Unexpected Miracles

Lights dim, curtains close

2007-03-13T13:18:00.000-07:00

This is a post I have been reluctant to write. I knew this day was coming and I had a plan. Blogging is something that I love to do. Apparently over the last 2 years I have been told that I've (we've) helped so many people. I'm glad that I could share some wisdom, humor and support to those touched by adoption. I think that is what makes this difficult.

We have decided to close this chapter in our lives. Keeping up with 2 blogs is difficult. I love the extra comments our faithful readers leave, but I am spending too much time at the computer and the warmer weather is quickly approaching.

This place, and Adoption Adventure, are all about our story to bring a child into our home. Now that he is here I feel ready to take on that new roll of mama. Sure, I've been a mama for 6 months now, but at some point you go from adoptive mama to just plain ol' mom. This is where I am now.

So why did I pick today to end this chapter? One year ago today we sat in a small purple room in our house and heard news that would forever change our lives. One year ago today we lost Alexander. It felt as if our entire world had come crashing down around us.

One year later I hear the quiet sound of my son sleeping. I see toys scattered about my house. I am wearing a tattered sweatshirt and am lucky that I combed my hair this morning. From my vantage point I see photos of my beautiful little boy plastered on a bulletin board by my desk. Quietly tucked away within those photos is one of a little boy whom we grew to love. A little one who lives in Russia with a forever family. One who never has to wake up in an orphanage again. His little eye peeks out from behind another photo as if to tell me, I remember you and I won't forget you either.

I still grieve for that little boy. I miss him terribly and on occasion I get the feeling of, "I lost my son." I will never forget his little face or his big brown eyes. But I know that he is happy. He has a family to love and care for him. That is what helped me get past his loss.

If it were not for Alexander we would have not made it through the months of waiting. In all likelihood we would have given up. We would have never met Oleg. Today I honor the little boy we lost. I look at the little boy that has become our son and smile. Because of one we have the other. I love them both so much.

I want to thank all of our faithful readers over the last 2 years. Does this mean we will quit blogging. Oh no. You should know better than that. It just means that there will be no more new Unexpected Miracles posts. This isn't to say that the unexpected miracle may never come our way again.

We invite you to come with us on our journey of parenthood. You can find my (Elle's) take on it at Life of Elle (no password required). Or you can follow Derek's ramblings on pointing out people's stupidity at Protesting Stupidity.

If you want more information about Russian adoption, our journey or our transition to parenthood you can always email me at elle@lifeofelle.com

Places to see, things to buy

2007-03-09T16:15:00.000-08:00

Your plane lands in some far east city in Russia and you taxi. And taxi, and taxi until your plane hits the end of the runway. Then it turns around and taxis to the terminal on the same runway you just landed. Welcome to Russia! You may or may not have to ride a meat locker bus to the terminal. Depending on the weather and the airport. You clear customs (avoid the toilets) and you are greeted by someone holding a sign with your name on it. Your driver and translator drop you off at the hotel and you are free until you have to go to a baby home or ministry of education or something. Now what?

Hopefully you have done your research on the city you are in and know that there should be at least one church in the city, and maybe a museum or two. With any luck you found a map on the internet so you can locate your hotel and restaurants that may be within walking distance. Oh and your definition of walking distance will quickly change once you realize that the only restaurant nearby has no English menu.

Of course since this is your child's town you must make the most of your time. If you are lucky like us you will have 3 fun filled trips to get to know the place. Hell by that point the lady at the corner market might know your name.

I wanted to give you a few suggestions on what kind of stuff you might be able to purchase and where to get it.

The top souvenirs from Russia would include Matryosykas, and vodka. If you are smart you brought an extra suitcase for the vodka. Other popular items would include chocolate (yes it is that good), black lacquerware, blue and white china, birch items, weavings, and amber jewelry. These are some of the things Russia is known for. Personally I have 2 very nice matroyska, a small black ware cup, a black ware vodka set, a blue & white teapot, a blue & white butter dish, and a traditional kitchen talisman. I bought all of them at one little vendor in a shopping center. And the matroyska I bought are not your average red & yellow. One is a huge purple one and the other is a little light blue one with 10 dolls inside. Both a little on the pricey side.

Despite all of the little trinkets I brought back, I have a few items that are my favorite. I have mentioned before that I collect crosses. There are crosses in every room of our house. On our trip to meet Alexander I bought a wood cross in the blue church. On our trip to meet Pickle I bought a small gold plastic one (not fancy, but it came from the gold church so fitting). And on our trip to pick up Pickle I wanted a cross from St. Basil's. Unfortunately the gift items inside St. Basil's are outrageously priced. So I didn't get my cross. Instead as we are hurrying out the door to meet our driver I happened to look up. Painted on the inside of one of the archways was an orange orthodox cross. I snapped a quick photo. That is my St. Basil's cross. I have yet to frame it.

What I am getting at is that the traditional souvenir shops are not the only place to buy things. All of the orthodox churches have little gift shops in them. They may not be the biggest and best, but they are little reminders. CS purchased 2 icons. One from the blue church and one from the gold church. I also wished I had bought a bible in Russian. That is one thing I do regret.

Also, be aware that often times there are knock offs even in Russia. Matroyska are sometimes manufactured in China and then sold at super cheap prices in Russian cities. This is something I learned from our friend Galina, who lives in Khabarovsk. She directed us to a shop that had authentic wares. How you tell the difference is beyond me. The only thing I can tell is that all my matroyska have little stamps on the bottom.

I do recommend that you do visit the local Orthodox church. You may not be a God loving kinda person, but it is a big part of Russian culture and history. Many of the churches today have been rebuilt since the fall of the Soviet Union. I know that in Khabarovsk there is only 1 original church left. The Bolsheviks destroyed the others. The 2 big fancy churches are brand new.

Visit the local museums. We went to the Archeology Museum and wished we had visited the others. We strolled through the sports complex, walked along the river and took the time to enjoy ourselves. Don't stay cooped up in your hotel. Don't sit around feeling sorry for yourself because you can't speak the language and you are stuck in "this god forsaken place." Get out, experience your child's culture. You'll thank me for it.

Travel tips from the BTDT

2007-03-08T09:07:00.000-08:00

I was going to write a post about surviving the wait, but you can go back and read the whole blog. The majority of it was written while waiting so you can see how ~~calm and collected~~ crazy I was during the whole ordeal. I only have one thing to say about waiting. It sucks. The time between trips is not easy. The longer the wait goes on the worse it gets. If you are one of the lucky ones that only waited 6 weeks or so between trips you know that at the end you were ready to go get your child. Amplify that by about 1000 and that is what those who waited months on end are feeling. All told we waited 15 months. 9 months for Little A, 2 months between not having Little A and meeting Pickle and 4 months for Pickle. 15 of the longest months of my life.

What I did want to focus on was travel tips. I've given various travel tips here and there, but I thought I'd put them all together. Mostly as a review of what I did, what I should have done and what I shouldn't have done. But I'm lazy so you get them bullet style.

Pack light. I cannot say this enough. You should have seen the Albatross we had between us and Kathou & Paypay. So bad we took photos. We didn't think we were going to be able to fit us and all the luggage in our driver's van. I think Paypay may have lost a limb somewhere in there. You really don't need a clean pair of pants for every day you are there. If you are afraid of smelling bad, don't. No one will notice. Russia has a distinct smell and no one will know that it is actually you.
Don't wear black to the baby home. I have said this over and over again. Caregivers in the baby homes wear white lab coats. (or at least in the 2 we were in) The children see people dressed in white all day long. So someone dressed in black can be frightening. Black seems easy considering I just said to pack light, but bright colors are good.
Learn the Cyrillic alphabet. Russian is a phonetic language. If you learn the letters you can sound out many of the words and signs.
Learn the polite words. Please, thank you, excuse me, hello, good bye. Even if you make a small attempt to speak Russian they are happy. You may butcher it, but at least you are showing respect.
Food in Russia is not that bad. There are some things that are not that appetizing, but for the most part it is pretty good. Pelmeni in a pot is often a stew like thing, as opposed to dumplings in butter. Same Pelmeni, but served differently. Make sure you try the ice cream from the roadside vendors! To. Die. Fo.
When they hand you forms on the airplane to fill out, do it. Don't ask questions, just fill them out. Chances are you will need it and if you don't have it a Russian customs agent will scold you.
Expect your first trip to be the most exhausting week of your life. Time changes, culture shock and the shear emotion of meeting your child for the first time will wear you out.
Take more photos than you think you will ever need. Of your child, of the town, of everything. Sure, when you get home you will think, did I really need 100 photos of the gold church? Yes. This is your child's town.

These are the main things I learned on 3 trips. The biggest bit of advice I can give anyone though is to go with the flow. Don't try to control every last thing. And make sure you take some time to have fun. You are spending time in your child's home country. Take this opportunity to see the sights and take in the culture.

Six Months

2007-03-05T09:03:00.000-08:00

Six months ago today we walked into Baby Home #2 in Khabarovsk, Russia a childless couple. Six months ago today we walked out parents.

Has it been 6 months already? We have had Pickle longer than we waited between trips. Everyone said that after 6 months we would see a definite difference in his behavior. This is somewhat true. He wakes up a different child everyday. He can speak better, he gets more sounds, he knows more letters, he can climb, run, jump and manipulate like a pro. He is on the verge of speaking in full sentences. It is amazing.

He no longer hits and only rarely will throw something directly at us. He still screams, but it isn't for prolonged periods. He no longer perseverates on things. He is learning to ask for help. He is starting to eat solid meat. He loves music, cars and truck, things that go round and round and the outdoors. Pickle has gone from a shy little boy to one who loves to make friends. He is learning to share and does so with abandon.

While he likes to make new friends he still is cautious of strangers. Especially men. He shows the correct amount of concern when he is left with someone. I wouldn't say he is 100% attached, but he is doing well.

Our only hangup is still rocking. 6 months later he still rocks. If I look at his rocking when we first got him compared to now I would say it has improved greatly. It is no longer a distressed freak out. It is now him simply soothing himself. Some nights he rocks for almost an hour. Some nights it is only 10 minutes. Wake up rocking is getting better too. He may only rock for 10 minutes before he calls for us. The simple fact that he calls for us is amazing! That is something he didn't do just a month ago. He has cried in his bed once. That was the most wonderful sound we had ever heard. He had a tummy ache and didn't want to go down for a nap.

I can honestly say that even though we've had our ups and downs parenthood is the best thing that has ever happened to us.

What's in a name

2007-03-01T09:07:00.000-08:00

Wow look at me throwing out 2 posts in 2 days over here. I have some stuff on my mind, can you tell?

You are ready to adopt. You've done your research, you've selected a social worker, and an agency, sent in your paperwork after thinking long and hard about what age of child you would like. Your referral arrives and you consult every known international adoption specialist out there to determine if he is healthy or not. But there is a hang up... his name. He comes with some weird name like Oleg. Who the hell names their kid Oleg? Oh yeah, me.

To some a child's name is like planning your dream wedding. At age 14 most girls have the details of their entire lives planned out. I'm going to get married in St. Patrick's Cathedral, take a carriage ride through Central Park, and have my reception at the Rainbow Room. I'll have 2.5 children and live in a vintage home in old town San Antonio. I'll only shop out of the Crate & Barrel and Pottery Barn catalogs. My son will be named William and my daughter Feather. If you did that we have nothing more to say to each other. I got married at St. Mark Lutheran Church in Lacey, WA, had the reception in the parish hall with no booze and my chariot? My 92' Geo Storm to a hotel in Seattle. I live in a rambler in a suburb of Tacoma and I shop at Target and my son is named Oleg.

To leave our church via the back door you walk through the preschool. There are little coat hooks with apples above each hook. The names of the children are written on the hooks to identify who's hook is who's. If you glance at the names there are no fewer than 3 Madisons, 2 Olivias, 4 Jacobs, and maybe a Kelston, or Jaxin thrown in there. Parents either seem to go with the uber popular or the totally off the wall these days.

We agonize over our child's name, but do we think of the long run. "Tell me about when you were a kid Grandma Brittney." Not really. A name may be cute on a baby or toddler, but as a full grown adult? I have friend with normal run of the mill names. Heather, Danielle, Kathleen, Jessica. Then there are the ones where the clerk at the supermarket looks at their debit card and says "Have a good day Ing... Have a nice day!" Or there is my sis in law. Same name as me, but spelled so it looks like Ly-ee-see. No disrespect to my in-laws or you Lee. Love your name actually. But the poor woman married a Japanese man and now the clerk at the supermarket totally butchers her name. At least it provides some comedic relief for the rest of us.

When it came time to give our son a Russian name we quickly ruled out some. Igor, Evgeniy, Boris, Vadislav... We didn't think about others. Ilya, Artyom, Grigoriy, Roman. All good names, but not ones we would pick. And Gaye... Roman so looks like a Roman! Love his name. Some of the names just seemed a little off the wall. Oleg for example. Again, who names their kid Oh-leg.

So we get this email and the child is named Oleg. When I called CS with the news that we had a referral my first words were, "What do you think of the name Oh-leg?" (notice how I write that out phonetically) "Ole the goalie!" was his reply. Ole the goalie is actually from South Africa and his name is German (Olaf Kolzig.) Anyway, many jokes were made about the name Oleg. Eventually it started to grow on us. Before we met the boy we were sitting at one of the various medical clinics and I asked our translator, Lena, what the diminutive for Oh-leg was. She replied, "Ah-lyeg? Well they are kind of long. Ah-lyeh-zhek or Ah-lyeh-zhka." I couldn't get past how she pronounced our child's name. "Ah-lyeg." not Oh-leg. This totally changed our perception of his name. It now sounded interesting. Thus he ended up Oleg Roy (pronounced Ah-leg Roy) Occasionally it will come out Ah-lyeg or Ah-lyeh-zhka.

The point I am trying to get at is selecting a name for your child is important. Don't rule out the name they come with just because it isn't on your "list." Meet your child. Get to know them a little bit. Oleg looks like an Oleg. He doesn't look like a David or a Peter.

Age Related

2007-02-28T08:37:00.000-08:00

We now return this blog to regularly scheduled adoption related stuff. When we last left on the "Adoption Retrospective" walk down memory lane we discussed social workers. Or moreover, the fact that I am dumb and didn't research the social worker (at all) and got screwed in the process.

I want to switch gears for a moment and backtrack yet again. I posted about evaluating a referral, but I didn't talk about making the choice on age and such. I kinda glazed over that subject. I want to return to it now.

When we made the decision to adopt from Russia part of it was because at the time one could receive a referral as young as 6 months. Yes, yes... I've talked about this before. The hurt of not being able to get pregnant was still fresh and I truly wanted an infant. I believed that I could have a child home before their 1st birthday. Hey... I was on track to do so. Our paperwork stated "up to 18 months as young as possible." I didn't want to go much over 18 months. I was scared. When a child is mobile, can talk and has had 2 years of institutionalized life things get more complicated. I didn't think I was prepared for that. Little A was 10 months at time of referral. If all would have gone as planned he would have been home at 13 months. I was good with this.

After losing Little A we had to redo all of our paperwork. This included a homestudy update. We spoke with the tool and he didn't so much talk us into upping our age range as we informed him this is what we wanted to do. 9 months of waiting gives you a whole new perspective on parenting. We felt confident that we could handle a child about to enter the terrible twos. Of course secretly we still wanted a young child.

We got Pickle's referral and he was 17 months. To say the least we were a little stunned. Within our age range, but older than we anticipated. By the time he came home he was 23 months. Looking back, I wouldn't have it any other way. I love my toddler. I see brand new babies and sure, they're cute, but my toddler has this little personality. He talks to me, he plays, he has this amazing sense of childish wonder. Yes, a younger child would eventually get to this point.

I hear so many stories of people choosing domestic over international because they want a tiny infant. Many of those are people who have gone through years of infertility treatments. I am not saying it is wrong to want a tiny infant. They are cute in their own right. But I encourage some to think about children closer to toddler age.

There are certain first that you will miss out on. First step and all, but there are so many that you will get to experience. First time he tastes ice cream, first dinner as a family, first trip to the zoo, first trip to the beach, first time he calls you mama, first time he falls and comes to you for comfort. Every first is just as amazing as that first step.

I am Jack's raging bile duct

2007-02-23T09:09:00.000-08:00

See how I'm still posting here? Why is that Elle? I'll tell you why. Because Monday some jagoff hacked my website. Then I contacted the hosting company and they gave me some lame ass excuse 12 hours later that it was somehow my fault. So I tried to switch hosting companies. Then the new company was slow in responding to my tech questions too. So I got pissed at them and tried to switch back to the first host company and that didn't work. So I got even more pissed and tried to go back to the second company while investigating a 3rd company. The second company was moderately helpful so I gave them the benefit of the doubt. Then they turned me into this raving lunatic who yells at her husband and child for no apparent reason. You know why? Because I submitted an email question to them and their website clearly says that they have a 30 minute email response guarantee. Now this company must be using a geologic clock or something because their 30 minutes turned into 12 hours. The answer I got didn't even help me. So I submit another email. 8 hours later no response. I try another. 3 hours later no response. Another. 1 hour later no response. I try live chat for the bazillionth time. Guy-whose-first-language-is-not-English tells me he will resubmit my help ticket. Not good enough. He tries to "help" me. I then sit on hold for 40 minutes with no response. 6 hours later I get an email (which is almost 24 hours from the time I submitted the response) that helps me with my email. Not what I wanted.

So a week after the jagoff hacker stole my site I still don't have a site. I have an old hosting company that pissed me off, a new hosting company that pissed me off more, email that finally works and a significantly less amount of hair than I started the week with.

These people obviously don't realize that my website is my way of getting stuff out. I have all of these pent up posts in my head and sure I could write them down in some other program and save them, but where's the fun in that? Don't these people realize that I need validation from the outside world to tell me it is ok to let my child roll around in a pile of Cheerios on the floor and then let him eat them even though I haven't vacuumed this week? Don't they know I have hair issues to be solved and new "mommy" magazines to make fun of. The humanity of it all!

Sure I could spend my time working on graphics for someone's design, but all I can think about is my site and that it is this useless void out there in internetland. I really need to get a life. Someone come and feed me to the wolves just to put me out of my misery.

I miss my blog

2007-02-21T14:02:00.000-08:00

I didn't know how much I would miss my own blog until it was gone. I can't even go and look at my pretty design. It is just gone. All I have is this file sitting on my desktop. It makes me sad. Not to mention I am in serious need of a mental health day. Stress from work, mommyhood and this stupid web stuff is catching up to me and I am either getting sick or working on a world class allergy attack. Either one will leave me mostly incapacitated for the better part of a day or more. I don't have time to be incapacitated. What's worse is the sun is shining. I have half a mind to say forget work, I'm going outside. If people don't get stuff turned into me I am going to do just that. But of course going outside means yard clean-up and my yard wast bin is full. See this vicious cycle I live in? It is maddening I tell you.

I am so tired, but I'll still give you a boy story.

Monday I had to work. So the trusty husband stayed home to watch the child. One would assume that this means actually watching the child. The husband comes to me and says, "I'm going to take a bath." and yes... by publicly saying my husband takes baths is totally to out him on it because frankly since becoming a mom I have not had the luxury of soaking in the tub undisturbed, or soaking in the tub disturbed for that matter. Anyway... I remind him that taking a bath is not watching the child. He informs me that he is going to turn on the electronic babysitter. Great. Now being the "smart" husband he puts it on repeat play. But being the smarter child he knows when the 20 minute program is up. As I sit in my office trying to get some work done I hear bare feet on wood floors. Now I know the husband did not dress the child and that he was wearing footie jammies. Not any more. Here comes my child, sans pjs exclaiming, "nudie! nudie!" And the husband. Still in the bath.

