’s cold medicine for the plane ride. Ken now thinks I’m a child abuser. Hey I’m just brain-storming ideas here. Ken says he has enough ear plugs to pass out to the passengers seated near them, and he’s plans to take drugs himself. Then plane ride from here to Moscow is 8 hours. Ken and I are on different flights, which I still can’t believe.
I’ve been practicing strategic packing .My goal is to be self sufficient. So Naomi and I don’t have to have help and I would never break the rule of leaving luggage unattended. We are going to give away some non-essentials tomorrow. Another idea I had was to actually check Naomi with the luggage, as seen in the photo. But she’s too cute, I decided not to.
morning we go pick up the birth certificates! Yeah, forward progression! Tomorrow

Broken glass and the power struggle

Several times per day we go outside and walk around. Naomi and I are very inefficient walkers. She has made it clear that she wants to walk by herself. Her boots are too big, and although she’s quite agile inside, she falls all the time outside, especially if the ground is uneven. Her boots are size 5, for those of you with young children; it’s still fresh in your mind that that is really small. She’s take off her mittens and throw them down on the side of the road and keeps going, “who cares!” she seems to say. I’d like to hold her hand and guide her around the dangers and filth. She developed a technique where if I grab her arm, she’ll turn into a ragdoll and purposely collapse as a protest to my help. Yesterday morning we were walking, as she wished, without holding hands. I could see a dirty mound of ice ahead of us and just beyond that a broken beer bottle and a pile of dog poop. I quickly just picked her up, I was getting fed up and I told her I’d have to carry her a while. She arched her back and loudly voiced her complaints. I think we have another independent runner on our hand.
We were killing time, so we decided to go in a store. I don’t usually buy beer on Sunday mornings, but I had a few rubles in my pocket so I figured what the heck. Also we bought a coca-cola lite and what I thought was yogurt that later turned out to be sour cream. Naomi reorganized the merchandise at her level while I paid. The young woman working the cash register put my items in a small bag. I would describe this bag as being as strong as a bag made out of tissue paper. I grabbed Naomi under one arm and my purchases in the other and headed out of the store. As we went through the door I thought, gosh, that beer bottle might be too heavy for…….CRASH!, bang, bang, bang, the beer bottle went through the bottom of the bag hit the concrete stairs, bounced all the way down to its final resting place on the sidewalk. Well shoot, I thought, Naomi and I walked down to assess the damage. It’s didn’t even break, not even a crack.
Naomi refuses a bottle, her body language says” get that weird thing away from me,” she must of drank bottles before, she’s was not breast fed. Anyway, she semi-refuses a sippy cup. She really prefers a little tea cup with a handle. It’s very cute to watch her drink out of it, very Montessori-like. The only problems I have with this method of drinking for a 21 month old is she spills 100% of the time, unless I hold it for her. The other problem is what happens when the glass tea cup hits the tile kitchen floor. I’ve never seen anything like it. The cup exploded into 100’s of tiny pieces. Some even bounced so high they landed up on the table. Of course we were both bare foot. I put her shoes on her and laid a chair down to block her from coming into the kitchen, I could see this was going to take a while to clean up. When I told my mechanical engineer friend, Ken, about the exploding disappearing cup, he said it must have been tempered glass. We’ve only broken two glasses so far, pretty good I think.
I decided against showing broken glass for the photos. This is our new friend Hannah feeding the pigeons with Naomi. Here is a picture of Naomi attempting to make an international call to her Dad. The other one speaks for its self. Two more full days here in Khabarovsk, then on to Moscow

The Museum

Today Ken arranged a trip to the local museum. We were picked up at 10am and home by 12:30pm, but it felt like half the day was used up when we got home so that was good. Ken and Alexi, Thane, Judy and Hannah, plus Naomi and I made a full van. Just Pasha the driver took us, we had no interpreter. It was the old fashioned kind of museum, with large rooms of taxidermy animals representing the animals that are native to this region. They were the kind of taxidermy you can tell are about 100 years old. You know kind of bumpy and have marbles for eyes, but it was very nice. They looked a lot like the animals native to Minnesota and Wisconsin. There was a beaver, fisher, wolverine, fox, wolf, squirrels, wood ducks, mallard ducks, and otters, to name a few. The bears were those Sun bears I’ve seen at Minnesota zoo. They had a pair of moose; the only thing was the bull’s antlers were pointy like deer antlers. Since all the signs were in Russian we Americans guessed one of two things; they have a different kind of moose here or there was a mix up at the taxidermy shop. They have ratcoons here, but they don’t have masks or rings on their tails. The one thing they have that Minnesota and Wisconsin don’t have is the Siberian tiger! They are really native to here. If you think you’re scared of bears when you’re in your tent at night camping, imagine if there were tigers on the loose! The sign in English said there are only 60-75 left in the wild in this region, not to many.
I set Naomi free and she toddled from exhibit to exhibit pointing and making noises like she was amazed, I followed close behind her agreeing with her and telling her the names of the animals, and making sure she didn’t knock anything over. The Russian woman working there all smiled at her, but I got denied when I asked if I could take pictures. They pointed at the gift shop; I guess if you want pictures you have to buy the book.
We picked Naomi up from the orphanage about 11/2 weeks ago. She seemed to have only been fed baby food. On day two I sliced a banana and the quartered it, and gave one little piece of it to her. Her eyes got big and tongue when crazy like she was going to choke. I’ve been trying to get her use to more texture ever since. Now she can hold her own banana and eat the whole thing herself. Here is Naomi and her work hanging in the kitchen. Naomi and Hannah at the play ground (two girls from Khabarovsk) and how we look grocery shopping.