Homeless

2007-02-20T21:19:00.000-08:00

I am homeless. Completely and utterly bloggy homeless. Ok, not so much because I can post here, but still. My precious gem of a website is alas stuck in hosting hell.

The Total Choice monkeys pissed me off so bad I made the husband find me a new hosting company and make the switch. Of course he is just the money guy and the rest is up to me. Fine. I've set up websites before. This shouldn't be a problem. Riiiiight. The stipulation on finding a new host is they couldn't use cPanel as their navigation tool. For those of you that don't know anything about websites this will mean nothing. The reason I didn't want cPanel was that is how the hacker gained access, or so I am assuming. So he finds me a new host, no cPanel, and I start to make the switch. This means switching the Wordpress files, reestablishing my email account, configuring Outlook to read the email and such. All a bunch of busy work. None of which is working.

So don't panic. Life of Elle is not dead and gone for the minute. I have a handy backup sitting on my desktop that should restore the archives and your wonderful comments. If not, I might die a little.

Until I can get everything resolved this little vacation bungalow will have to do the trick. Keep emailing for the password (elle at lifeofelle dot com). I still commit to that. I will return with regularly scheduled bitching and mommy stories sometime soon.

So you're here trying to see what's up

2007-02-19T08:37:00.001-08:00

Did you wake up this morning and check out Life of Elle and say what the hell? Um, yeah... me too. Ok not really me so much. I knew this was coming. I had about a bazillion hits to my site last week that got me thinking that something smelled a bit fishy. So I did what the monkeys at Total Choice said and did a back up. Good thing cause I'll now only lose 1 or 2 posts. I also tried their little trick of changing my password. That was my big clue. Wouldn't work. The good website manager would have contacted support then, but I was busy with that whole being a mom and working thing. So happy Monday to me!

The big problem is that I can't do my usual trick and just slap a redirect on there and send you here. The hacker is evidently getting smarter.* Every time I try it doesn't work. I also don't want to just take the site down. I want Total Choice to see the error of their ways and help me fix it. Isn't that what I PAY for hosting for? Let's see them try to blame this crap on Wordpress this time. So you will have to live with the ugliness for just a little while longer. Trust me this hurts me more than you. In fact it makes me sick to my stomach.

In the mean time I will be working on increasing security, possibly changing hosts and as a temporary measure (once the site is back) is doing the ugly deed of putting up a password. I am so sorry about that. I didn't want to. I wanted to be the usual blog whore that I am and allow everyone to read. I still do.

Here is the deal with the password though... I love all of my readers. Lurkers too. I still want you to read I am just trying to keep out this one sick SOB. So - if you want to continue reading Life of Elle I need to give you the password. I am not going to send out a big email to those I know saying this is the password. Remember the trusty husband deleted my address book. If you want to read you MUST send me an email and tell me you want the password. Once the site is all set up I will leave it unprotected for about a week to give everyone a chance to opt in. Then I will send out the big email letting those who sent me emails know what the secret squirrel code is. Of course there aren't many places I throw that email address out there so here you go: elle at lifeofelle dot com

Now please tell me you love me, delurk if you must. This has been one crappy morning and all this before I finished my first cup of coffee.

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*Since you are here evidently the redirect is working. Yeah! This must mean my morning coffee kicked in. This may be a more than one cup day though.

It was more than that

2007-02-13T11:43:00.000-08:00

I do want to clarify a few things. The list in the previous post is not the complete list of what we spent on our adoption. It did not include things like travel, agency fees, gifts we purchased, fees paid to the US government or a whole host of things that added up to over $44K. These were just a few of the things that I didn't anticipate when first figuring our adoption budget. The extra trip to Russia, short notice for travel, an entire second dossier and the need to do umpteen million background checks caused us to go over our initial "guess" by about $10K. As the process went on we kept getting hit by other things that we didn't anticipate paying for. $15 a page for apostilles was one. I will also clarify that from the second we signed our contract with our agency our fees did not change. They didn't even quiver. That part was written in stone. I won't disclose what our agency fees were as they have changed since we first signed 2 years ago.

But as we finished our taxes I did learn a few things on what is and is not covered in the Adoption Tax Credit. Travel expenses are! In fact just about everything you pay for is. Just make sure you keep receipts of all of it. However, donations you make directly to the orphanage are not tax deductible. The charitable donations tax deduction is for monies you give to charitable organizations originating in the US. Orphanages are not run by the US and therefore do not qualify.

We had 1 expense that ate up the whole $10K credit, but I went through all of our expenses just to see. If you are really curious as to how the money was spent I would be glad to share that, but please email me privately.

Adding it all up

2007-02-11T20:31:00.000-08:00

For the first time in God only knows how many years we are doing our own tax return. For years CS has been an "independent contractor" for his company and I have owned my own business. Last year both of us spent the entire year gainfully employed for someone instead of ourselves. This means one thing... Federal Taxes Withheld!!! We have not had such a luxury in eons. Of course that meant unusually high tax bills and having to pay someone to make sense of the boxes of documents and receipts we collect over the years. Not anymore my friend, not anymore. This year we are going to give it a go and try to do the damn things ourselves.

But there is a catch. A little thing called the Form 8839 Qualified Adoption Expenses. You know the one. Where you get a handy little credit from the government when you adopt a child. The reason you sit in the Social Security office with a hungry 2 year old. Yeah that.

To get to the point of actually doing our taxes and being able to take said credit we had to go about figuring out our adoption expenses. Parts of the adoption are acceptable expenses while some are not. I'm not an accountant, but I'm going to go with the "official expenses" as opposed to those like say.... the really fancy Matroyska or the hockey jersey I bought on Arbat Street. Things like the agency fees, homestudy fees, child Visa medical exams, child Visa, Russian Registration, USCIS fees those kinds of things.

In the process of adding up those expenses I started coming across a ton of receipts from our local post office and our Secretary of State's office. I began realizing that there is a huge chunk of the adoption budget that people don't really consider. Postage. If you are lucky like us and your agency is out of state you will spend more time in your local post office or FedEx store than you ever care to remember. I am also pretty sure that the people at the Secretary of State's office know me, CS and Kathou all by name.

To give you a clue as to some of the over the top things we paid for here is a list:
Apostilles (in WA only, this doesn't include the FL or WI ones we did) - 52 documents at $15 a page = $780
County Fingerprinting - $20
County Background Checks (2x) - $80
State Background Checks - $30
State Fingerprint Checks - $30
Certified copies of Marriage Certificate - $9
And last but not least
Postage - $171.70 (that is just the receipts I could find. This doesn't include the 50 gagillion DHL envelopes we sent.)

Strides in Sleep

2007-02-07T20:17:00.000-08:00

When we first became the parents to Pickle there were countless posts about his sleep issues. Mainly those revolving around rocking. So many that I am sure you became bored and this is why our readership dropped.

Five months later... Pickle is still a rocker. Shocking? Not to me anymore. I have tried every trick in the book and he still rocks. In fact, I can currently hear him rocking if I turn up the baby monitor. I bet at this point you are asking, "if he is still rocking how does this count as strides in sleep?" I'll tell you.

On any given day I try to be as candid as possible about the issues we face with Pickle. The posts may come here or at Life of Elle. We do have our fair share of post institutionalization issues, but for the most part they are minor. Sleep has been our biggest battle.

We became parents to Pickle on September 5th. Our first attempt at putting him to sleep would prove to be more challenging than originally anticipated. At the time I didn't post much about it. We had limited internet access and I didn't have the energy to go into it. On the second attempt to put Pickle to sleep I tried to lay down with him, but he was so disturbed by all the changes he just couldn't lay there. What caused most of my crying is that he would sit up and make a figure 8 rocking motion with his head until he finally was so exhausted that he lay down and continued to rock. There was no way I could hold this child or comfort him to help him fall asleep. I just laid next to him holding his hand and sobbing. This particular behavior went on for about 3 days. We had enough of that so we both laid with him and one or the other held him down until he fell asleep. He was even more disturbed by this and he started screaming. The next morning Suzanne would tell us she knew when it was bed time in our house. It was that loud. Pickle was frightened by sleep. When it was bed time he would get anxious, breath rapidly and get generally freaked out by the whole thing. By the time we left Russia things were getting better.

When we arrived home Pickle slept with us in the bed the first night. We were all so tired that was just easiest. The second night we tried putting him in his bed, but he ended up with us by about 10. The third night he was in his bed the whole night. To put him to bed without rocking both of us had to stay in the room while one kept their hand on him the whole time. At times we would have to hold him down to keep him from rocking. Some afternoons it took me using both hands to hold him down, him screaming and me falling into a blithering puddle on the floor before he would sleep.

We have had countless arguments over the rocking. We have fought more about this than we have over anything the entire length of our marriage. It is disturbing. It makes you feel inadequate as a parent. To hear your child rock for self comfort, to know they are not calling out to you to soothe them. It breaks my heart a little more each night. The worst part is the not crying. Most say just let him cry it out and he'll be fine. That is all well and good, but Pickle has not once cried in his crib. Never. In 5 months. Never ever cried. Not even when he's been sick. I can't say that enough. It seems that no matter how many times I say it there is still someone who does not believe. He does not cry. Not even a whimper. Just rocks.

So to make the strides in sleeping that we have I thought I'd share a few tips that have gotten us to this point.

We started by holding him down and both of us were in the room. This lasted about 2 weeks. I would sit on the floor and CS would put a hand on him. As soon as he removed his had Pickle would rock. I would sob.

We tried putting him in the bed, staying with him until he was sleepy and then leaving the room. He would still rock. I would continue to cry.

We tried only one of us staying in the room until he was asleep. This takes somewhere around an hour once he's in the bed. Not as much rocking, but he eventually started laughing at me.

It was finally suggested to force him into the rocking chair. Up until that point he would refuse to be held and rocked. I did this and after about 3 days or so he was compliant. I rocked him to sleep, but he woke up upon the transfer and then rocked.

I continued the rock to sleep method and eventually this worked... for about a week.

The pediatrician suggested playing some soft music to distract him from the rocking. We bought an iCrib. I thought my problems were solved by this little gem. It worked for 2 weeks. He adapted and started rocking again.

We resorted to the rocking to sleep, but still this took upwards of an hour. My legs were getting a good workout, but it was frustrating.

Then we rocked him until he was sleepy, put him in the bed and sat or laid on the floor until he fell asleep. We were in his room for up to an hour.

The most recent was rocking him until he was mostly sleepy, putting him into the bed and leaving. We'd go down the hall and say, "no rocking" if we heard him doing so. This was the worst thing we could do. The rocking got worse. He started using it as an attention getting measure. He would grunt loudly, rock violently and make us even more frustrated.

This was the point that CS looks at me and says, "I think we need to take him to a specialist." I agreed, but seeing as it was a Friday night the call would have to wait until Monday. Over that weekend we made a trip to the bookstore. I had been told to go back and read the attachment parenting books and see what they said on this subject. I will finally admit that I don't own a single attachment parenting book. There I said it. You think I'm a bad parent now don't you? Anyway, I sat at the bookstore reading the attachment books and the so called "Bibles of adoption" had nothing on this subject. I mean nothing. They said to rock your child. That is the extent of the info they had on the entire subject of rocking. So we started looking at child sleep books. Here is where we found our answers.

Rocking and head banging is normal in children ages 6 months to 4 years. If this behavior progresses beyond the 4th year seek help. Pickle is 2. It also went on to say that these behaviors are common in children who exhibit neurological dysfunctions such as Cerebral Palsy or Autism. However, children with CP or Autism exhibit other symptoms of neurological dysfunction outside of the sleep time routine. Pickle does not. He only rocks. The books went on to reiterate that this behavior is totally normal. They did not indicate this is only a post institutionalization issue. This happens in biological children too. The books say there is nothing we can really do for him at this point other than to just let him rock. Children do this for attention getting purposes in many cases.

For Pickle rocking has been two fold. Attention getting and habit. At this point it is more attention getting. We went through a phase were he jumped about in his bed, threw George, Steve and Elmo out of the bed and carried on. We ignored him and that stopped.

Today, the rocking is getting better. I have been spending a little bit of time each day just cuddling with Pickle. He's not so into this at first, but we play little attachment games and he loves it. Since doing this he only rocks for about 20 minutes each night. This opposed to the 60 or so he did before. The odd phenomenon is that he rocks less when it is just me at night. He rocks longer when CS is home. Odd.

Either way in the past 5 months we are making progress. The rocking is less violent, and sleep time is less disturbing for him. Hopefully we are moving to this stopping all together.

Pickle's Lifebook

2007-02-01T20:16:00.000-08:00

Somehow I posted at Life of Elle that I scrapbook. I wouldn't so much call it scrapbooking as copying ideas out of a magazine and implementing them into my son's album. I call it more of stealing. Well, Debi P found out that I "scrapbook" and asked why I never posted any pictures of my work. Frankly I didn't find it that post worthy. But Debi being the good friend brow beat me into it. So I took photos of all the pages I have done of Pickle's lifebook and put them into a slide show. I also have a small story book for him (that isn't finished.) I took photos of those and you get to see that too.

I will give any PAP out there a little bit of advice though. It may seem tempting to start on the lifebook before you have your child home, but if you ask me this is a bad idea. Granted my time to scrapbook is limited since I am the mother to an energetic 2 year old, but I am glad I waited. I started Alexander's book between trips. I had a few pages done and when we lost his referral I had to pull all of those pages out of the book. It broke my heart. I still have them. They are tucked away in a box of things that have his name on them. I am not saying that everyone will lose their referral, but it is just something to think about. There were all kinds of things that I shouldn't have done; paint his name on the wall, quilt his name into a quilt just to name a few.

Anyway... here you go.

I'll take a side of 'hurry the hell up lady.'

2007-01-30T08:51:00.000-08:00

Lauri had a great post on her paid blog about Livi and eating. Her post got me thinking about Pickle and food issues we have faced since becoming a family. This is one of the areas I had most considered and "prepared" for before bringing him home. Partly this was because of posts Lauri made while they were still in Russia, stories I'd heard from other families and the experience we had while on our trip to meet Alexander.

I'll give you a little background. Alexander was in the baby home across town from the one Pickle was in. However, the care received was just about the same. The orphanages both gave great care to the kids and the facilities were both fantastic. When we visited Alexander we were able to feed him lunch the two days we were there. So we were privy to his groupa. This is not always the case with all orphanages or regions. Alexander was 10 months when we met him so the experience was much different than with Pickle. Sasha was served a substance that looked similar to a runny cream of wheat with a big chunk of meat paste. The smell... I remember it to this day. I was given a giant tablespoon and instructed to feed him. I did like any mom and sat next to him and fed him slowly. The look on his face was like, "um lady, hurry the hell up." I watched the caregiver feed the little boy across the table. (who happened to be my girlfriend Ciarai's little boy) Here is how 2 caregivers can feed 15 children in under 30 minutes.

Caregiver grabs child and dumps him in a seat attached to the table.
Caregiver whips a rag around the child's neck and stands behind the child
Caregiver holds bowl of gruel under the child's chin with bib underneath and shovels the food into child's face with a large table spoon. Child is fed so fast they are almost gaging.
Caregiver then grabs tea cup full of sweetened tea and pours it into child's mouth while child frantically sucks and gulps.
Caregiver wipes the chunks of food off the child's face and whisks him away to the "cleaning room" where they are doused with water and giving a nappy change.
Repeat.

Given this experience I was prepared for a food hoarder. Our facilitators in Khabarovsk did everything they could to get us to the orphanage to see Pickle's meal time first hand. Unfortunately, we never made it in time. We always saw the remnants. On our first trip to meet him the doctor told us he would scream if he was not in the first group fed. So we again expected a food hoarder.

When Pickle first came to live with us in the apartment he was timid. Shell shocked as many call it. He ate what was given and rarely spit anything out. He didn't try to snag the food off of our plates or demand more. (We worked for months to teach him the concept of more.) Eventually he learned that when Mama went into the kitchen it was to prepare food. He would come with me and if the food was not immediately ready he would scream. I finally had to start cooking with the kitchen door closed. I was doused in sweat by the end it got so hot. There were few foods he would not eat, chicken was one. But of course we were feeding him Russian food so he was used to the smells and tastes.

On the flight home he went almost the entire time without eating. He ate the ice cream, some noodles and maybe a cracker or 2. He didn't eat in Moscow except some eggs and yogurt. In Zurich he refused the french fries we gave him. He finally ate fries from McD's upon arrival in the good ol' USA.

Since coming home we have had our fair share of food issues. It began with the refusal to eat any meat. He would spit out everything we gave him. He still didn't demand food. We moved from spitting out food to throwing food. This is where I lost it. 2 1/2 days he went without eating once. I even tried bottle feeding him. I finally resorted to feeding him myself. I did that for 3 weeks and it worked. After the first of the year I started letting him feed himself again. But, I bought the suction cup bowls and plates so I could hold onto the bottom and he had less of a chance of ripping it out of my hand and hucking it at my face. He also just recently started having milk or juice in an open container again. For almost a month and a half it was a sippy cup only. Now we have gotten to the point where he doesn't need me to hold the bowl anymore.

What am I feeding him? He eats what we eat. For dinner we had crab wontons last night. He loves those. He's had white chili, red chili, Moroccan Chicken, Chicken pot pie, and nearly everything we eat.

What we discovered was the meat thing was a texture issue. The food he was served in the orphanage was mashed and had no texture. He didn't have to chew. I give him things like apples and *gasp* carrots, chips, crackers, and other crunchy things to work on the chewing, but I chop the meat. I mix meat in with rice or potatoes and he happily eats it. He loves fried rice, but is less thrilled about potatoes these days. Mac n' Cheese is still a staple. Oatmeal or Cream of Wheat and yogurt are our standby breakfast foods, but he will get scrambled eggs or cottage cheese fritters on occasion.

We are working through food issues. Ours are different than some and not exactly what I expected, but from my observations of orphanage mealtime behavior it helped me know what I might expect. We still have the occasional screams if he asks for food 5 minutes before meal time and we tell him no, but for the most part it is getting better.

Ha Ha Ha

2007-01-21T17:14:00.001-08:00

And you all doubted...

If I could redo one thing...

2007-01-10T19:30:00.000-08:00

As I have stressed in the past the most important part of any international adoption is research. Be informed of what you are getting into; the steps involved, what can go wrong, and the best possible solutions for problems that may arise. The more you know the better your journey will be. Of course a million books, websites and conversations with those who have been there won't prepare you 100%. Take it from me. I know a ton about Russian adoption, but our journey was nearly 2 years long. All of it out of our control.

There is one thing in our adoption process that I could have done better on. Selecting a social worker. I find it only fitting that this should be the "Adoption Retrospective" topic for this week. Last Friday we had our first post-placement visit. Has it been 6 months already? Nope. Only 4. But the report has to be in our agencies hands by Feb 18th and our SW is just that slow. See... I screwed up.

First lets talk about homestudy agencies and placement agencies. A homestudy agency is one that only writes your homestudy. They may also be a placement agency, but may not be yours. Your homestudy agency may or may not even perform adoptions in the country you are adopting from. Such was the case with us. A placement agency is the agency who assists you with the actual adoption; facilitating the referral, travel, and final paperwork.

In our particular instance we selected a placement agency out of our state. With a Russian adoption this is perfectly fine. Not so with other countries. However, it was our responsibility to find our own homestudy agency. AIA does not do homestudies outside of Alaska.

I'll tell you how we went about selecting our social worker. Yes, we selected our social worker and not the homestudy agency. We had basically decided on AIA as our placement agency at that point, but knew we needed to get started right away with the homestudy. I read that homestudies should not be a "get what you pay for" kind of service. Therefore we looked for one with reasonable fees. One evening we were participating in a weekly AIA chat and met Kathou and Paypay. They said they were located in a town about 30 miles south of us. So we asked who their social worker was. They told us. He happened to work with an agency based in our town and they also happened to be the placement agency some friends of ours used for their China adoption. We spoke with the friends who did the China adoption and they loved their agency. They did not use this particular social worker. We were in a hurry to get started so figured that we would give this SW a call. He agreed to come out to our house on January 17, 2005. I assumed that he was coming to give us information. Uh no. He was coming for our first official visit. Thus we started our road to Pickle.

What did I learn? That picking a social worker in this manner is like throwing a dart at the telephone book to find a plumber. I did that once too. Worked out just the same way. Crappy.

I don't want to say too many things about our particular social worker or divulge his name since we are still in need of his services. But let's just say that if you want the complete story you are welcome to email me.

If I could redo one thing in our adoption process it would be the amount of time I spent researching our social worker and homestudy agency. If I had done a little asking about this particular social worker it is likely that I would have been spared a bunch of headache. Since our homestudy agencies social workers are independent contractors I couldn't just call up the agency and say, "hey I want a new SW." Once I paid the man his money I was stuck. I still am.

How does one go about researching a social worker? Yahoo groups. Nearly every state has an international adoption yahoo group. We have one for WA. This social worker's name comes up on occasion and I am one of the first to respond. I have heard great things about other social workers, including the other one that works with our homestudy agency. Lucky me. I would also ask the homestudy agency for references and if they could give you references for families that may have been less than satisfied with their service. Although, it is unlikely that you would get such a reference.

I cannot express how important researching this part of the adoption is. Your social worker is essentially the one to approve you as a parent. If you don't cut it with them you are dead in the water. Also be aware of your family make-up. Do you already have a house full of children. Some are biased against those adding to an already large family. Some are biased regarding religion. Some are biased against race or country you are adopting from. Just be aware. Homestudies are not, and should never be, a get what you pay for service.

About Change

2007-01-02T13:59:00.000-08:00

Thanks for all of your compliments on Pickle. We think he's pretty cute ourselves. Before I get back to the adoption retrospective I thought I would take a moment to address some of your comments and questions.

The block sorter: This is by far this child's favorite toy. It took him about a day to figure out how to complete the entire thing on his own. It took us about 3. Well... There is a diamond and a rhombus. They look very similar. When he is bored or frustrated he will just take the lid off like he did in the video. He can name the octagon and triangle. He doesn't yet know the names of the other shapes yet.

His speech: When we got Pickle his main diagnosis was speech delay. And for a child his age he did, in fact, have a speech delay. He spoke maybe 5 words in Russian. By the time we left Russia he said: all done, apple, ootka, beep-beep, mama, boy, babada, dedu, paka and a host of other sounds that we knew what they were for. He now knows more words than I can count. His latest phrase is "oh my gosh." He also knows, "how are you." but doesn't know the answer. He does not learn language from the television. He learns it from us. We talk to him constantly and read to him constantly.

Sign language: CS's sister started us with sign language. It worked very well to bridge a communication gap. For the longest time Pickle would sign Thank you, but not say it. He does now say it. His other signs include, mama, daddy, apple, share, banana, lion, helicopter, more, all done, happy, please, good, boy, cake, cheese, music, and maybe a few others. We finally got him to sign his name last night. We made it like the sign for cute. For cute you brush a C on your chin. For Pickle you brush and O on your chin.

What truly amazes me is when you watch the slide show below look at the photo of him at Christmas and then the next is his referral photo. It is not the same child at all.

Year in Review

2007-01-01T09:41:00.000-08:00

I've tried for 2 days now to write a meaningful post about what 2006 was like for us. If you really want to know you will have to go back and read all the posts. It started as the worst year of my life and ended as the best. As the saying goes... "A picture is worth a thousand words." So here you go. Our year in review.

I think the ban has been lifted

2006-12-28T13:22:00.000-08:00

If this works you should see the Pickle Speak video below... Again refer to THIS post for the background here.

I bet you were expecting Christmas photos

2006-12-28T09:15:00.000-08:00

I took a moment to finally download all the photos off the camera from Christmas. I looked through them and then proceeded to tell CS that we are the worst parents ever. There are exactly 18 photos of Pickle from Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. 18. How can a new parent take only 18 photos on their child's first Christmas? My wonderful husband then proceeded to inform me that we have tons of video. Oh right!!! We used the video camera instead of the still camera. But of course I am still having the problem with the video to internet thing. I also will admit that I did bust out my film cameras for the event.

I have a nice little digital camera, but my child is like lightening. It is next to impossible to get a 1/2 way decent photo of him. The ones I put up are good because of luck and herculean effort. I do have 2 very nice film cameras. You do remember what film is right. That stuff you have to be careful with that you then take to a developer and they give you real live photos. Yeah those. My manual cameras are much faster and I get some pretty good shots on them. The bad part is they are big. I mean B.I.G! One is a medium format and I swear is the size of a shoebox (ok not that big, but big) So carrying these things around is enough to put my back out. Thus I rarely use them.

So once I get the rest of the photos taken I will shell out the change to get them developed. Then I'll be able to share a few Christmas memories.

Technology is out to get me

2006-12-23T13:19:00.000-08:00

It took us months to get the stinkin' video off the video camera. Not for lack of knowledge, but because Microsoft products secretly have it in for me. Now that we've figured out that little tidbit we have been able to get stuff off the camera. Fantastic! Only problem is now YouTube hates me. I have uploaded that video file a million times and it never shows up. I am beginning to think that it is all technology is out to get me.

I was only trying to spread some holiday joy with a video of my child. Mainly so you can hear his voice and also join the ranks who have wet themselves from laughter. No joke. Think furry red muppet here. And every word a long drawn out string of syllables. Ahhhhhh-llllaaaaayyyy!

Sorry, but you will have to wait until I can figure it out. I could be nice and post more photos, but I'm too lazy for that. Geez, what a grinch.

The Pickle Translator

2006-12-21T13:53:00.000-08:00

Lauri had this great post about translating "Livi." It seems as only mothers can translate what there children are trying to say. I thought I would give you a bit of a Pickle translator.

When asked the question, what is your name? "Ah-lay"
Where are you from? "Wusha"

Cookie=Hookie
Daddy=Da-lee
No= No *with a swift head turn*
Vacuum=Cat poo (really it sounds just like cat poop)
Helicopter=hep-a-cah
Octopus=ah-pah-tus
TV=Tee-lee
Uncle Wayne=Uncle Nain
Santa= *chanting* Santa Santa Santa
and my personal favorite
Lotion=Woah-lon "no honey say loh-shun" "Wooooaaaahhhh-lon"

Just for kicks I thought I would include a video of my son performing for you. Yes this is our post dinner fun. Honey get out the video camera and make the child do tricks! It's great entertainment.
This particular video is not quite up to Drunken Monkie snuff, but it'll do in a pinch. Please laugh at my child's oddly high pitched voice. I do on a regular basis. And just for Margaret and Ann Marie, he is wearing his Pickle shirt and playing with his block sorter. Ann Marie please note that near the end of the video how he kisses the blocks. Yes... he loves this toy that much! (ok, so the video doesn't work right now. I'll fix it later.

And just for kicks, included is the photo that CS takes in the video!

New hotness

2006-12-18T20:35:00.000-08:00

Go on over to Protesting Stupidity and check out the snazzy new blog design that the lovely Elle did for me. Oh yeah, and make a comment while there... show me some love people.

Damn hackers!!!!

2006-12-17T08:55:00.000-08:00

So you ended up here by accident? Well... that's because while I blissfully slept in my comfy bed some jag off hacker went in and hijacked my site. I apologize for the inconvenience. I'll try to fix it when I don't have to run out the door.

Evaluating a Referral

2006-12-12T08:54:00.000-08:00

I know I was going to write about selecting a social worker next, but this particular topic has been on my mind lately. I will get to the social worker bit later. I am also working on being objective about selecting a social worker as opposed to completely bashing mine. I have a few choice words to say to that a-hole.

Some feel that evaluating your referral can be the most difficult part of the adoption process. Whether it be a blind referral or one you receive in advance evaluating a referral is difficult. But if you ask me, leaving your child for an unknown amount of time is more difficult. Of course this is just me. The process is different for everyone.

I have a unique perspective on referral evaluations. I have done it twice. Depending on your agency you may or may not have the opportunity to have your child evaluated in country by an international adoption (IA) doc. You should also have the opportunity to have information received evaluated by an IA doc here in the states. There are so many people out there that believe Russian doctors are poorly trained and don't know what they are talking about. This is not true. Russia is not the US. Doctors are trained differently and no, they are not American docs. This does not mean they don't know what they are talking about. For the most part Russian doctors are very well trained. It is their lack of diagnostic equipment that makes doing their job difficult. Of course Russian doctors are a post unto themselves. This post is about evaluating your referral.

When you submit your paperwork for a referral you put forth certain criteria for a child. The typical request is "as young and healthy as possible." This was on our paperwork. Parents agonize over what medical conditions they are or are not prepared for. For us, we were not equipped to parent a severely special needs child. Plain and simple. This does not make us less of a parent. It makes us honest.

When you receive medical information from the orphanage doctor the list of "diagnosis" may sound scary and intimidating. Perinatal Encephalopathy, syndrome of neural and motor dystonia of hypotonic type, valgus deformity of both feet, hydrocele on right, recovery after toxic infection cardiopathy, 1st degree hypermetropia. What the hell is all of this? These are Pickle's "diagnosis" from the final medical report we received when we adopted him. What does he actually have? Funky feet and he had surgery for a hernia. That is it.

I will tell you our experiences.

When we met Little A there was this instant feeling of "this is our son." He was perfect. Beautiful, healthy, energetic and happy. We were in love. I mean in loooove. The IA doc gave him a huge thumbs up and all we needed was a court date.

Meeting Pickle was a totally different story. We met this sad little boy. He was scared, shy, and would not smile at all. He would sit in my lap and rock. I was not sure at first. Maybe I was still getting over the loss of Little A. I was guarding my heart, but I did not have that "this is our son" feeling. Even after we got home from meeting him I still was guarded. He was not unhealthy. He was just sad. He looked as if he desperately needed a mama and daddy to love him. Given the fact that it took lots of work on our parts to get him to interact with us we accepted the referral. There was no reason to turn him down.

What I am trying to say is that not all families have this instant connection to their children on the first trip. I will honestly tell you it took about 3 weeks of being Pickle's mom before I truly felt like his Mother. Don't get me wrong. I love my son. I can't imagine my life without my son. It just wasn't instant.

There is no doctor in the world that can make the decision for you. There is no one else that can tell you what to do. You have to make the decision yourself, but what I do want to say is don't rule out a child because you didn't feel that instant bond. Look at the child and look deep into yourself. Am I the right parent for this child? There are no guarantees with being a parent. Whether you are a parent to a biological child or an adopted child. Ultimately, you take a huge leap of faith.

Christmas Tree Hunting

2006-12-11T13:11:00.000-08:00

First... I finally got my invite to Blogger Beta. For some reason they did not deem us worthy of the new version until now. And lemme tell you it takes a little bit to get everything changed around when you have 4 blogger blogs. Now that the change has occurred I will let you know how I like it. The good news is my custom templates were compatible with the new version. At least with Mozilla. If they don't work right with IE too bad for you. Step into the here and now and get rid of IE. I force you because I care.

So in honor of the new version I will give you some photos from our annual tree hunt. I also thought I'd throw in a few photos of my Christmas decorating handy work. When we first bought our house one of our neighbors came over at Christmastime and saw the decorations. She said, "Someone's been watching a bit of Trading Spaces." This is so far from the truth it is laughable! I hate that show. My Christmas decorations looks nice because I care. My decorations have matched since I was in college. For a while everything was burgundy and navy. When we got married I switched to blue and silver. When we bought our house everything changed to Red and Gold. I will say I don't theme the tree though. Our ornaments are all ones we have purchase or made or were given to us as gifts over the years. I didn't put any glass balls on this year. I wanted it to be simple. There are only 400 or 500 lights on. The most was 900 one year. Yeah... you had to wear sunglasses in our house. And no... we don't have a tree topper. We had a glass finial, but it broke a few years ago. There is a Patricia Breen one I want, but CS won't let me pay the price for it.

I love Christmas. I love the decorations. I love making my home look festive. I love the reason for the season!

So to answer questions that may come up... Yes. We kill an innocent tree every year. Yes. I painted that huge mural in my family room. 3 years later it is still not finished. It measures 5' wide by 8' tall and is of Frank Lloyd Wright's Tree of Life. And yes. That is a bottle of Jameson on the counter behind my son. Wanna make something of it?

Obligatory Pickle Photos

2006-11-29T08:54:00.000-08:00

Yes yes I know I have been slacking. But really this isn't for a lack of trying. I have been trying for 2 days to post photos of Pickle, but somehow I keep getting waylayed by a 2 year old. So here you go...

How to select an agency

2006-11-18T09:29:00.000-08:00

With all of my research tools in hand I began the hunt for an agency. I read agency site after agency site after agency site. I sent email requests for further information from those that I thought would work for us. I scoured internet message boards for those that had impeccable reputations. I sent inquiries to some of the bigger agencies. I received packet in the mail. Some were very simple. A few bits of information about the agency, a sample fee schedule. One agency even sent us this very professional packet with a DVD in it and everything. Slowly but surely we began to rule them out.

In the backs of our minds was this thing called accreditation. Sounded fancy and important. Little did we know how much of an impact this little word would make on our lives.

Fancy packet agency was Christian, but were not accredited.
Big Agency #1 had the highest fees out there.
Big agency #2 required families to fly to Pittsburgh to be interviewed before they would be accepted.
Big Agency #3 had a large application fee before ever being accepted.
Big Agency #4 never really told us what their fees were.
Local Agency #1 didn't do homestudies for our area
Local Agency #2 had a bad rep on the boards
We attended an info seminar for Local Agency #3. The lady who ran the seminar was new to the agency and didn't know anything about international adoption let alone Russia. She kept trying to push US foster care adoption. We walked out thinking we knew more about Russian adoption than the agency lady.

Then there was small agency #1. They were mentioned over and over on various message boards. There was never a negative remark about them. I used the contact form at Adopting from Russia and inquired about this agency. I got a nice reply from a few happy clients. The sung the praises of this agency. So I sent an inquiry to the agency. I asked for an info packet. The email I received back stated that they didn't send out info packets, but here were the answers to some of our questions. The contact invited us to join their weekly chat to talk with other families in the process. We made a date for that Thursday to see what this chat was all about. We still have a regular date every Thursday night a 6:00pm.

We were impressed with this agency. Their fees were reasonable, the director was nice through email, they were accredited, they only worked in Russia, they had an impeccable reputation, and what's more... they worked in Khabarovsk.

Any one who has read our story from the beginning knows that we have friends in Khabarovsk. CS's mom (and I) did some work with an organization called "To Russia with Love." They worked to send medical supplies to Khabarovsk post soviet. They did a type of exchange program with Doctors, business women and children's choir. Representatives from Khabarovsk came here for conferences to learn about the US style of business, practicing medicine and sharing culture. It is a part of my life I will never forget. Through that CS's mom hosted a doctor, a music director and became friends with the Russian woman who ran this organization. So to hear that we could be possibly be adopting our child from Khabarovsk was simply amazing to us.

CS and I scheduled a conference call with the agency director. She has a very thick Russian accent and for someone who is hard of hearing (me) she was difficult to understand. However, we got the gist that Russian adoption was not easy. She made that point very clear. Despite this we jumped in. We asked that she send us the formal application and once that was approved we signed the contract.

The agency we selected: Alaska International Adoptions. To this day we stand by our decision. We would not trust the process to anyone else. They are amazing!

What criteria did we use to select our agency?

Accreditation. This agency is directly accredited with the Russian government. No umbrellas
Upfront on costs. Olga outlined the fees and said they will not change once we signed our contract. They never did despite the fact that we had to make 3 trips.
Reasonable costs. Russian adoption is expensive. Very Very Very expensive. Our final adoption cost was close to $42K +. But remember we traveled to Russia 3 times. The 3rd trip tacked on close to $10K (with airfare, visas, hotel, food, and additional paperwork) The agency fees themselves were reasonable or on par with many of the other agencies
No huge upfront costs. We didn't pay any big money until we were back from trip 1.
Spotless reputation. AIA was the only agency out there we could find that didn't have a single negative comment.
Honesty. From day 1 Olga was honest with us. She told us it would be hard. She didn't lie. We trusted her with the life of our child. We have her to thank for the life of our child.

Up next: Live and Learn... the hunt for a social worker.

Go Buy Some Chocolate

2006-11-13T13:14:00.000-08:00

I'll get to your questions and on with our adoption story in a minute. Right now we would like your help. Go on over to Sweet Hope and buy some chocolate.

While we were quickly realizing that international adoption was going to be expensive we were also realizing that we didn't have the money to complete the process. We researched way that people finance their adoptions. We found everything from simply saving for years, refinancing their home, 401K loans, fundraisers and grants. I will get to a full chapter on what we did, but for now I want to focus on grants.

This was another portion of my research. I hunted all over the internet trying to find grant organizations that we could apply to. THIS was the most comprehensive list I could find. It has nearly every grant and loan organization out there trying to help people finance their adoptions. In recent months the list has been updated and now has little notes that say if they are, what I will call, discriminatory. By this, I mean they are for people adopting through a certain agency, from a certain country, adopting children with special needs, or are a certain type of Christian. Out of this list of 50 or more grants CS and I qualified for 6. Six. That is it. We didn't use a Christian agency, we are not what you would call "born again" Christians, we felt we could not parent a special needs child and we were adopting from Russia and we live in Washington state. Of that list of 50, and of the 6 we qualified for (we applied to all of them) we received one grant. And it was a discriminatory grant. For Washington State residents only. We will be eternally grateful to IBSEN Adoption Network for their generosity.

As I was doing my research I got angrier and angrier. How could so called Christian organizations be so discriminatory? I understand it is to keep people honest and mainly because they just can't give money to everyone, but why on earth did I have to write my "salvation" story? As Lutherans we believe by grace we are saved through faith. It says it right there in the BIBLE!!! "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God" Ephesians 2:8. See! IT IS THE GIFT OF GOD!!! Why do I have to be broken down and born again? I don't get it.

CS and I made a deal. When we were finished with our adoption we would work to start a foundation that was non-discriminatory. People could apply without regard to race, nationality, or religious affiliation. Of course starting a foundation takes time and money. Neither of which we have right now. But we are willing to work.