The ice sculptures

The






The Ice sculptures!

Here in Khabarovsk they don’t care about the old wooded houses, but they are proud of their ice sculptures. All over town you see them; they are very detailed and large. It seems like the biggest display is in Lenin Square, the center of town, in front of the court house. Why they keep the name Lenin square, I don’t understand, he did a lot of bad things. I hear they still have his dead body in a glass box in Moscow; I’d like to see that.
We’ve wanted to sight see but our “keepers” as Ken calls them are busy and are not always available for non essential outings. Today they agreed to take Ken, Alexi, Naomi and I to the store. As we drove past Lenin square I saw front loaders, trucks and men with chain saws taking down the ice sculptures. They were about half way done. I yelled, they are taking them down! We’ve wanted to stop for weeks! Ken asked nicely if we could stop, just for a minute. They agreed, and we took these pictures.
It was Friday afternoon at 4:30pm and there were at least 3 wedding parties there taking pictures. Ken asked why so many people get married on Friday afternoon? This is what Ellie, our interpreter said; they need a long weekend to party, they will drink so much vodka tonight that they won’t be able to get up tomorrow, they’ll need the whole weekend. Ken and I just started laughing. In the bride and groom picture from behind, they are looking through a heart shape in the ice. I caught another bride and groom having a smoke break. The court house where we had our court date is that tall grey building behind the sculptures

THE COUNT DOWN IS ON!

Tonight we had some company for dinner. I used the packet of Cincinnati Chili seasoning given to me by my sister-in-law Laura. No one in the group had heard of it before, but they all ate 2-3 servings and raved about it. Ken and his boy Alexi are the people I mentioned before who had the same court date and travel plans as us. They are on the same” killing time” schedule as Naomi and me. The others were Thane and Judy and their daughter (adopted from Khabarovsk in’02) Hannah. They are here to adopt a 3 year old girl named “Rita” who they don’t have with them yet. It was nice to get to know them, and time goes faster when you have something to do.
It was too cold to go out today. We bundles up and went out for only a few minutes, that wind, ouch! That’s not made for human skin. Now I know what you all at home feel like! It’s no fun. Kathy and her son Nikita left for Moscow, this morning. That is the picture with to two blonds. Here is a picture of Naomi and her buddy Alexi. He is one year and 2 months older than her. They are both from the same baby house, both were there since birth. We all rode together in the van the day we picked them up from the orphanage. We went together to get their pass port photo taken, and have played together every day since. They were in different groups at the orphanage, but they really like each other, I guess you could say they speak the same language.
We have a cleaning lady that comes in every morning and sing Russian nursery rhymes to the kids; today Kathy was over so I took their picture together. She really seems to love the kids, she’s a nice lady, but I have no idea what her name is. Maybe tomorrow I’ll ask?
Not far from here this old trailer sits, I made up a little story that some gypsies left it here 100 years ago. You don’t see trailers like that in Hudson.