We also held a fundraiser at Valentine's Day selling handmade truffles. I think we sold somewhere around 28-30 boxes of chocolates. I got email after email telling me how good they were. I have made these chocolates for years and get the same compliments. I also got emails asking me to sell them again. I can only stand making them so many times a year. They are labor intensive and they fill our refrigerators to the brim. (We make 6 varieties at a time)

We felt the time was right to start making chocolates again. They make fantastic gifts for the holidays or a little indulgence for yourself. I thought about just pocketing the money. My paypal account is a little slim after purchasing some upgrades to my computer and that cuts into my online shopping a little. But, seeing as it is the season of giving I felt it was more appropriate to follow through on the commitment we made when we started this journey. We want to help other people.

So we are inviting you, dear readers, to help families in need. This holiday season give the gift of Sweet Hope. Purchase some chocolates for someone and help raise money for an adoptive family. 50% of the proceeds of candy sales are going to be set aside to give as a grant to an adoptive family. The remaining 50% will go to purchase supplies for Simple Wishes Quilts and to buy graphics for adoptive family's blogs. (I give those away for free) You can also apply for Sweet Hope Financial assistance by visiting HERE. The deadline for chocolate orders is December 1st. We will be shipping chocolates on December 11th. The deadline for financial assistance is December 11th. We will be informing Grant Recipients on Christmas Day.

How I went about researching Russian adoption

2006-11-07T20:45:00.000-08:00

One of the first things CS and I did when we decided to adopt was to go buy a journal. We had grand intentions of journaling everything about our journey. We didn't know what the heck a blog was at the time. We agonized over a dumb journal. Eventually the journal would become a catch-all for my little tid-bits of stuff. I have our timeline written down, email addresses of people, quotes and verses I have found, and sure... a few journal entries thrown in there. I used it as a resource for things I found on the internet. I am pro at writing things down on little scraps of paper and losing them in the abyss of my desk.

I am (was) a stay at home wife. I worked when the mood suited me or someone called asking me to design them a garden. Mostly I researched. I spent nearly every free waking hour researching Russian adoption. I would type in Russian adoption, Russian orphans, international adoption, adoption grants, anything adoption related into google to find as much as I could. And would you believe it I never found a single blog. I did find all kinds of websites with info. I found FRUA, Adopting from Russia, lots of Yahoo groups, APRuss message boards (of which I don't suggest), websites by different families. Elizabeth Case is one in particular. If you haven't read her site do it. She explains (in graphic detail) exactly why you do your research about the country you want to adopt from AND the agency you select. I also found Karen's Adoption Links. This is linked on our side bar for a good reason. She has tons of info out there.

I was a reading fool. CS was too. He spent countless hours reading also. He would be at work and I at home and I would get an instant message with a link attached. This was my cue to read that page. I would do the same to him. (We still IM each other all day long) We wanted to be the most informed parents we could be.

I read info on the state of Russian orphanages, the life expectancy of Russian orphans, info about the process and what it entailed. It was only after we had exhausted nearly every resource on the internet that we finally decided that yes... Russia was for us. Once that decision was made I ordered the "Bible." It is the only book I suggest for people going through a Russian adoption. It is The Russian Adoption Handbook, by John McLean. I have read it over and over and over. I read it cover to cover in about a week after receiving it. And it is a pretty hefty book.

One of the things that I did as an ongoing research measure was to read about what could go wrong with a Russian adoption. What are the things that we need to be aware of and where could we avoid these pitfalls. We learned that you could lose a referral (happened to us), you could be asked for countless bits of paperwork (happened to us), you could have to complete an 8 doctor medical form (happened to us) and we learned that there could be unexplained delays (also happened to us).

At the time we started our adoption research things were moving fine in the world of Russian adoption. Unfortunately things were about to take a very wrong turn. In late 2004/ early 2005 the Russian government slowed things down to do yet another rework of the system. This is when they decided that orphans must remain on the databank for a longer period of time. Immediately this upped the age of our child. We were still hoping for a baby.

I spent hours reading posts on FRUA about this whole delay thing. What did it mean? Would it cause us any problems. This is when posts about reaccreditation started cropping up. At the time I didn't think anything of it. The handbook said that reaccreditation wasn't really that important. Of course they didn't say anything terribly negative about AMREX either and we all know how that worked out.

So set with our decision to adopt an orphan from Russia and knowing full well what we were getting ourselves into we started the hunt for an agency.

To adopt or not to adopt

2006-11-04T23:00:00.000-08:00

Adoption: a retrospective; part 1

Obviously adoption has always been a part of my life. Domestic and international. I am the domestic and I have quite a few second? cousins that are international adoptees from Vietnam, Korea and I think Cambodia. So the thought of adoption, even international adoption, was never out of the realm of possibility for us.

I do believe at some point I have posted our "infertility" story, but as usual I am too tired and mostly too lazy to go back and find it. So since it happens to be a part of the beginning of our adoption story you get to hear it again.

Somewhere around our 7th wedding anniversary we decided we wanted to start a family. This little tid-bit of information was kept to ourselves. We thought we wanted to be one of those couples that says, "surprise! We're pregnant!" Good in theory. The underlying part was that we didn't want the upcoming months to be filled with, "well... any news yet?" Oh how little did we know what would be in store for us in the next 3 years.

I made an appointment for my annual exam. This is a new doc to me since we now live in a new city. He was recommended by a friend who I trust. He delivered her 2 kids and she really likes him. We'll call him Dr. Uncaring. I proudly proclaim that we want to have a baby. His reply is that 80% of couples get pregnant in the first 12 months. OK. Off I go with a clean bill of health and the doc's "blessing" to get pregnant.

12 months later... nothing. Not even close. Although, I do think there were a few miscarriages in there. So back to Dr. Uncaring. Now he tells me that 90% of couples get pregnant in the first 18 months. I inform him that I am in alot of pain during my cycle. Pain not during my cycle and a whole host of other problems with me. He brushes them off and says, "well if you'd like to get your husband tested that would be great. Otherwise what you are describing for yourself sounds like endometriosis and we would do a laproscopic surgery to determine that. Here are some pamphlets. Let me know what you would like to do."

WTF? Surgery as a first option? Uh no. I come home to CS in tears. I place the sample cup he gave me in a drawer and we decide that we'll try 6 more months before starting any testing.

Sometime around October 2004 I was starting to get really discouraged. This whole TTC thing was really not working. We had discussed adoption in the past. I am so anti-doctor that I did not want to subject myself to being a lab experiment with tests, surgeries and medications. On a whim I did a google search for international adoption.

I came up with a fairly well known adoption agency. I started looking at their programs: China-too young, Vietnam-closed, Ukraine-too long of an in-country stay, Russia-...

At that moment it was like someone shoved me in the back and said, "I gave you your child. I put him in Russia." I knew at that moment where our path to parenthood would take us. Little did I know that it would take so long.

Up next... researching Russia. Is this for real?

Halloween fun

2006-11-01T18:32:00.000-08:00

I decided to go back and read the post I wrote from October 31st last year. October was a horrible month for us. We hadn't been to see Sasha in 5 months and it looked as if there was no hope. This was the point in which we asked the question, "should we switch agencies?" That was a very little known fact about us. I remember sitting at our church for the annual Halloween party thinking that my child would be home then. Little did I know what plans were in stall for us.

This year was a little different. We had a subdued afternoon yesterday to prepare ourselves for the pandemonium that is our church halloween party.

For those of you who were wondering what costume I selected for Pickle it was the turtle. I can't remember if I ever said. So without further ado... here are our Halloween photos.

Adoption: a retrospective

2006-10-31T13:58:00.000-08:00

So this is supposed to be an adoption blog. Unfortunately, maintaing two blogs eats at my 1 hour of free time each day. Thus the lack of posts here. And no. you don't get photos today. Sorry. Check back later this week for some Halloween photos.

Over the past 2 years I have learned a ton about myself, my husband and my marriage. I have learned the art of patience. I have learned to lean on my spouse and my friends when I need help. And I have nearly learned to ask for help. Still not quite there yet.

But I learned the most about adoption. The process, the heartache, the joy and the friendships you can make by joining this wonderful community.

Would we do it again?
I still can't answer that one yet. Some days it is yes. Some days it is yes, but not from Russia. Some days it is no way in hell.

What I would like to do here is to give families starting the process or new to the process the completed family point of view. How we went about doing things and what we would do differently. I want to start from the begining. Look for an upcoming post about making the decision to adopt.

Our weekends

2006-10-24T14:07:00.000-07:00

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I was going through some withdrawls. I accidently left my camera at CS's parents house. AHHHH!!! Me without my camera is just... well like running out of 3 buck chuck.

So to make up for it here are a bunch of photos for you.At the Apple Festival in Portland

Look Ma! I fit in the puppet theater!

So does Steve!

Pumpkin Patch

Oh... look at the beep-beep

We interrupt this blog for some wonderful, exciting, super, fantastic news

2006-10-22T21:45:00.000-07:00

You have heard me post repeatedly about Candy and Doug. They are the couple we traveled with on our trip to meet Little A. They are a fantastic couple whom we got to know quite well. Candy was right there with us during the long wait. She and I commiserated on the phone and I am proud to call her my friend.

Candy & Doug's adoption process took worlds crappiest turn this summer, but that is her story to tell. Let me just say it would break your heart. Anyway... despite the crappiness there is a beautiful silver lining to their story. The received referrals to 2 precious gifts from God in July. They have been waiting for their court date since then. Tonight they received the news our agency family has been waiting months for.

COURT DATE NOVEMBER 15TH!!!!!

Please go over and give her a huge congratulations!!!!

I fell off the edge of the earth.

2006-10-18T18:38:00.000-07:00

I bet that is what you guys are thinking at about this moment. Seeing as it has been... I can't figure out how long since I lost posted. And no... I don't have new photos to show you. Well I do, but I am too lazy and tired to post them.

Life in our house has been interesting. We have a growing boy who would like nothing more than to eat bananas all day. He would be happy if his diet consisted of yogurt and bananas with an occasional cookie thrown in.

Pickle and I did have a date on Monday morning though. I was supposed to meet a congregation member at one of our local coffee establishments, but much like her usual self she didn't show up. So I ordered my coffee, Pickle an OJ and we decided to split a cookie. There I go again with the cookies. But this wasn't just any ordinary cookie. This was an Pink Cookie! THE pink cookie.

Now there is a story behind the pink cookies. If that link takes you to the Mostly Muffins home page click on the link that says "Original Pink." It will take you to the story behind the Pink Cookie. Take special note in the story about the fact that the bakery was sold in 1996. CS and I got married in 1996. In 95-96 we lived in the City of Subdued Excitement (where Suzanne lives.) There I had a college roommate from Poland. She was dating a guy we refer to as Drug. Drug worked at Mostly Muffins. The thing Drug liked about working there is their government allotted smoke break was a little more "fun." Hence the name Drug. Hmmmm... a pot head working at a bakery. No wonder those cookies are so damn good! Anyway, College roommate moves out, but comes back to visit another term. We ask about Drug and she says he quit because there is a new owner at the bakery and the new owner won't let them smoke during their breaks.

Now there is no correlation between me eating the cookie and the pot. I want to make that crystal clear. I just hadn't had a pink cookie in forever and seeing one made me think of this story.

I promise next time there will be photos.

Just because my kid is so friggin cute!

2006-10-12T19:06:00.000-07:00

You will notice that photos of Pickle show up here, but not over at Life of Elle. It is a pain in the butt to post photos over there. I have to resize them and that just requires more work than I am willing to put forth. Man I have better things to do like play puzzle*.

The trick becomes what to do during our weekly agency chat. Call me a fool, but I went through hell with these people and they are like family. I still want to participate. Pickle is pretty well entertained in my office, but he always wants to sit on my lap. All well and good, but not so much when you want to type. So CS was here with me and busted out the camera. Mainly because, well... my kid is so friggin cute. So I give you 30 minutes** (less for you, but it was for us) of Pickle entertainment.

Ol' School Fireman

The sign says it all

Pickle from CS's point of view

I don't know about you, but that is one blog worthy photo!

You wonder why I love these two so much? They are GORGEOUS!!!

-------------------------------
* send more puzzles. the 5 we have are getting boring.

** these were not 30 tantrum free minutes I might add.

More proof my son is a genius!

2006-10-09T13:28:00.000-07:00

See what happens when I stop posting so much... you all stop commenting. I appreciate the over abundance I get at Life of Elle so keep them coming.

Every parent thinks their child is the most intelligent child they have ever seen. Every new word propells them closer and closer to college level reading at age 5. One thing CS and I thought is that if we ever had a biological child the world better watch out! We both have way above average IQs, I am highly creative and CS is highly analytical. Of course we all know that not everthing is in the genes. I am so much like my mother it is scary and I don't share a single nano-whatever of DNA with her. Imagine our suprise when we discover that we are not unlike other parents in thinking that our son was also a boy genius. I give you a photo montage of proof that my son is in fact a genius.

My son learning the intricacies of a Native Russian Longboat.

Macaroni art. Enough said.

Learning about the various tropical plants found within a local conservatory.

Reading the Wall Street Journal. Yes... the Wall Street Journal.

And further proof that our son is in fact a genius... I found him reading in the chair this afternoon. And if you must know that is Wine Spectator. Good Boy!!!

Search Hits

2006-10-06T15:36:00.000-07:00

I haven't done this yet, and I might be asking for another egging for posting something other than a Pickle story. If you want Pickle stories I am telling you people go on over to Life of Elle and read them there. Today's gripping epic is one of sleep deprivation and seemingly sane women losing it over a nap.

So I have been collecting a list of my search engine hits brought to me through my secret squirrel stat counter. And nooooo... I am not going to tell you how I got the secret squirrel. Some of you have them and if you don't you need to do what I did and scour the internet for it.

These searches have been for Unexpected Miracles and Life of Elle. I am just too lazy and tired to write two posts.

Itch on face and everywhere: I am truly sorry that you are having the same itchy everywhere issues that I deal with every day. I have solved my itchy skin issue by using vegetable based soap that can be purchased through Oregon Rain Soap. Yes... you too can smell like a hippy.
Captain Underpants: No I am telling you it is Captain Smartypants now with his trusty sidekick Lieutenant Piss and Moan

Libman newest mops: If you don't currently own a Libman Wonder Mop get off your butt and go purchase one. It is the best mop you will ever own!

skin care + lotion face + fedex international + shop: Wow that's specific. See the answer to the skin issue above. Damn soap manufacturers using animal by-products... it's making the whole world itchy!

Kathou & Paypay: I really hope this was Kathou's mom. It really creeped the both of us out to know someone was searching for that exact combination of names.

"me with *glasses: it just isn't a pretty site people. Although I do sport a fancy pair of Burberrys now

rednecks: really?

and my all time favorite...
Pee on time: I feel for you person with this issue. I highly recommend seeking professional help. (I have no link for that one)

I will also say that I am the #1 google hit for Unexpected Miracles and Life of Elle!!! I made the big time baby!

Mom is great...

2006-10-04T20:08:00.000-07:00

She lets me make chocolate cake.

First of all thanks to Jen for her super fantastic awesome cool hockey gear for Pickle. We all know how much I love hockey and by god my boy is gonna catch the fever. None of that sissy soccer crap for us.

Since today is the start of the hockey season I thought I would share a few photos for you. Yes, I am keenly aware that I am talking about chocolate cake and hockey here and at Life of Elle, but hey... I love these 2 things so deal with it. Otherwise you get me going on and on about the fact that Lost starts tonight and I have gone all summer without my Lost fix. And trust me Lost in Russian (yes I watched it in Russian) is just not the same.

Isn't this kid going to make a rockin' goalie??? and yes I am aware that my child has perpetual bed head. (please note the sleeping cat saying thank god that child is leaving me alone for 2 seconds)

One more, just because I thing this photo is too cute.

See mom is great!!! She lets ME make the cake. (I would like to say that my child is a genius and drew that picture on the fridge, but alas it was done my my niece B)

And damn does it taste good.

Steve the Cat

2006-10-02T09:12:00.000-07:00

One thing that a new child collects are stuffed animals. Have you noticed this? Everyone and their dog sends you a stuffed animal, you buy them, people meet you at the airport with them. I treasure every last one my son has. Every one has some little story behind it. Pickle has Hockey Bear, Curious George, a G-Raff beannie baby from his Auntie G, even a Sleepless in Seattle bear from his Babada that was his first gift upon arriving in America. We took the first item we ever bought for our soon-to-be-child with us to Russia. And yes... it was a stuffed animal. Did he play with it? No.

Pickle doesn't want any of the tons of stuffed animals that he owns. Instead my boy finds Steve. Steve the Cat is a stuffed cat I made out of upholstery fabric samples. He is this funky plaid silky fabric with a corduroy stomach. It is just about the scariest thing you have ever seen. Pickle loves it. He carries Steve around, gives him hugs and kisses, he even waves Steve's arm and says bye-bye. It is just about the funniest thing you have ever seen. I have video of Pickle dancing in the living room with Steve. Forget the Lovey man... my boy has scary Steve the Cat.

In other Pickle news he is learning English by leaps and bounds. His new words are apple, bye-bye, all better, and yes... hockey. He is learning on average 2 new words a day. This morning we were all laying in the bed and Pickle rolls over and points to CS and says "daddy." CS loved that. But for the most part Pickle refers to his father as Mama. We're getting there.

1st doctor's visit

2006-09-28T14:13:00.000-07:00

We took Pickle to the pediatrician for the first time today. Wow what an adventure. We decided on speaking with his pediatrician prior to making the jump to the IA clinic. Pickle is in good health and we didn't want to subject him to all of those tests and us to the cost if it wasn't truly needed.

Dr. H was awesome. Very friendly and handled our little man well. Pickle didn't scream like he did with the dumbass doc in Moscow. He was cautious, but behaved nicely. Of course Dr. H was running late so the appointment worked its way into lunch time. Ritz crackers were not holding Mr. Hungry over. At latest measurement Pickle weighs 22 pounds. Still small for his age, but we suspect he will grow like a weed.

Pickle also had a few updates to his vaccinations this morning. Holy crap people. As a mother that is just about the hardest thing ever to watch. CS held him while I tried my best to comfort him in Russian. Man alive did that kid scream. My poor baby. Had to get 4 shots. Good news is so far it hasn't made him feel ill at all. With any luck he will take it easy and sleep for more than an hour this afternoon.

I have also made a mommy mistake. Pickle and I got so busy gardening yesterday that we both forgot his afternoon snack. Well... it was more like I forgot and Pickle reminded me by standing at the front door looking in saying "Ban, Ban." Which is Pickle for banana. Oops. So he had 1/2 a banana for snack, but it was too close to dinner to give him too much more. Here is what happens when you forget to feed our boy an afternoon snack. He effectively cleaned out the drawer with all of his dishes and sat on the kitchen floor pretending to eat and saying, "num-num." Hint hint mama... kick it into gear with the dinner would ya?

This afternoon my boy found Sesame Street. I tell you the boy is a genius. I was fixing lunch for CS and me and I was watching my afternoon guilty pleasure of a soap opera when I heard something that sounded distinctly like Elmo. Yep... somehow Pickle figured out how to turn the channel to PBS. Don't know how he did it, but he did. Smart kid. Yeah that is my boy lounging about learning how to count.

Everything in Mashed Potatoes tastes better

2006-09-26T14:11:00.000-07:00

We have discovered the secret to getting Pickle to try new things. Coat it in mashed potatoes. Chicken and mashed potatoes... a hit! Throw in some cooked carrots and we have gourmet people. Damn I am an awesome mom. It only took me 4 weeks to figure this little gem out. We have eaten 5 lbs of potatoes in 1 week. CS and I don't eat 5 potatoes in a month! Good thing I like mashed potatoes.

Also for your viewing pleasure is a photo of my little fireman joe. Nooooo you don't get the bathtub photo, but this one is better.

Pickle has this fascination with telephones. We aren't quite sure where he picked this up. We never talked on the phone in Russia and hardly do here either. I was talking to my girlfriend Danielle the other night on the phone and Pickle grabs the phone from me and runs away. He really wants to talk too. So we gave him a DVD player remote to play with until we could get him his own phone. I tried looking for one at the store today, but didn't like any of the ones I saw. They all make noise and he has enough noisy toys right now. Well leave it to Captain Smartypants to find a solution. He found an old cell phone of ours and gave that to him. The boy loves it!! Once I get my new cell phone he can have my flip phone and that will be like gold to him!!

We visited our church for the first time yesterday and he thought that was pretty fun. He was able to meet some of my co-workers and one of our pastors. He loved the sanctuary. It is covered in stained glass and very colorful. Hopefully we will be able to make it to church this Sunday. I am just not sure if he will be able to sit still and be quiet for an hour. I will bring the trusty crayons and color book and other quiet busy activities, but we'll see. Once we are home for a while and really settled we will be able to start Babies Music class. That is on Tuesday nights at 5:15. He loves music and instruments so it should be fun.

Full of Adventure

2006-09-24T13:20:00.000-07:00

There are lots of firsts going on in the Pickle household. We took our first trip to Target, the grocery store and even CompUSA. (I needed photo paper) Pickle is also sleeping at nap time and all through the night in his crib. Hallelujah!!!

Last night Pickle received his first haircut in the US. I won't say it was his first haircut ever since he had a few in Russia. He was a bit unhappy with me during the experience. Yes... I was brave and cut my son's hair myself. I used to cut CS's hair when we lived in Kansas and were poor. Thus I own a clippers. I must say my haircut job looks mighty smart. It was basically a trim. Poor kid's hair was hanging over his ears and in his eyes.

I also broke out the fireman bath kit that I bought eons ago. It has a sponge, wash mitt, fire extinguisher squirter thing, 2 kinds of bubble bath and... a fireman hat. You know the person that came up with this thing was as cruel of a parent as me. You know bath time with your son wearing a fireman hat is just an invitation for photos. I know you would all love to see those, but I just have this thing about posting that type of photo on the internet. I am trying to be cautious of my wording here lest I get all kinds of weird hits on my blog. Let's just say the photos are priceless and will come in quite handy when Pickle is oh say... 16 and going on his first date. See, I told you I was a cruel mom.

The other first was his first trip to his new sandbox. Babada and Dedu made Pickle a makeshift sandbox to tide him over until next spring. It really is just a kiddie pool filled with play sand, but he loves it. He got a beach set from his great-grandma at my shower and he decided to shovel the sand up onto himself. Quite humorous. By the time he was done he had sand from head to toe.

Pickle is also quite pro at getting into the things mommy really doesn't want him to play with. He does it covertly also. He will go into another room and be very quiet. Usually I think he is being an angel child and playing nicely (more the fool me.) When in reality he is doing things like trying to drink out of CS's water glass and spilling it on CS's night stand. Or he is reaching the little bars of chocolate that I thought were far enough back, opening them up and eating them. Yes, my son stole chocolate. He has never had chocolate and he gnawed about a 1/2" off of a bar this morning. Yeah... nap time was fun this afternoon.

So life is full of interesting stories around here. Sorry there was no post yesterday. I figure most of you don't read on the weekends anyway. I did go back and add photos to some of my posts from Russia. Don't comment on those. I am too lazy to go back and see if there are additional comments. I am also working on moving my parenting stories over to Life of Elle. If you see posts here becoming infrequent check there. Unexpected Miracles is mostly about the adoption and the journey there. Since the adoption is finished I wanted to begin concluding this act of our journey.

On another topic

2006-09-22T13:56:00.000-07:00

Today I am tired of writing about sleeping and eating issues. I am very aware that you all love a good Pickle story, but hey... this is still my blog dammit and I will write about what I want to.

One thing I love about traveling are the souvenirs. I love to buy little things that remind me of where I have been. I also love to collect simple little things like coins (of which I collect foreign money) and ticket stubs. My favorite thing in Pickle's room is a gigantic O that is decopaged with a map of Khabarovsk and other little bits of paper that I collected on our last trip.

My friends Darrel and Pat have this little tradition that after they go on a trip Pat will make a shadow box of their trip. It is his way of scrapbooking. Since I really suck at scrapbooking I now do the same thing. I have one from NY, Khabarovsk (from our 1st trip) and Korea. I plan on doing one from this last trip to Russia too.

Their are other things that I love to buy too. On this particular trip I didn't come back with much for myself. I did that the previous 2 trips. I have black lacquer ware, blue porcelain, matroyskas (intricate, huge and expensive ones) and other little doo-dads. This trip I bought Pickle a pair of hand knit mittens and matching socks from a little old woman in the Central Market, a cross at the big gold church (which I also collect), CS got a beautiful icon of Jesus, and a jar of nasty Amur River water. I also bought the obligatory vodka and chocolate, but only 1 bottle for us and 4 little bars of chocolate.

Of course in Moscow I had to buy a few things too. The most coveted is a CCCP hockey jersey with Kharlamov's name and number. Don't know who he is? Look it up. I also talked CS into buying me a piece of artwork. Their was a man selling water colors and pen and ink art on Old Arbat. I have a blank spot on my office wall that has been aching for a nice bit of art. This happens to fit the bill! I just need a frame now.

Now one can't go to Switzerland and not buy something their either. Even though we were just in the airport. Got me a new Swiss watch!! Yep... it is a Swatch, but they are cheaper there than here. It is just too darn cute. Very kitchy with a frog and fish on it. Kathou and I were looking for one with a drunken monkey, but couldn't find one. Of course you also can't leave Switzerland without chocolate. Now I know I said that Russian chocolate was the best ever... well... I kinda was wrong about that. But there is a caveat here. Russia has the best dark chocolate ever. Switzerland... Truffles. Oh. My. God.

There happens to be this soul of chocolate exhibit at the Zurich airport right now. There are these 2 big booths where there are chefs hand crafting chocolates right in the airport. We happened to walk by when one was doing truffles. Of course they are giving free samples. Yeah, we bought 1/2 a dozen. We should have bought more. We ate 4 of them last night. They put mine to shame.

Anyway... that was my shopping adventure abroad. Loved it.

Greetings from the alive and awake

2006-09-21T14:59:00.000-07:00

First I would like to say my boy is currently taking his nap so I have my 1 hour mommy break. The fact that he is napping is not the amazing thing here people. It is the fact that he is... IN HIS CRIB!!!!! He didn't cry or fuss too much. We put him in there CS left the room. I sat in the rocking chair next to him and he played around for a little while. He really fights the whole sleeping thing, but he is 2 so it isn't a shock. Anyway, with a little coaxing from mama he eventually fell asleep.

Ok, now onto important stuff. I will say that the trip home was like a dream. Literally and figuratively (wow that's a big word for my state of mind.) Once the plane hit the air out of Zurich Pickle fell fast asleep. I wish the same could be said for the parents. We watched a movie and enjoyed the best meal we have had in nearly 4 weeks. I can say one thing... Swiss Air knows how to feed you. Hot coissants for breakfast, awesome baked pasta with cream, Camembert cheese and salad for lunch, strawberry ice cream as your snack. OMG it was fantastic. They gave Pickle a little stuffed airplane and a point & see book that he loved. Of course he was only awake for 2 hours of the flight to enjoy them. He slept 6 1/2 hours on that flight.

Our layover in Chicago was too short for any napping. We cleared customs no problem and Pickle and Chickadee immigrated without a hitch. Mama was horribly airsick by the time we landed in Chicago though. And of course Pickle had fallen asleep on landing so here is our boy's first photo as an American Citizen. Nice!

Pickle also slept nearly the entire flight from Chicago to Seattle. We woke him up an hour before landing because I wanted to wash him up and change him. He wasn't so thrilled about that.

We were met at the airport by my Mom and Mike, CS's Dad and Sister G, Pickle's Great-Grandparents, our friend Marlice and 2 of Pickle's "Grandmas" Nancy and Pam. There were eager faces peering down the escalator waiting for their very own Pickle Spotting. We didn't get any photos of them, but we do have video.

Pickle did really well with all the new people. He even let some of them hold him for just a second. As soon as he spotted CS or me he wanted to go back. We said our good byes to Kathou, Paypay and Chickadee and then headed for our car. Pickle did really well in the car seat. He wasn't too sure about it, but never cried. We made the obligatory stop at McDonalds for some much needed food. (damn you again United Airlines!!) Pickle wolfed down almost an entire small french fry.

It was like heaven to see our house again. The cats were just as glad to see us. First thing we did was show Pickle his new room. He took one look at the bed and the Warner Bro's hockey print on the wall and knew this was a good thing. We had been showing him photos of his room during the whole trip.

He is in love with the cats and they are tolerating him very well. He loves his new toys and actually likes the ones that make noise. Of course he did find other "toys" to play with like the coasters, a cup from our last trip to Russia, and the umbrella.

Despite yesterday being 35 hours bed to bed we are all doing remarkably well. I am knee deep in laundry and the top of my kitchen table is a bit of a mystery, but we are getting there. All 3 of us slept like the dead last night. The bed was awfully crowded though. 5 bodies is a little too much. Thus the transition to the crib. We can't lock the cats out of the room because they will claw at the door and Pickle elbowed me right in the mouth this morning. Pretty soon I am going to look like I was in a bar fight. I ran into the corner of the wall shelf in Pickle's room with my head last night.

Well better run. Laundry isn't going to fold itself.

Before I run too far I want to give huge congrats to everyone who got good news while we were gone. M3 and the girls!!! I still can't believe twins! Michelle and her little princess! Bethee got a court date and so did my girl RHONDA!!!!!! I am way too excited for all of you. I am here to tell you that your life is the best once you walk in the door of your home carrying your child in your arms. Doesn't matter how tired you are it is the best feeling ever. Congrats ladies. Much love to all of you!!!!

We're HOME!!!

2006-09-20T23:02:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note to let you all know that we made it home safe and sound. We're exhausted, stinky, and did I mention dead tired? Going to give Pickle a quick bath and then see if we can get him calmed down enough to go to bed (though he did sleep on the car ride home). Will post tomorrow about our adventure after we sleep enough to make a coherent sentence.

Live from the chocolate capital of the world!

2006-09-20T02:04:00.000-07:00

We made it to Zurich!!! We were all too happy to bid Russia good-bye.

At last we made it to a land where I can read the signs. I may not speak German, but at least I can recognize the alphabet.

I do apologize for last nights post. I was exhausted, but I thought I would try to do one last post. However, I think it is a good representation of how I was feeling.

This morning we had to be up at 3:15 to get ready to meet Andrei at 4 am. I got out of bed first and showered. Pickle didn't even stir. All 3 of us slept pretty well. CS being the best, me being better than the night before.

We let CS pick the line for check-in. We certainly won't be making that mistake again. He happened to pick the lady who's computer was on the fritz. It took forever for us to get checked in. Once we were through security (of which the security guy taught me don't cry in Russian and I promptly forgot) we sought out food. We found a little bar that had food, but no Pickle food. But they did have bananas. So we ordered a raspberry yogurt cake and banana (for Pickle), a cottage cheese thing for Mama and a chocolate eclair for daddy. Everyone seemed to be happy.

The flight was looking to be a hairy one when Pickle decided to start screaming when I stopped walking to board the plane. The passengers were looking at me like I was world's worst mother. Either that or they were secretly fearing they would be seated next to us. Pickle did amazingly well on the flight. He only fussed a little. I can't say the same for Chickadee. She pitched a royal fit. I don't blame the kids at all for being cranky.

Once we arrived in Zurich we did a little walking around. There is a Starbucks here, but it is outside of security and we can't take the kids out of security. Sorry Wayne. No mug from Switzerland.

We had a feast from Burger King for lunch. Pickle is driving us nuts with food right now. He wouldn't eat the mac n' cheese at the Hard Rock last night. Nor would he eat the french fries. What child doesn't like french fries? So for lunch we tried chicken nuggets and fries again. Chicken was a no go and so were the fries. Then we tried a hamburger. Big fat Nyet. CS went and bought him some milk. He loved that and then we tried the fries again. Bingo!!! He ate an entire small fry and half of the milk box.

Now we are waiting for our flight. Pickle is refusing to nap despite all of our efforts. I think we are wearing a groove in the floor here. It was our luck on the flight from Moscow to Zurich that he didn't sleep then either. It was the instant after touchdown that my boy was out like a light. Of course then he woke up when we were getting off the plane. Damn.

So the hope now is mother nature will take over and he will sleep on the flight to Chicago. Wish us luck on our last 2 legs. Our next post will be after we welcome home America's newest citizens!!

Good lord get me home

2006-09-19T09:46:00.000-07:00

Soooooo tired. 4 hours sleep in somewhere around 48 hours. baby just fell asleep too. no nap. hardly any food. screamed then fell asleep. took about 2 minutes.

facillitator guy just called. will be here in 30 minutes to get money for doc that he forgot this morning. That means 2 hours Moscow time. Feckin doc was over an hour late this morning.

Saw Red Square. Gum. Old Arbat. Bought my hockey jersy. ate at Hardrock. I feel so crappy food wasn't even good. Pickle didn't eat.

Going to bed. Facillitator comes at 4 am

And you thought it would be easy

2006-09-19T09:44:00.000-07:00

We made it to Moscow although I am not sure that I am exactly alive. Pickle certainly is. He is running around our hotel room saying, “Mama, all done.” CS is in the shower at the moment. He still calls him Mama.

So where to begin…

At about 3:45 CS started taking the suitcases downstairs while Pickle whined at me. He is having Daddy separation anxiety at the moment. We finally went down the elevator saying goodbye to the Markuel. While we were waiting for Lena and Andrei we started to smell this beautiful aroma. Actually it was more like putrid poo. Ahh that could only be our son’s brand. Seeing as we had already turned in our key I grabbed the kid and ran back inside hoping to catch Kathou and Paypay. They were just getting off the elevator and here is this crazy woman asking them for their apartment key. The front desk lady gave me my key and I ran upstairs to change Pickle. False alarm!!! Only gas. You see Pickle is very regular at pooping, but he only does it every other day. Yesterday was his day. Lovely. We were praying that he would have his moment before we got to the airport. No such luck.

The car ride to the airport was uneventful. We were lucky enough to not have to pay any overweight charges for our luggage either. Woo Hoo!!! Pickle was tired and starting to get hungry so the whining started. We checked into our flight, went through passport control and the final screening check point. We can say with certainty that if we were not already sterile 3 trips to Russia will make you so from all the x-ray machines and security screening.

We arrived into the waiting area with about an hour to spare before our flight was supposed to leave. Pickle and I walked up and down and up and down the waiting area. At 5:15 they called a flight and people started heading toward the door. Of course they never make the announcement in English so we just did what we do every time we leave Khabarovsk; follow the heard. We got to the little lady who says Da or Nyet on letting you on the bus to the plane. We were a nyet. At that very moment my angelic son decides to throw a tantrum. An all out screaming bone chilling tantrum. This is after he had bonked his head on the floor in the waiting area and wailed then too.

I calmed him down and he was looking out the window at the lack of activity when that precious aroma wafted up again. I was smart and did a diaper check this time. Sho Nuf!!! My boy pooed at the Khabarovsk airport where the concept of a changing table is totally foreign. CS and I looked around for an appropriate place to change him and the only thing we could find was some sort of electrical box in the vestibule outside of the washrooms. How fast can you change a poopy diaper? I think I set the record on that one yesterday.

After the load was lightened our boy was a happy one. We got on the plane and departed an hour late. He played with his toys. The flight attendants cooed over the babies. It was setting out to be a pleasant flight. Then I had to pee. Ok… first it is amazing that I only peed 5 times on an eight hour flight. That is amazing in itself. But, if you saw the toilets on this flight you would know why. They were the grossest things I have ever seen. And I have used the porta-crappers at the Hoover Dam in July. One was so bad I walked in and walked right back out. So bad I couldn’t even muster the strength to photograph it. So bad I was wishing for the squatty potty back at the Khab airport.

I will give kudos to the people at Aeroflot. They gave us a little bag that had 2 diapers, wipes and a plastic bib. They also gave Pickle a little book with cartoons in it and they brought pillows from first class so we could attempt to make a bed for him. When he was fighting the sleep (and I mean fighting with the screaming and the yelling) they brought me warm milk for him.

With the exception of trying to get my exhausted child to sleep in a strange place the flight went by quickly. I only bit CS’s head off once! I think I cried once too.

Arriving in Moscow was absolutely fantastic!!! I was just too excited to see the MOCKBA sign. We had to wait about 30 minutes to get off the plane. Then we boarded the bus to take us to the terminal. Once in the terminal the bags came fairly quickly. This was not quick enough for one exhausted 23 month old. He started pitching a fit and crying. The good news is they didn’t make us put our bags through the x-ray thing again.

We found Andrei (a different Andrei) and loaded our bags into the car and took the world’s scariest car ride to our hotel.

The hotel is magnificent. It is one of Stalin’s Seven Sisters and is simply gigantic. The Russian White House is right across the river from us. We did make some new friends in the lobby while waiting for the guys to bring the bags in. Kathou and I were in the lobby and these 3 women came by and were oggling over the babies. One said, “What cute babies.” And I responded with, “Oh!! You speak English!” This prompted a conversation with two women from NY and one from WI. They were just thrilled that we were adopting these children. They wanted to know all about it. It was very funny. Had I had a camera with me I would have taken their photo.

At 9:00 pm we finally checked into our room. Of course we were both starving, had a tired baby and still had to fill out our Embassy paperwork. Near 11:00 we were able to finally go to bed. This was fun with a child who was punch drunk nutty by this point. 11:00 pm in Moscow is 6:00 am in Khabarovsk.

After more screaming and crying Pickle finally fell asleep. Elle… not so much. I think between 11:00 pm and 3:00 am I peed 5 times. Then the boy was awake. We tried everything. We cuddled him, we even tried putting him in the crib they gave us. He just rocked in the crib. We both tried to comfort him, but this was just not going to fly. Finally we picked him up and put him back in the bed. It wasn’t until about 5:00 am that he fell back to sleep. That hour and a half between him falling asleep and the alarm going off was the best sleep the both of us have ever received in our lives.

The doctor was supposed to make his showing at 7:30 this morning, but it is 8:20 and still no doc. So we are trying to keep Pickle occupied so he doesn’t realize he is hungry. Good news is our Embassy appointment is at 1:30 then we make a quick run to register the kids and then Andrei is free to take us around the city. We made our request for Arbat, Red Square and the Hard Rock.

Well this has rambled on long enough. I will try for one more post before we leave.

Good Bye Khabarovsk

2006-09-17T19:00:00.000-07:00

Our last day in Khabarovsk finds us full of tantrums. Pickle is still testing us with food. He is trying to be picky, but we know full well he will eat what we feed him. He is just being a poop and trying to tell us he is all done when in reality it is just a way to get us to feed him something that he really wants. He will also pitch a fit if we don’t give him his milk or juice at the end of the meal. We did learn that it is best to feed him in courses. If you put too much food in front of him or try to give him his liquid with the food he just plays with it. We also learned to give him the stuff he really likes (read: bananas and yogurt) at the end of the meal.