The Drama Queen a.k.a. The Russian Princess

We’ve had a good last few days. We are getting to know each other better. I’ve learned what happens if you tell her “no,” u huh that’s right, that’s when the drama begins. I’m not saying that my boys have always been 100% compliant, but this seems like a different technique than they use. You parents of girls are saying,”… told ya so!”
She is so funny the way she looks at the family pictures we have taped up on the wall, she points and randomly says dada, mama, dada, mama, about every picture. I have a picture of a cow up there too, since we live in Wisconsin, she points at it and says “mmmmmm” instead of “moooo” like I’ve been trying to tell her, but I know what she means.
I read a little bit about teaching babies/toddlers sign language before this trip. They say if you can teach the child 4-5 signs there are an epiphany and the baby or toddler understands the method, and quickly can learn more. We have this baby board book with signs; we’ve read it 15 times every day, at least. The signs are not quite as useful as I have planned, but when we see those stray dogs, she whips her head around and pats her leg to tell me “dog” just like we practiced. It’s so cute. She knows the signs for more, cat, fish, ball, book, baby and hat. She only does it when she wants too, it kind of goes with the Drama Queen role, it’s gotta be on her terms.
She also acts out yum-yum, boo-hoo, hight-night, hee-hee and I want mama, all from a book. We can talk about these things without the book and understand each other. Tonight a bedtime we looked at a photo album I brought from home of Craig, Louie and Scotty, I miss them so much I couldn’t help it I just started to cry. She looked up at me and made the boo-hoo face some fake crying noises, I think she was giving me empathy. I appreciated it.
Today we had some fun, it was really nice outside. I’d say maybe 20 degrees(just my skin thermometer) no wind. My friend Ken and his boy Alexi and us girls went for a little longer walk. We looked like tourist taking pictures in front of one of the old wooden house close to our apartment. The locals don’t seem to be interested in them at all. We think it’s were poor people live and we think there is no indoor plumbing. We see them caring buckets of water from a well down the street back to their home. Look at the detail in the wood work. I wish I know more about the history of these beautiful buildings. The neighborhood is a mixture of these old wooded houses and dirty cement apartment buildings. We past what I assume is a dental office, I thought about dropping off my resume’, but I decided at the last minute not to. We bought Cyrillic alphabet crackers so she can teach me a thing or two. I may have mentioned all the stray dogs barking all night, eating out of the garbage cans, running in packs…..well this one posed for a picture, isn’t he a cute Russian orphan?, honey can we keep him? No mom, of course we didn’t pet him, I told Naomi we couldn’t because I don’t think he’s up to date on his shots and I told her she already has a dog at home waiting for her!

Another exciting day!

I feel like all I do on my blog is blah blah blah about me. I figure if anyone is not interested, they won’t look at it. I hope someday you all make blogs and give me the link! I really look forward to the comments. Barb asked about the Russian pizza and how cold it is here, referring to the bundling up job on Naomi. Those days I’ve gone out I’d guess it’s in the teens, maybe 15 degrees. Which is pretty cold, but when Craig was here it was below zero sometimes, so it’s warmed up! Our adoption agency made it clear, what can happen if you don’t bundle your child up impressively. Locals may approach you and chew you out, I guess it’s happened many time before. I think we Americans are into wearing outer clothing that is not so bulky looking.
From what I understand it has been colder in Minnesota than here in Siberia! Today is Saturday here; there is a school behind the apartment building. Naomi and I walked around for a little bit. She loves to get outside. When I pick up her coat she starts bouncing up and down. Here are a few photos of her exploring the school yard. I can’t find a timer on my camera so we tried a” hold out. “I like the one where she is running down the path. It’s been bright blue skies and sunny everyday we’ve been here. There she is reading her board books in afternoon sun.
The Russian pizza was pretty good. We were desperate, so take that into consideration. I’d say less cheese and sauce that many American pizzas. One of them turned out to be what we call a calzone. Ken said what looked to be a 12 year old boy delivered it by foot. We don’t know how far he came from, but the pizza was cold, of course Ken gave the boy a good tip anyway! The pizza was a great treat no matter what.
I’ve gotten an email from Craig so far. Sounds like he and the boys are doing great, and Mom and Dad are getting a much deserved break. I’m counting down the days!

Close encounter with an Engish speaking alien......

Naomi and I took the stroller out for a very brief walk to play ground that is near by the apartments. See how bundled up she was? That is still not good enough; I was running the risk of getting in trouble with the local Babushkas. Right after I took that picture of her on the marry-go-round a Russian school aged girl walked over and seemed to want to get on. I slowed it down and said (in English, of course) “would you like to get on?” Her eyes got wide, her mouth dropped it was like she was having a close encounter with an alien. She ran to her girl friends and was pointing at me, telling her tale. They ran over and all started talking at once with big smiles on their faces (in Russian, of course). I didn’t know what to say, so slowly I said, “Do you speak English?” They all nodded to each other and I heard”angliski, then something about “Ruski”. Maybe they were telling me they are Russian? I then motioned to take their picture, see the nice pose. They kept talking on and on in Russian, with their little smiling faces .I even tried saying,” ya Nye pa-ni-ma-yu’’ Russian for I don’t understand, but that didn’t discourage them. Then I said “good bye” and they said”good bye” and Naomi and I headed it back to the apartment.
Tonight we did something fun. Ken, Cathy and William had us over for pizza, they had it delivered! Why didn’t I think of that? Naomi and William had fun playing together. William really likes to look out the window and talk about what he sees. The view is pretty interesting; you see children playing, a busy road, dogs running around barking, a frozen river with cars driving on it, smoke stacks with black smoke coming out, mountains and a beautiful sunset every night. You see, there is a lot to look at. Kathy and Nick stopped by; he is out of quarantine for chicken pox. I guess it was not chicken pox after all, just some kind of rash. Little ones pictured left to right, Naomi 21 mos, Nick 16 mos and William will be 3 next month.