Pickle is very confused by what exactly is going on here. We pack his favorite things when he is sleeping and then he doesn’t notice as much. Fortunately there are a bunch of toys that were already here and we are leaving them so he still has stuff to play with.

He slept very well last night and that was a good thing for mommy. He is finally starting to whimper a little when he wakes up in the night. He doesn’t give us any indication that he needs comfort when he is sleeping. It becomes difficult to gauge when he is waking up from his nap and such.

We are way too excited to finally be headed home. A part of me will miss this place as it will be a long time before we come back. Khabarovsk has its charm, but it is tiring when you can’t read anything or communicate with anyone.

We want to thank all of you for your prayers, support and comments. Reading your comments has been the highlight of our mornings. It is our routine to have breakfast and then go straight to the computer. Of course we are looking forward to the computer at home and unlimited internet access. I am personally looking forward to getting this blog back to looking normal. I miss all my side graphics. (I removed them to make the blog load faster here)

I will try to post photos on all of our posts once I get home too. I hear that the beta version of blogger is much better at posting photos. I hope that is true.

Well… we are off for the first leg of our adventure home.

Pickle's new best friend

2006-09-16T23:49:00.000-07:00

Well today is our last full day in Khabarovsk. Tomorrow Lena comes at 2:00 to take CS and Paypay to the passport office to pick up the kid’s passports. Then we leave for the airport at 4:00 for our 6:00 flight. We are really hoping for a happy baby on the 8 hour flight to Moscow. Please pray for me.

We spent our last day out on the town. We took a walk this morning just to get out of the apartment. Pickle took a short nap and Irina paid us a visit. She brought all of our Embassy paperwork and Pickle’s original birth certificate and Adoption certificate. We also got copies of the photos that were taken for his passports. We are calling them his mug shots. Quite funny!

This morning I started to do some packing. Pickle helped by kindly unfolding the clothes that I had so nicely folded. Pickle snatched a pair of CS’s underpants and I went out to the living room to find where he had stashed them. No where to be found. I went back into the bedroom to find my boy wearing his dad’s underpants. He was also so nicely trying to wear a pair of mine as a shirt. And oh yes… I did get photos. Am I going to post a photo? Hell NO!!! Would you want a photo of your dirty underpants on the internet? I didn’t think so. I can say, though, that it was probably the single most hilarious moment of this trip. I was laughing so hard I was crying.

This afternoon we took one last trolley ride into town to meet another American couple. We met Debra, but her son was napping so we didn’t meet Ron or Nikolai. We had a nice chat and then were off to find the Archaeology museum. We walked into this tiny little museum and found a woman sitting at a desk. She tried to tell us it was the Archaeology museum. We kinda figured by the sign outside. We paid 280 rubles for the 3 of us. I asked if I could photograph and she said that would cost me 100 rubles. Fair enough. I was so glad I did pay to take photos. I got one that is simply priceless. The museum is upstairs in this building and at the top of the stairs was the little lady we had heard about. In all museums there is a little woman that makes sure you pay enough attention to each and every exhibit. Sho nuff! She took one look at Pickle and scooped him right up to show him the displays. He did not care at all. We were free to look around at the displays while the lady watched my child. It was quite nice! She saw that we had paid our rubles to photograph and she made sure we did. One or the other of us had to pose with Pickle at each of the non glassed in exhibits. She took Pickle from room to room and told him about the artifacts and taught us that Riba is Russian for fish. We told her that CS was an archaeologist and she said that Pickle would grow up to be an archaeologist like his daddy. (gawd I hope not) Pickle loved the museum. He ohhed and ahhed at all the artifacts. Man this boy is going to be a smart one!! Woo hoo!!!!! My priceless photo was of Pickle and his little museum buddy.

We took the trolley bus back to the apartment and are planning on enjoying a quiet evening at home. Lucky for me the Khabarovsk Amur Hockey team started pre-season (or regular season) and their games have been on TV. In fact there is one on right now. Man they suck.

Adoptions, Marriages and Government, oh my

2006-09-15T20:03:00.000-07:00

I apologize for yesterday’s abrupt post. I happened to wake up on the wrong side of the bed yesterday and by the time I got to posting I was in a very foul mood. Part of it was because I didn’t get much sleep that night. Pickle spent the night digging his head into my back. Not fun.

So a little more about becoming “official” parents. After signing the adoption decree we went to the vital statistics office. The children didn’t have to go for this part, but we had two very sleepy and cranky kids so we decided to all go in. Well… it was Friday and that means wedding day. Weddings happen here usually Wednesday through Saturday with Friday being the most common. Weddings also happen at the vital statistics office and not in churches. Really! Bride and groom in their wedding finery and their small number of guests crammed into the little wedding area of the VS office. There was one wedding party there when we arrived, a bride and groom arrived shortly thereafter and another as we were leaving. Pickle didn’t want to just sit. He was more interested in wandering around the small office. Of course there were people trying to get married and I don’t think their wedding video would be that good if there was my screaming child in the background. I bet you were wondering where the name Babaganush came from. We started calling him that before we got to the VS office, but once we started to think about it, it was quite appropriate. If you have seen the movie The Wedding Crashers you know that Vince Vaughn’s character’s nickname is Babaganush. And he happens to be a wedding crasher. Well… this is what Pickle was doing. Essentially crashing a wedding.

Pickle was tired of being cooped up in the office so I took him outside to walk around. A little while later Irina comes out with Kathou and Chickadee (yeah, I’m changing it, that is what Kathou calls her.) Irina says we are to take the kids back to the apartment. Fine by me. Pickle was starving.

Now what I didn’t know is what was happening at the Vital Statistics office. CS and Paypay were there to sign the kid’s birth certificates. They go into the little office to sign and then the woman stands up and says some words in Russian. (they actually are pretty much the same thing the lady with the Adoption Decree says) Anyway, CS looks at Paypay and asks, “Are we married now?” Little did I know that our husbands were getting married. When they walked out of the VS office there were some rose petals on the ground and Paypay turns to CS and says, “oh look rose petals!” CS says, “only the best for our wedding day.” Does this mean I have 2 husbands now?

In the afternoon we took another trolley ride into town to go to the central market. This was a chocolate buying mission. Since the weather is still nice the outside produce vendors were still there. I only wish we had gone sooner. They had lettuce, fresh herbs, and corn on the cob!! We thought we might take a chance and try the corn on the cob. We went up to a vendor and asked for 3 ears. The woman reaches into a bag and pulls out an ear that is dark yellow and hot. Then there was an older man who was very jubilant. Evidently she was selling cooked corn on the cob. So we took one of those and 4 ears of uncooked. Note to readers: If you come across a woman in an open air market selling hot corn out of a bag don’t eat it. This stuff is the nastiest stuff evah!!! It tasted like paste. Hot corn paste. Ewwwwww.

Last night we had our farewell potluck for Jamie & Suzanne. The dinner was fantastic!! Their Pelmeni happened to taste better than ours. I am going to have to figure out how she did that. Pickle did amazingly well. He was a little confused when I started to get the plates out, but didn’t set the table. Then we herded him out of the kitchen and he started to cry. We made him follow the food next door. He ate all of his food on his own. He never does this at our house.

The kids played well together and Andy made a point to watch out for Pickle and Chickadee. When they went where they weren’t supposed to he would carry them back to the correct parent. It was quite cute.

The Chandlers leave today, but we won’t be without another AIA family for long. Another couple arrives tomorrow morning and another tomorrow night. Then Monday it is outta hea for us!!!!

We only have 1 day to do stuff in Moscow so we may not have time to post. We do have the free dial-up that we thought we would have here so I may try the picture posting again.

We may forego Pickle’s nap on Tuesday just to get the sights in. We figure there is plenty of time to sleep on the plane ride home. The 3 main sights we want to see are Arbat Street (mainly so I can get my hockey jersey), Red Square and a must is a meal at the Hard Rock. Gawd I could go for a big fat cheeseburger and salad. Drooooool.

Photos, Photos, Photos

2006-09-14T20:07:00.001-07:00

Due to techincal difficulties we are unable to publish photos of Oleg on our Blog. Blame Blogger. They are the ones causing me greif.

I will say that we are really really offically the parents of Oleg!!! We signed the official Adoption decree this morning. It was quite a nice little time. A lady said some official words like, "he now has a family and you now have a child. We wish you the best as a new family." I wish I had my camera. I didn't know.

So we did a work around on the photo thing. I started a yahoo group where I posted photos. For now it is open to anyone to register. Once we get home and blogger stops being stupid I am going to take it down. The address is http://groups.yahoo.com/group/babaganush/
I do hope that works. You will have to register for the group. There should be prompts on how to do it. If there aren't I apologize. I figure those of you in the adoption community you are very familiar with yahoo groups. For the rest I am sorry. This is all I know how to do at this point given my truncated internet time.

Sugar does WHAT to my kid??!!?

2006-09-14T01:00:00.000-07:00

Today we have only had one major temper tantrum. Hey, this is good for a kid who is almost two and only been with a family for a week! The tantrum was a good one though. Pickle threw a toy across the room and was sternly told NO. He did not like this, thus pitching a fit.

I think we may have a winner on the sleep issues. Today we went with option A. We put him to bed as usual and checked on him repeatedly. After about an hour he started to rock. We let him do this and he didn’t really get that close to the edge of the bed. His rocking only lasted a minute or two and was not that violent. Rather it was gentle. Soon he fell back to sleep and slept for almost 30 minutes more. He woke up a very happy baby. Now we have a happy mommy.

He did have one tantrum after nap time, but it wasn’t terrible. So we went on an adventure. We rode the trolley bus into town and walked toward the river. The weather is gorgeous today! Not a cloud in the sky and about 72 degrees. We thought we might try to find the oldest Orthodox Church in Khabarovsk today. It is near the Intourist hotel and the Lenin Sports Complex. Of course if you know the lore of Khabarovsk you know that the tale goes it was built on the backs of 3 giant whales that came to rest on the shore. This means the 3 main roads run along the backs of the whales. Our apartment is on the top of one, downtown on top of another and the Intourist at the bottom past downtown. So we had to walk down a giant hill to get to the church. Down wasn’t the problem. It was the getting back that sucked. (I’ll get to that in a minute)

First we visited the sports complex. It is a huge park with a big soccer stadium that they turn into an outdoor hockey arena in the winter. It is right on the water. The church is located just outside the fence of the complex. It is the smallest of the 3 major Orthodox churches. It is constructed of brick with green steeples and gold domes. There is a beautiful little garden around the outside and the inside is quite quaint. The paintings on the inside are by far the most beautiful we have seen. I only wish you could take photos of the interior of these churches. I may have to scan a few photos out of a book I have and post them when we get home. We wandered around to the back of the church and found this mosaic in the wall.

It was amazing. I tried to find a cross to buy, but the churches all carry the same stuff. I have one from the blue church and one from the Gold church. I didn’t find one I really needed to have.

Our outing happened to be during snack time so I did like have done in the past and brought snack with me. This usually consists of Gerber banana puffs or Goldfish crackers. Today Pickle got the puffs and we thought we would try a very special treat, a Dum Dum sucker. The idea is this would be a good thing for him to suck on during take off and landing on the airplane. Giving a sucker to a two year old who has never had sugar is a very bad idea. At first this was the greatest thing our boy has ever tasted. He sucked that thing to the last. He had sticky everywhere. On his hands, face, and even his jacket. Then all was well. We continued our stroll down the walk. We enjoyed the sun, looked at the water, watched the boats. All was good!

We got to the point where you go up the stairs to town from the river and we took one look at the stairs and said, “who is going to carry the boy up?” Oh yeah… there are 222 of them (we counted last time). We saw the gold church and though that it didn’t look that far away. We could walk along the water, grab an ice cream, and stroll back to the apartment. Ok… let’s go back to that whale thing shall we? We had to walk up a giant hill to get to the church. We had already walked down one big one, around a sports complex, a church and the river. My feet were killing me.

Now let’s revisit the sucker incident. About half way back to the apartment Pickle started talking. Not so sure you could call it talking exactly. More like babbling and he couldn’t shut up. He said beep-beep for ever car that passed or that we passed. Other things thrown in there included la-la, ma-ma and hulla-bulla-bulla. This wasn’t our timid little quiet boy. He was yelling this stuff. The both of us were laughing hysterically. The Russians were looking at us like we were nuts! This all as a result of 2 very smart parents giving their child a very small sucker. Yeah, we’re awesome like that. In fact my son is still bouncing off the walls.

Pickle has also whipped out a new trick when playing with Wobbles. When she takes a toy away from him he rips it back out of her hand and yells, “YA.” We take this to mean MINE!!! Lovely. Mmmmm, baby brawls.

Well I am off to cook us some sort of dinner. We are sick of Pelmeni so we are doing hamburger and potatoes. CS asked if I could put pepper, garlic powder, and season salt on the hamburgers. He said then they would be gourmet!

No Rocks for you (literally)

2006-09-13T00:10:00.000-07:00

Thank you all for your participation in this week’s coffee talk. I know I usually give you a few days to post your responses, but seeing as my family really would egg my house if I didn’t post everyday, you only get one day.

I read the 13 responses I had by this morning and the majority of you voted for option B. So I thought I would try it today. It did not work so well. He had been sleeping for a little over an hour and I checked on him and he was rocking. I went in and put my hand on his stomach like I do at night and he woke up. It may be that he really is one of those children that only needs an hour nap.

Normally he is pretty agreeable after nap time. But oh not today buddy. We had planned on going out to the river this afternoon. CS started to put his shoes on, but the ones he got didn’t fit. So he set them down. Pickle started to cry. Before I grabbed the shoes that did fit I got the video camera to put in my bag. Pickle took one look at it and started wailing. This was unlike a cry we had heard before. It was far worse than we had heard yet. It took a good ten minutes to calm him down.

Once we did get him calmed down we had quite a nice outing. We found stairs that go to no where. We thought there was a way to get down to the river from the back of the war memorial. There were stairs at the back. We ventured down the stairs, but they only seemed to go to a dirt trail. Further down the trial were dilapidated buildings that people really do live in. We never did find the way down to the river. So we thought we would find the Geology Museum.

The Geology Museum is the closest museum to our apartment. It is in an old brick mansion. A stroll down Lenin Street yielded an old brick building tucked away behind some trees. A small sign outside read “Geology Museum.” CS tried the door and as he did two older women came out. She asked if we were looking for the museum. Unfortunately, the museum is closed for remodel. So no museum for us.

Since that is the extent of our life right now I thought I would give some further tidbits for those coming to Khabarovsk for their second trips. If you are with AIA you will be staying at the MarKuel. It is a nice joint with most of the modern conveniences of home. I apologize if I have mentioned these tidbits in the past. I am grasping at straws of stuff to write about.

My favorite thing I brought was my French press. (yeah yeah, I’ve said that) No really! Not only does it make fantastic coffee, it works as a pitcher to pour things. Water comes in giant jugs and is not very portable. So we pour it into the press and then into our smaller water bottles. This works well for Kefir too. Kefir comes in bags and it only keeps for a few days once opened. The trick is finding something to keep it in. We pour it into the press pitcher and then into an empty larger water bottle. Then it will keep for 2 days or so.

There is a little grocery very close to here. Most of what you need is there with the exception of meat. The store doesn’t always have the same stuff everyday. For example, there will be baby swiss cheese one day and not the next.

Other food bits: Bring items such as taco seasoning or chili mix. Buy the butter from New Zealand. It is better with less water. The 3.2% milk is close to what we have at home, but it has a “fresh from the cow” flavor. I personally don’t care for it. Rhonda, when checking for expiration date it is the second date and read month/day/year.

We recommend a stroller as opposed to a hip hammock. I didn’t bring a hip hammock, but got one from another family that was here. I tried it once with Pickle and he screamed. The stroller has been a godsend!

If you come in colder months bring a clothes line that you can use inside. It takes forever for clothes to dry when you put them outside.

There are no wash cloths here. Bring them. They are handy for wiping off sticky faces and hands.

Anyone else have suggestions on what you should or should not bring? I want to hear from those who have been on their second trip with the 10 day not waived. Anything you wish you would have brought or wished you’d left at home?

Only 7 more days until we are home!

Mommy vs. the toddler

2006-09-11T23:51:00.000-07:00

Our topic of today is going to once again revolve around sleep issues. But we will make it more of a coffee talk topic. I need your help. What would you do if this was your child.

You have worked very hard to get your child to stop violently rocking himself to sleep. He does so quite nicely. No more fussing and falls asleep rather quickly. However, at nap time he still wakes up and you check on him only to find him rocking. He has only been sleeping for about an hour and not napped well in the past 4 days. What do you do?
a) let him continue to rock himself to sleep. (he may rock himself right off the bed)
b) put a hand on him like you do in the night, but leave him where he is. (he may wake up and rock again and rock himself off the bed)
c) move him and try to put him back to sleep like you do in the beginning (here you risk waking him up to the point of not going back to sleep)

This is the situation I was faced with this afternoon. I went with option c and that didn’t work out so well for me. I woke him up and he never went back to sleep. Oh and before you make your choice lets factor in the rest of the day. He woke up a generally happy baby and ate all of his breakfast. He began fussing shortly after breakfast when he was told no on occasion. Later in the morning he became crying psycho child at everything. He did cry when he bumped his head and accidentally shoved his straw into his mouth. For this I don’t blame him. In fact, that was a good thing. But he also cried at everything else. This isn’t just crying. This is all out wailing. The best one came when his father tried to put the video camera in the backpack so we could go for a walk. The boy needed a nap in a big kind of way.

After over 30 minutes of trying to get him to go back to sleep I finally gave up.

We did take our outing to Lenin Square this afternoon. Pickle was a perfect angel the entire time! Shocking. He walked around the square by the big church. We picked up some gifts for people here and gifts for people back home. We stopped in at the grocery store to pick up important things like coffee and creamer. This was Pickle’s first trip into a grocery. He was awestruck. He had never seen so much food. We weren’t sure what a man was saying to us when we walked in with a baby in a stroller. I thought he was saying that we couldn’t take the stroller in so we took Pickle out of the stroller. When we went into the grocery area he said something else and I returned with, “ya nee pah-nee-mai-oh.” (I don’t understand) He said something else that we figured was it was ok to take the stroller in. We opened the stroller and put Pickle back in. I still don’t know what he was saying. He very well could have been telling us not to bring a child into the store. We thought it would be ok since the quarantine was lifted today. The man was very very nice to us. I was pushing Pickle around the store and he came by and squatted down and said hello and fixed Pickle’s pant leg. He also was so nice as to hold the door open for us when we left.

I do notice as to how gentlemanly men are here. As we rode the trolley into town we watched as all the young men got up so the older women could sit down. That is something you certainly don’t see in the states.

We are still working with Pickle on family names. He now understands that CS is Daddy, but doesn’t say daddy. He still calls him papa. My mom is babada. He doesn’t even have to be prompted for that one. (sorry mom) His new person in the book is Uncle Wayne. He is Coo Coo Coo. He also recognizes the cats. They are Mau maus.

Other things we understand he is saying are car, duck, cow, rooster, pig, cup, ball, airplane, bye-bye, all done and light.