Kitty's school of English immersion

It’s going well here today, its 2:30pm, and soon I’ll be down to 12 more days! Naomi and I got to go to the grocery store and a children’s store today, it was fun to get out. I’m feeling more adjusted today. I put Naomi down for her nap, she did the obligatory protesting, but it was not long and she stuck her thumb in her mouth, closed her eyes and gave up. I plugged in my lap top, the sparks flew from the outlet as usual, I’m really getting use to it now, I hardly even noticed.
We’ve been passing the time of day by doing home pre-school. I sing the abc song, twinkle twinkle etc. She just smiles and dances around. We have other things we are working on too. Today she did it, we practiced a lot, but I say ” where’s your nose?” and she smiles and points to her nose! Yeah she’s an awesome student!
Some of the other children here at the hotel being adopted by Americans have chicken pox, diagnosed by our interpreter Nastia. I’m doing what I’m told and keeping her away from them. Maybe later we will go for a walk to the play ground, that’s always interesting.
Craig made it home, I'm having a great time with our new little girl, but I must admit I'm a little jealous, the time will go buy before I know it, and I'll be back to our crazy life at home.I'm telling myself that. Craig, Louie and Scotty...email us soon! and go buy your webcam so I can call you on skype!

She takes 3 baths per day.....

My newest Valentine!

I’ve gone from having culture shock a couple weeks ago, to having a reality check every hour now. Yesterday when my interpreter, said “call me if you need anything, good bye!” I think my mouth dropped, I mean I know this was the plan, but after all the worry, Craig’s paper work, money, blood, sweat and tears..Here I sit in an apartment in Russia, all my dreams came true!!
I taped a calendar to the wall in the kitchen, 14 days from today we take our 8 hour flight to Moscow! I’m counting down the days!
Here is what we are doing for Valentine’s Day, girl bonding time! She tried on my shoes before the sun came up this morning. She wore her Wisconsin girl bib for breakfast. She did some art work. She is a “store bought “baby food eating machine, I tried to take the spoon from her to slow her down, she was going to fight me for it. Why I’m feeding her baby food when she’s almost 2? That’s another story. Do you see my pictures of home behind us? We look at those every couple hours. Sorry I had to put the potty chair one in, she is just so little and she so well trained to sit there, it’s too cute.
Craig’s at the air port in Seoul now, it’s weird not having him here!

Day one with our new daughter

We went to pick her up just before 10am this morning. I brought cloths, a diaper, boots, coat, hat; mittens….the children from Russian orphanages come with nothing. That is unless you ask; we were given a bow, since we admired them so much and an orange plastic toy fox they said she likes.
We met another couple from Grand Rapids, Minnesota, who adopted a little boy from Baby house #1, same as us. Their names are Ken and Cathy. We all went together to pick up our children today. I have not stopped giggling yet, at the scenario Ken shared about his experience in court. Cathy is a Canadian citizen, not US, so she was not allowed in the court room. As with our adoption, they discuss in court that they will make a birth certificate for each child with the adoptive parents as the birth parents (don’t ask me why) Ken said when the people in court all realized that Cathy, because of her citizenship, could not be put down as the birth mother. They all started shuffling papers, and came up with this; Ken is the birth father, birth mother is unknown. That’s great!
We wait for 30-45 minutes for them to bring the children to us. We were unclear what was going on. I now think they were saying good-bye to her. A woman I didn’t recognize brought her to us with an angry face. When we left the building, we passed her room and the door was closed. It must be so hard to take care of this beautiful children then one day say good bye forever. Although they say we are going back for a good bye party, I have not figured out yet what that’s about.
Craig left for Seoul, for the night. Tomorrow he flies from Seoul to LA, then LA to Minneapolis .It was hard to let go of him! Boy, do I wish Naomi and I were with him!!! I miss the boys so much, now all three of them!
Naomi is doing great. She has not cried yet, she has fallen down a few times, but just keeps going. She just runs around smiling all the time. She recognizes me, but she is not clingy or nervous. She seems like she’s having fun exploring. It took me an hour to get her to go to sleep tonight. She seems strong willed, still no crying during this hour, but she was protesting, by throwing a little fit for me.
I’m still amazed by her; I can’t believe she is ours!