Last night we went up to Kathou and Paypay’s apartment so Pickle and Wobbles could play together. It took Pickle about 20 minutes to get comfortable. We let him bring a comfort item with him. It happened to be my comb, but hey it worked. He played quite nicely with everyone. We only had one small baby battle over a clothes pin. When Pickle had enough play time he said, “All Done” and walked to the door. CS held him in the hall and said paka paka to Kathou, Paypay and Nadya. Pickle actually said Paka too! In fact he said it all the way down the stairs and into our apartment.

He is slowly getting more comfortable around people. This is a very good thing.

Diapers, Touques, and evil stares from the Babushka

2006-09-10T21:40:00.000-07:00

I know I wasn’t going to write about sleeping stuff anymore, but this one is just way too exciting. For the first time Pickle laid down on the ground on his own. Normally he will play and play and play until we pick him up and put him in the bed. Of course he was fingering a book on the coffee table and promptly pulled it off onto his head, but little strides people! Also, when I put him in bed for naptime he lie quietly and fell asleep without crying or making a move to rock. This is a huge accomplishment for our little man.

We did get out this morning to take a trip to the children’s store. CS was sent out for diapers yesterday afternoon and they didn’t have the good ones in Pickle’s size at the little grocery. So this morning we bundled up the baby and headed out for a walk. When we got downstairs the babushkas at the front desk made it a point to note that it was cold and windy outside. So I put the hood up on his little jacket and we headed out the door. While at the children’s store we purchased a little stocking cap for him. When we got back to the apartment we made it a point to not take the cap off until we were right in front of the babushka. HA!!! We showed you evil Russian lady.

Pickle is still testing his mother’s patience. We have gotten sleep time down pretty well, but food time is altogether difficult. He likes to try to play with the stove to which he gets pushed away and a firm NYET! He tries to open the cupboards and play with the garbage can. He tries to pull out his chair or grab a bib and put it on when the food is not finished yet. All of which get the nyet response. He frequently gets herded out of the kitchen. This is met by faky tantrums. Then of course he gets held and rocked resulting in more tantrums. He will finally calm down and head straight back for the kitchen to make sure the rules are still the same.

When it comes time to feed him he will drink his milk or yogurt and then play with his meal. He is fully capable of feeding himself and turns his head away when we try to feed him. So we have started ignoring him for the most part at meal time. He will play with his spoon; try to rub it on the wall, chews on the end of it. Just to make sure the rules are still the same.

I tell you the boy learns quick. He knows where the changing pad is and goes to the cupboard to tell me to get it if he makes a poopy. This is the only time I use the changing pad. He knows where his shoes and jacket are. We have to keep all the shoes put away. If we get them out he wants to wear them and wearing them means we are going outside. He knows how to open the drawer with his toys in it, but if you don’t pull it from the left side is won’t open. So he tries to pull it from the right side knowing it won’t open then looks at one of us and says, “mo-mo.” This is help me. We tell him he knows how to do it then he fusses.

He is also learning that if he bonks his head or hurts himself that we will comfort him. He biffed it big time when he tripped over the threshold from the hall into the living room. Whacked his head right on the floor. Nice rug burn and bump from that one. He cried quite loudly after that. He also cried when he pulled that book onto his head. These are all very good things.

Pickle is getting better at the names of people in his family book. We are going to have a challenge though with Daddy vs. Papa. CS’s dad is Papa to our niece Bethany, but we are still kinda calling CS Papa. And Duda Mike… did you know that in Norwegian you would be MorFar? That would mean Mother’s Father. And Mom you would be MorMor. So it is up to you Duda or Morfar?

Pickle’s other favorite thing to do is to wear our shoes around the apartment. Oddly enough, he started with my flip flops. Then he moved to Daddy’s slippers, then Daddy’s shoes. Trust me I have photos. Oh, and we also have photos of him sitting in a bin with his legos.

The weather here is much like that at home in mid to late October. Cloudy, windy and cold. We get a rain shower on occasion. And when it rains it pours! Of course the cooler weather is nice for ridding the apartment of the stuffiness in here. Gassy boys and closed up apartment make for a pleasant experience.

Well… better run. Pickle just got up after only sleeping for an hour. I must prepare myself for a baby full of piss and vinegar later.

More of Life in Russia

2006-09-09T22:05:00.000-07:00

So we aren’t going to talk about sleep issues. We really do more than battle about sleep. We feel fortunate that we have not had any major meltdowns like some families have had. For the most part we have a very happy boy. We also have a very smart boy. Pickle is quickly learning how to manipulate his environment. This manipulation mainly happens at meal time. He learned that he can play with his food and it won’t get taken away. He also learned that if he doesn’t feed himself one of us will do it for him. We are trying to be firm on what he eats though. We try to stick to something that slightly resembles what he was fed in the orphanage. But we modified it so it would be the same thing we are eating. We tried chicken, but it is very tough here so he was having no part in that. He is not so hot on green beans, but love peas. He loves sweet thing so we are like little bandits at nap time or at night and eating our treats while he sleeps. We have yet to give him any candy or junk food. This is mainly so he doesn’t get an upset stomach from too much new food.

His latest activity is pushing his bowl away and smiling. He is pretending he is finished in an attempt for us to feed him. This worked at 2 meals until I was having no more of it. I whipped out the Russian phrase for “eat please” and it worked. He ate the rest of his lunch. If I only knew that yesterday.

He loves to bring us his books and sit in our lap and read. His favorite is a picture book of first words. A car is a Beep-Beep. He can also say “boy,” and “ball.” An airplane is “ooooooooooo.” A teddy bear is “ooo” and he says Oot-ka, which is duck. He also likes our family photo book we had left at the orphanage. He easily recognizes me and says “MaMa.” Daddy is oddly also mama. Grammie is Baba, and he is fascinated with his Grandpa Mike. That comes out DuDa. Babushka sounds a lot like Blah Blah Blah.
We had planned on going to Lenin Square today, but we had a rain storm in the middle of the night and woke up to gale force winds. To use an Elle phrase, it is Butt-Ass cold here. Good thing we brought lots of clothes pins to hold down the laundry.

I thought I would pass along my little observations and helpful hints of living in Russia.

Bring 2 lbs of coffee not just one. We are going to run out before we leave.
You cannot buy peanut butter here. Bring it too.
Bring a full bottle of Woolite, not 1/2. I am going to run out of that too. (and I am not having as much of the dingy whites problem that Suzanne is. Or at least I don’t care)
Butter is not salted here. In fact not much is.
Russians don’t put preservatives in anything. Good for your health, but makes everything taste off.
Chicken is chewy and hard to come by.

I miss my modern conveniences of home. What I wouldn’t give for my washing machine, dishwasher or my dryer. Mostly the dryer. The clothes that have hung out on the line have a funky odor. I also wish Pickle had more toys to play with. Although he seems to be content with what is here. We scored a few extra toys from Miss Suzanne and the previous occupant of our apartment.

Sobs and wailing

2006-09-08T21:46:00.000-07:00

Last night we drew the line at the rocking. This may seem a little harsh to some, but after 4 days of watching our boy thrash about finding no comfort in it we said enough was enough. We also realized that Pickle was not only a rocker, but a head banger too. This is not Head Banger as in 80’s butt rocker, but a child that rocks so violently he eventually finds something (ie. the side of the crib) to bang his head against.

How did we discover this? Well when watching him rock we observed that he throws himself violently to one side. He will also scooch around the bed finding something to throw himself against. In this case it was a pillow. He tried to repeatedly scoot up toward the headboard only to be met by one of us pulling him back. The final clue was that when we picked him up from the orphanage I noticed that he had 2 little cut shaped scabs on his head. We thought this might be due to typical orphanage child play, but figured out they may have come from him hitting his head on the crib bars.

When you figure this out about your child it is enough to break your heart. We want Pickle to come for us for comfort. Right now he does a bit, but not as much as he should.

Like I said this may seem harsh to some, but this is what we are choosing to do. It really does seem to be working. I held him last night and let him scream his little head off until he fell asleep. Then in the night, when he was restless, I put a hand on him and he would fall back to sleep. He spent most of the night sleeping, but on occasion he would roll to one of us for a cuddle or put a hand or foot on one of us. Today at naptime I did the same. He only cried for about 5 minutes and fell asleep.

So we are progressing quite nicely.

This afternoon we took a walk to the Gold church with Kathou, Paypay and Wobbles. (Their daughter is 15 months and still a little unsteady on her feet. I did like G's suggestion of SweetPea, but that is what I call both Pickle and kitty.) Pickle still isn’t too sure about Wobbles. He did run around Glory Square and all around the WW2 memorial again. He played with another child’s toys and seemed happy about it.

Tomorrow morning we will take our Gulag Express trip to Lenin Square.

So far Pickle’s favorite things are the sand box (hint hint Babushka), bananas, outside, books, bath time, peas and my comb. At first it was a shoehorn he found in the apartment, but the comb won him over.

His dislikes are sleeping, chicken (man is he going to be hungry when we get home) and new places.

The likes list is longer than the dislikes and that is a good thing. A very good thing.

A quick note to say Happy Birthday to Pickle’s Great-Grandpa. We really do wish we were home for it, but we will celebrate is a big way once we do get home.

Only 11 more days!!!

Go Go Gadget Stroller

2006-09-07T21:14:00.000-07:00

When the weather is so nice outside it is just a shame to waste it cooped up in our little apartment. Since we are going to eventually leave Russia the boy will need to get used to getting out and about. We decided that it might be nice to make a few little ventures out.

We started with a trip to the play yard. The very first trip was a short one involving the infamous stroller. Yesterday afternoon Pickle wanted so badly to put his shoes on we complied, but this meant another trip out. This time we let him walk. He was a little cautious, but eventually got the feel for the place and found the sand box. Oddly the sandboxes are not used for cat litter boxes like they are at home. Pickle played in the sand and turned into Daddy’s little archaeologist unearthing little rocks. Success!

Pickle is finally figuring out that he can cry when he doesn’t get his way. This may sound trivial, but for a post institutionalized child this is a big deal. PI kids rock when their needs are not met or learn to ignore things like bumps on the head. Yesterday, for example, while playing Pickle fell over and bonked his head on the floor. No carpet padding so it made a thunk. Not a peep out of him. He rubbed his head a little bit and went on playing.

Anyway, we did institute a little holding time yesterday when he was not getting his way and starting to pitch a fit. It went better than I expected. He did fight me a bit, but eventually settled down.

Bedtime was a little more difficult last night. He was so exhausted from not napping well that he just fought going to sleep. It took both of us, lot and lots of rocking together, a little more holding time, but eventually he made it. Bedtime is met with such anxiety on Pickle’s part. Mommy’s too.

The good news is, this morning, when he was done sleeping, he turned over and looked at me and put his hand on my face. He then turned and looked at his daddy. That was enough to make my heart melt. During the night he did rock quite a bit, but he would also reach out and put a hand on or under one of us. We are making some progress.

This morning we thought we should get out again. I wanted to take a longer walk, but Pickle is heavy and we really wanted to teach him it was ok to ride in the stroller. I opened the stroller in the apartment and showed him how to push it along. I then sat him in it and pushed him around the apartment. Evidently this was fun. Pickle then pushed the stroller for a while. After we were both showered and everyone dressed Pickle was demanding his shoes and showing us the door.

Out the door we went bound for our outing to the Gold church. Pickle was quite content to ride in the stroller! Woo Hoo! It is about a half an hour walk from here to the Gold Church. Once we got there we took Pickle out and let him wander around Glory Square. Down the stairs of the WW2 memorial past a group of Japanese tourists and back up the other side. He did all the stairs himself. By that time he was looking a little tired so we put him back in the stroller and followed the Japanese tourists into the Gold Church. We were lucky enough to catch a short Orthodox service full of the sound of melodic angels. I thought it was a recording, but later saw that it was in fact a small choral ensemble. I only wished I could video record it.

We had a play date with Kathou & Paypay’s little girl (I am still trying to come up with a good name for her.) Pickle is also cautious of other children so they don’t actually play together. Pickle thought the slide was the greatest thing ever!

Back to the apartment for naptime. This is where he is now. Sleeping like a rock. He let me keep a hand on him while he rocked. This was a good thing.

Tomorrow we will make another trek to the Gold Church, this time with camera. Sunday we may take a trip to downtown to get our water from the river (not drinking) and for more photo ops.

A little Q&A:
Our 10 day was not waived. It will be up the 14th or 15th, but neither of us can remember when.

Pickle is 22 months. He will turn 23 months the day after we get home.

We obviously got custody of him during the 10 day. We are thankful for this bonding time. It is very common for people adopting from this particular baby home to get custody shortly after court.

Only 12 more days!

Still doing well

2006-09-06T22:29:00.000-07:00

When you spend your entire day inside it seems to lack excitement. After we stopped laughing at everything our boy does the day gets repetitious. We did confiscate the crayons, but CS gave them back this morning while I was in the shower. Big mistake. Now we have purple to go with the red.

Let’s see… other stuff. Still loves bath time. Last night I was running the water and Pickle decided to stick his hand in the stream coming from the faucet. This was the greatest thing evah! I took his shirt off so it wasn’t soaked. Then he decided to sit down and take his socks off. Unfortunately the water never got hot so CS had to boil pots of water. It worked. He did not mind that the water was not that hot. Pickle played in the bath until he was pruny! I may have been just as wet has he was.

Bed time is getting a little better. We decided to take advice from some of you and go with our own little routine. We have bath time and put on pjs. Then we sit and listen to Baby Bach. The bath gets him so worked up that we need something to calm him down. (Thanks Lawvers for lending us the baby Einstein DVDs.) Then we go into the bed and sit together and rock. When he is ready to go to sleep he crawls out of my lap and lays down and rocks side to side while I put my hand on him. It works pretty well. The good thing is last night when he needed some comfort he got up and crawled into my lap. This made me feel good.

Nap time only took about 10 minutes to fall asleep. He does rock when it is time to get up or just when he is done sleeping. It is a little harder to console him then. This morning we just got up and after nap we rocked together.

We went for passport photos this afternoon and the ride in the machina was ok. Again, very timid. He still isn’t sure of Kathou & Paypay’s little one, but both kids did really well.

The weather here has been great. 70 and sunny, with an occasional bug storm. Must close the windows at night lest we get eaten alive. Too bad Pickle gets a little freaked out every time we go outside. Tomorrow we might make a trip to the big gold church. That was today’s plan, but we had to go for the passport photos. CS may go into town to hunt down some cigars though. They are telling us there is some kind of quarantine here until the 11th so not to take the children into crowded areas. Not sure what that one is about, but has something to do with the river. Lovely.

We do miss everyone and can’t wait to come home. Pickle will be so much happier with more than 3 toys to play with, and a yard to run around in. We are working on showing photos of Babushkas and Dedushkas, aunts and uncles. He can muster a crude babushka, but dedushka is doesn’t come out very well.

I also want to congratulate Mrs. Broccoli Guy on her good news! Oh man I wish I were home. I seriously would hop in the car and drive up to give you a great big hug! Let us know when you go to finally get Zeeb!!!!!

Officially a mommy

2006-09-05T22:00:00.000-07:00

I am so very tired. I have officially become a mom. Since my child seems to be commando child and can escape from his crib in 2 seconds flat we thought it best if he slept in the bed with us. The problem is he likes to move around when he sleeps. This we were kneed, head-butted and kicked in the head repeatedly. He also does the rocking thing in the middle of the night so I constantly wanted to console him. Needless to say I didn’t get much sleep. Good thing CS got a little more than me.

I also want to thank all of you for your comments about the rocking. It makes me feel better that it will improve over time. It is just so disturbing not to be able to help comfort him.

Going to bed last night was a little better, but not much. I was on my own for nap-time today and that was not fun. CS went with Kathou and Paypay to the grocery and then to Baby Home #1 so they could pick up their daughter. So I was on for lunch and nap. Pickle cried when I put him in the bed and was not happy. We tried a little Baby Bach, but that wasn’t cutting it either. We finally went back to the bed and sat up and rocked together. Finally he sat by himself while I put my hand on him and let him rock. Once he fell asleep he slept for about an hour before he started rocking again. Then there was no going back to sleep.

We thought we would try a walk to the play yard this afternoon since the weather today is beautiful. CS strapped him into the stroller and about 5 feet down the walk wailing ensued. He was less than thrilled about the stroller. So we picked him up and carried him to the play yard. Of course there was a big truck next to the play yard and the engine was running. Pickle did not like that either. We tried the swing and that was ok, but he held the, “I’m not too sure about this” look. So we finally brought him back to the apartment.

He seems to be the most comfortable here. Outside of the apartment he is very timid and cautious. But this was the same when he first met us too, so I am not terribly worried.

One great success is that he LOVES!!!! Bathtime!!! This was met by shock and awe by the parentals! (meaning us) We had heard that children from orphanages absolutely hate baths and water. Not our boy. Dumping the cup of water on his head, rubbing the bubbles around. Doesn’t even mind having his hair washed! Praise the Lord.

Pickle is a strong eater, a decent sleeper and a generally happy boy. We are having a few issues with throwing things and also with what can and cannot be colored on. Such as the walls and the coffee table are a no. I think the housekeeper loved us for the “Pickle original” red marks on the wall.

Communication is going well. As I think I mentioned before, “Na” is here you go and “Mo-Mo” is please fix this or help me. This is distinctly different than “Ma-Ma,” which he does get and has said on occasion. Pa-Pa is a whole different story.

I think I may be off to confiscate some crayons now. I am sure this may result in a tantrum.

------------------------------------------------------
Nathe: what is the phrase, “Please don’t color on that.”

Also to all: It was confirmed that it is best that we not post photos until our 10 day wait us up. I know you are disappointed, but I am just following the rules. I have been in this process far too long to let something dumb like that screw it up for me. So you will have to wait until the 14th or 15th for photos. Both of us are too tired to know when it actually is.

Uncle Wayne: I have been inducted into parenthood by pulling a you and worrying about poo. Never fear! All is well! I changed my first nasty one this afternoon.

Our first try at parenting

2006-09-04T21:52:00.000-07:00

I can officially say we are a family of 3! Of course getting to this point was not without its challenges. Lena and Andrei were scheduled to pick us up at 11:00 to take us to the orphanage. Of course there was a problem and Lena called to say they were running 20 minutes behind. 11:20. Phone rings. Running another 15 minutes. In the span of 40 minutes I think I went pee 4 times. (I have a nervous bladder of sorts)

When they finally arrived we gathered up our gifts and headed down to the van. Come to find out Andrei had a flat tire. So the delay was understandable. Especially when you see the roads here.

We pulled up to the orphanage and tried to snag one of the little booties they make you wear, but the babushka there was having no part of that.

Tatiana was out for the moment so we went straight to his groupa. The children were just finishing up with lunch and getting ready for nap time. They were giving our boy a wash so he was presentable for his mama and papa. They actually asked me for the clothes that we brought so they could change him. I was surprised. I always thought that it was one of our parental tests. The babushkas watch you while you diaper and dress the child. Guess they think I’ll manage just fine.

We waited for Pickle (yeah, I’m gonna stick with that) in the little caregiver office and there it was. The sound we knew we would hear. One unhappy and crying boy. We knew it was coming. Right from the first trip. We knew there would be much fit pitching when we left. Sho Nuf.

The pants we brought were much too big, but he still looked cute. The babushkas didn’t seem to get the daddy dress so they didn’t put the t-shirt over the longsleeve like I wanted. Oh well. We were able to snap a photo of him and one of the caregivers. They also gave us back the disposable camera we left and a little album with 3 baby photos in it. I forgot to mention that Tatiana gave us one of his baby photos while we were waiting for the judge’s decision yesterday.

Since Pickle was so unhappy, it was best that we say a quick good-bye and head downstairs to say our last good-bye to Tatiana. We gave her the stocking caps from Tracy’s Grandma and she was just in love with them. Thanks Tracy! We also gave her the gifts we brought and she walked us to the font door. Tatiana kissed Pickle gave me a warm hug and said, “Spaceeba!” That was it. A quick in, grab the boy, and out. We did stop for a photo in front of the door with the sweet smell of freedom. Oddly it smells a lot like orphanage.

Pickle calmed down once he saw the machina we were to ride in. His little eyes were fixed on everything passing by. Soon the eyelids became heavy and he drifted off for a little nap on the ride home. His slumber was so rudely interrupted by having to get out of the car.

Once in the apartment CS took him on a tour. “This is the foyer, this is the living room, this is the bedroom and this is the kitchen.” It was a short tour.

Since naptime was scheduled (according to the caregivers) for 12:30 we thought we would lie down and try to get him to sleep. Sure… 12:30. That worked out well. Pickle was having no part of nap time. He was most concerned that we removed the oversized pants and he was wearing socks and a onesie. He was fixated on his jeans sitting on my end table. Seeing as naptime was a no go, we threw on some sweats and let him explore.

We pulled out a few of the toys he is familiar with and he played a little, but he really likes to put everything back on the shelf. I suppose this is because this is the way it is in the orphanage. If he wants to clean up that is fine by me. I could tell that missing his nap was not going to be a good idea so we tried to lay down again. I did forget to mention that earlier I tried to put him in the “crib” we have just to watch him crawl out. Yeah, that’s not going to fly.

The second go around with naptime eventually resulted in a crying baby, a crying mama and papa saving us both. Pickle is a rocker. Big time! He lies in bed and rolls himself violently back and forth to make himself sleep. If you have never witnessed this before it can be disturbing. But to watch your own child do it is 1000 times worse. We did find that if we just lay with him and hold his hand he does it less and eventually falls asleep.

So our first few hours of parenting have been successful! We put the baby down for a nap, had limited crying (even if it was me) and he seems happy and likes us both!

I am still working on finding out when we can post photos. Please be patient. I want to do everything by the book since I got nabbed a little for posting the photo of Little A (after he was adopted) on the other blog. Better go check on my boy. I am expected to feed him a snack when he wakes up so I better be ready!

It is FINISHED!!!!

2006-09-03T19:10:00.000-07:00

We would like to announce that at 12:00 pm Vladivostok time (in Khabarovsk) we were pronounced the proud parents of Oleg Roy Lindholm aka. Pickle!!!

We cannot express how relieved we are to have this part of our journey completed. We took Derek’s mom’s advice and wrote down the names of all the people who would be praying for us back home. D tucked this away in his pocket as a reminder that everything would work out as God had planned.

After the hearing we were greeted downstairs by Kathou, Paypay and Lena. Hugs all around! We were able to snap a photo of us with the social worker Tatiana in front of the courthouse.

We were informed that tomorrow we would be going to the orphanage to pick up the newest addition to our family. We are just so excited (and a bit nervous.)

Thank you to all of those who took a moment back home to say a little prayer for us. Heaven knows I needed it.

Never let Captain Smartypants be your guide

2006-09-03T00:20:00.000-07:00

The first video I ever posted was of the “Gulag Express.” This is a trolley bus that runs through town here in Khabarovsk. The last time we got on it was with Ciarai & Jose, Candy & Doug. Doug nearly lost his arm and I am sure I was groped inappropriately.

This is the only mode of transportation to get us from our apartment building to the main part of town. The cost of this fantabulous ride 10 rubles (about 30 cents.) We needed to buy some gifts for orphanage workers so we decided to go to town today. And seeing as it is our last free day it sounded like a good idea.

We spent the afternoon in town doing some shopping and having a great lunch at the California Café. At about 2:30 or so we hopped back onto the Gulag Express to go back to the apartment. Our stop was the second one and Captain Smartypants decides that we should depart from the GE from the forward doors despite the fact that we were closer to the back doors. We waded our way through the throngs of people only to be blocked by a giant babushka that we could not shove our way past. CS hops off the GE, but Kathou, Paypay and I are all still on board when the engine starts back up and the doors close. Yes… CS left us on the Gulag Express! Fun times!

We did manage to get off on the next stop and hike back up to our previous stop where CS was waiting for us. Smart ass.

Life for now is pretty boring. Sit around and watch movies or the Australia network. Somehow the BBC disappeared. Of course life will dramatically change come Tuesday.

We thank all of you guys for your comments. We will try to post photos as soon as we can. The adoption doesn’t become official until the 11th day after court so I want to make sure it is actually ok to post photos before doing so. I do promise that I will tell you all his name on Monday afternoon though.

We would like to ask that if you have any exciting news (like referrals, court dates or the like) to please email us at Derek.lindholm@gmail.com or leave it in the comments. Our internet access here is $5 and hour and it kicks you off after an hour. So we really don’t have time to read everyone’s blogs. I just don’t want to miss out on anything. I feel so out of the loop!

Tiny Bubbles

2006-09-02T00:29:00.000-07:00

Day 4 of the journey to the motherland finds us still alive. I guess that is a good thing since we haven’t even had our court hearing yet. We were treated by a delicious breakfast at Kathou & Paypay’s. We were able to raid the last remaining items from Cathy & Nick’s fridge before they left this morning. I scored some cereal, milk for CS, and a big bottle of hand sanitizer. Obviously not in the fridge.

We spent the time between breakfast and leaving for the orphanage doing a little exploring. We found the Irish Pub that Suzanne had mentioned and hunted for the children’s store. We didn’t have any luck finding that. It is mentally exhausting trying to find things when you can’t read a single thing. I am like a 1st grader trying to sound out words. Aaaaaahhhhvvvv-tttoooo-mmmmoooo-bbbbeeeeeellllll.

We departed for the orphanage at a little after 3 pm. Kathou & Paypay were nice enough to cut their visit short so we might get a glimpse of snack time. Much to our dismay we missed it. When we did arrive our boy was wearing the infamous “1st photo” shirt. We had a good chuckle over “OK Booby.” Remind me to tell the rest of you about Pickle’s Booby shirt later.

The caregivers dressed Pickle in the clothes we had left for him in April. (they did this yesterday too) So for any wanting to shop for him he is still fitting into a 12 mo size. Go a little larger.

They brought him out and he took one look at us and pitched a fit. This was the first time he had ever really cried around us, except yesterday’s escapade upon leaving. We took him to the visiting closet and tried our best to console him. Cranky-pants was having none of that. Lucky for us I brought the mommy secret weapon! BUBBLES!!!!! Magical little spheres that float in the air and disappear when you touch them. He was hooked. This was today’s favorite toy.

I also brought a few books with us this afternoon. I showed him Goodnight Moon but he was only interested in the colored pages. I then broke out the first words book that I had so neatly translated into Russian. Of course I put the translations onto sticky notes on each page. Sticky notes + 2 year old = Mommy no longer knowing the Russian translations. So car is machina, but train is just train. Boy is Malcheek, but girl is girl.

He is finally starting to talk. He looked at a photo on the back of the digital camera and made the p – p sound. He was looking at a photo of Papa (daddy). Then seeing a photo of himself he said, “Pickle.” Of course it came out sounding much like his actual name since we don’t really call him Pickle directly.

He helped clean up and he taught us a word in Russian. Na. It means, here you go. Naturally Lena had to translate that one for us. Today was a fantastic visit! Lots of smiles, laughing, running and crawling on mommy. We did have a slight sacrifice of a purple crayon, but it is salvageable.

Sorry for the long post, but there was lots to fill you in on. I’ll let you all know how life in Russia is treating us tomorrow. We don’t have an orphanage visit so we are headed into downtown for some shopping with Kathou & Paypay. Monday is court at 11:30 am. This is 5:30 pm Sunday Pacific time. Please pray for us. Especially me. We found out this judge asks all the question to the women.

Das Veedanya!

Official Pickle spotting

2006-09-01T01:06:00.000-07:00

I know you like us and all but won’t really listen to what I have to say until I get the Pickle update taken care of. So without further ado… Lena and Irina came and picked up J&S and us around 3:30pm. We headed out and dropped J,S, and Irina at their stop. Next it was off to Pickle-land and many happy smiles. We went in the front door and put on our little booties as required. We waited in anticipation in the little play (otherwise known as ‘the closet’) for our little boy. Soon it was the patter of little feet coming down the hallway. Into the room toddled our son with that familiar stoic look on his face. Like our first trip, it took a little while for him to warm up to us (again). We got to see Tatiana, the social worker and Dr. Svetlana. The doc gave us an update that he had been healthy during our absence and that his little surgery was a success (which we already knew).
After the formalities were out of the way, we were allowed to take him outside to the playground. Once Lena had secured him a hat, we were off. Out the front door and into the playground. Since he was still unsure of us, we spent the first few minutes doing a whole lot of standing around. Pickle wasn’t interested in leaving Mama’s side. So I ran back inside to get the backpack with all the toys. Yeah, smart parents would have brought that along, but give us a break, we’re newbies at this. Once I was back with toys, things were better. Grandpa Joe, Dedu, and Papa will be glad to know that the kid has a great throwing arm already. We spent quite a bit of time until the mosquitoes as big as your head started to get to us. Note to self: tomorrow bring bug spray! A majority of the rest of our time was spent coloring and having a few cuddles. It always amazes me how fast 2 hours goes by, and soon it was time to say Paka (goodbye). Evidently Pickle thought that the time was too short as he cried when we had to go. Our poor boy also has a cold (hmm, orphanage super-virus?) so I think he was worn out by the time our visit was through. The caretaker thought he might be running a little fever. Hopefully he will feel better when we are there tomorrow.
All in all, it was a great visit with many smiles on our part and even a few laughs from Pickle (when mama was tickling him, of course). Tonight we have a Markuel potluck at J&S apartment, which is great since they are our neighbors. It will be followed by a “free garage sale” by the families that leave tomorrow. Any and all leftover food, supplies, etc will be up for grabs by us families staying behind.

Stay tuned tomorrow for another Pickle sighting. Thanks for all your prayers and words of support. We can’t wait until Monday when we can officially be called parents and announce Pickle’s name to the blogger world.

-CS

We are no longer there, we are HERE!!!

2006-08-30T15:18:00.000-07:00

Umm, I did a little too much Fraggle Rock watching on the flight over.

We arrived safe and sound yesterday afternoon, but due to some technical difficulties we were not able to get onto the internet until today. In fact, I had to pry the modem out of Suzanne's hands this morning with the promise to return it right when they arrived back from court.

All of our luggage made it safe and sound. We did have to wait quite a while for our last bag. CS started to sweat it a bit. Fortunately the bag with our court clothes came out first.

We were greeted at our apartment door by our neighbors. Ironically Jamie & Suzanne are right next door. thus the hijacking of the modem. We finally had our "Party at the Markuel" last night. We only wished that all 10 of the families were here. But 6 out of 10 ain't bad. We had a delicious meal of chili, Kasha, and salad. We met C&N and their newest little one and Cath and her cousin and Cath's little boy. Watching the kids was interesting. They are the same ages as Pickle and Katou & Paypay's little girl. It may be one interesting trip.

Our apartment is nice. CS took a video of it and I will try for photos later. We are only on the 3rd floor so we don't need to take the scary elevator. Our view isn't that spectacular, but from the kitchen window I can see the cross on the tallest dome of the gold church just peeking above one of the apartment buildings.

As soon as Jamie & Suzanne are done at court Lena will come and get us to go for our updated medicals. Because of the court dates and the meds we won't have time to get out to the orphanage. But we will be doing that tomorrow. We can't wait to see our boy!

Saturday and Sunday are days we will use for foraging for food and a phone cord. Then Monday is the BIG day!

For the record, I did get a little bit of sleep on the rock hard bed in Korea and a little more last night. I am slowly catching up. I did bring the ambien in the event of a major emergency, but for now Tylenol PM seems to be tiding me over.

Now Steph and Rhonda, don't hate us for blaming you for the egging. We know you didn't do it, but we had to lay the blame somewhere.

More tomorrow after seeing the boy. We can't post photos of him until after court, so hopefully on Tuesday (which would be monday for you guys)

The sweet taste of chicken

2006-08-29T03:06:00.000-07:00

Holy Chickenbus that was a long flight. 11 stinkin hours. Did I sleep? Hell no. It is currently 6:52pm here on Tuesday and it would be 3:00 am tuesday at home. I am quickly approaching the awake for 24 hours mark.

We survived the delicious (yeah right) food on the flight. The flatulence section of the airplane. (neither of us btw) and the constantly changing temperature on the plane.

I did feast on my sweet sweet chicken. CS is going to try to snap a photo with me and "the founder" tomorrow morning. They have a statue by the food court.

And the house egging thing... I was serious about that. Our house was egged. I think Rhonda did it, but CS is totally convinced that Steph did it. (sorry about the lack of linkage, I am a little slow.)

I am also going to make an attempt to change the counter to the court date. This may or may not be effective.

Ready Set Go

2006-08-28T12:54:00.000-07:00

First things first! Which one of you guys egged my house????? CS went out to the garbage can and noticed white foam all over my car. Upon closer inspection we noticed there were egg on various things. Like... oh... CS's new car, my office window, our siding. What the hell??? What did I ever do to you guys?

In all seriousness, we are at the airport with Kathou and Paypay and anxiously waiting to get on the plane. It took us forever to get through the check in line and then through security. I did a quick HA HA at the lady who was getting her handbag ransacked. Uh Hello! No liquid makeup.

Yep the counter says 0 minutes in some places. Trust me, the plane has not boarded yet. 20 more minutes.

Sorry I am too boring. I am working on limited brain capacity here.

Next stop... SEOUL!!!!! (and my feast of chicken from National Fried Chicken Parts Retailer)

Final Q&A

2006-08-27T11:58:00.000-07:00

Thanks to all of you who had weird Ambien stories too. I feel less dumb. I was confirmed that I did not step in any cat vomit, but the jury is still out on the wall issue.

So not so much a Q&A, but we did have lots of requests for our itinerary. Once CS prys me out of from under the bed our trip will look as follows.

Monday, August 28 - Depart Seattle 1:40 pm
Tuesday, August 29 - Arrive Seoul, South Korea 5:00 pm
5221 miles flown this segment - 5221 miles total

Check into airport hotel and feast on the boycotted chicken from a national fried chicken parts retailer (this is the only place in the world I am allowed to have the banned chicken)

Wednesday, August 30 - Depart Seoul 10:10 am
Wednesday, August 30 - Arrive Khabarovsk, Russia 3:10 pm (yea! the same day!)
886 miles flown this segment - 6107 miles total

Thursday & Friday - complete medical exams

Monday, September 4th - COURT DATE (the date where you finally learn his name)

Tuesday, September 5th - Finally become parents!!! (we are assuming that we will get to pick Pickle up the day after court, if not maybe the 6th)

Toodle around in Khabarovsk for 13 days. Exactly how many times can we visit the Military museum?

Monday, September 18 - Depart Khabarovsk 6:00 pm
Monday, September 18 - Arrive Moscow 7:15 pm (8 long hours later)
3825 miles flown this segment - 9932 miles total

Tuesday, September 19 - Pickle's medical exam, Embassy visit, Register Pickle with the Russian government, attempt to purchase a Soviet hockey jersey and have a National Lampoon's moment with Kathou & Paypay at St. Basil's.

Wednesday, September 20 - Depart Moscow 7:15 am (pick up my own gummi bears)
Wednesday, September 20 - Arrive Zurich, Switzerland 8:45 am
1368 miles flown this segment - 11300 miles total

Wednesday, September 20 - Depart Zurich 12:40 pm (snap a photo of our newest citizen!)
Wednesday, September 20 - Arrive Chicago, USA 3:15 pm (still wednesday)
4443 miles flown this segment - 15743 miles total

Wednesday, September 20 - Depart Chicago 5:20 pm
Wednesday, September 20 - Arrive Seattle, WA 7:42 pm
1721 miles flown this segment - 17464 miles total

Did anyone else notice how all of those last flights were all on a Wednesday? In fact... the SAME Wednesday!

Dear Dr. Ambien

2006-08-26T12:15:00.000-07:00

My name is Elle and I am an insomniac. I have gotten to the point where I can no longer stand laying awake at night and staring at the ceiling. I gave your product a try. I will have to say that your marketing ploy of falling asleep fast was in fact true. Also, your product's ability to keep ones such as myself asleep was also remarkable. There is only one flaw to your magical medicine. You did not take into account those of us with weak bladders. Part of my insomnia stems from the fact that I get up multiple times in the night to go to the bathroom. On a normal night I can do this with my eyes shut. Unfortunately your product has some added ingredient that made me stagger to the toilet like one who has recently partied like a rockstar on a Tuesday night. For the record I made it safely to the toilet however; on the way back I may or may not have run into a wall, and it is a distinct possibility I stepped in cat vomit.

So thank you Dr. Ambien for giving me my much needed rest even if it was filled with strange dreams about turkey sandwiches and glaring looks from Babushkas. Although I would suggest the removal of the ingredient that makes you feel like a barfly on payday.

Sincerely, One messed up woman

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After the ambien episode I woke up to feel like I'm just not all there. This could be from the fact that we only have 2 days and 1 hour. (I think I'll crap when I see that 1 day come up in about an hour)

I would also like to apologize for any strange comments you may have gotten from me on any of your posts. I started in on reading pre-coffee this morning.

We don't have the time to worry about the time

2006-08-25T09:20:00.000-07:00

See that countdown clock up there? Yeah, I've been trying to ignore that little gem. I'm looking at it and it says we only have 3 days and 4 hours left before CS is shoving my butt onto that plane. Don't get me wrong... I want to go. I am over the top excited to go, but there is so much left to do and well... only 3 days and 4 hours to do it in.

Of course we have to throw in things like a "wedding shower" for some friends of ours. If I were sane I would just say, "John and Courtney, we love you very much. We enjoyed the hosted bar at your wedding and sneaking out onto the driving range at the golf course. We wish you well in your new married life, but we are leaving the country for 24 days and we just can't make it." But seeing as I'm not sane we are going. Besides, it's at CS's parents house and let's face it... they throw a mean party.

I revisited the to-do list last night and here is what our weekend looks like:

Some time between now and 11:45 this morning I must shower (that gives me 2 hours and 15 minutes)
Stop at the bank to pick up the money.
Force feed Elle.
Hair appointments for the both of us.
Finish errands in Olympia since that is where the hair place is. Errands include picking up the remainder of the stuff on the to-buy list.
Saturday morning, finish the laundry and finish packing
Saturday night, party
Sunday morning, church at 8:30, clean remainder of the house
Sunday afternoon, pry Elle out of the corner where she is rocking herself and mumbling something about another person to take care of.
Monday morning, drag Elle out from under the bed where she is hiding still mumbling about lack of chocolate and vodka.
Monday afternoon, hug Kathou and Paypay at the gate and shove Elle's loony butt onto an airplane bound for parenthood.

I think the stress really is getting to me. I had our passports sent to the church instead of our house, since that is where I was yesterday. I brought my camera to work so I could take a photo of the FedEx guy when he delivered my golden little package. I asked if I could take his photo and he said no. I begged. Still said no. I was so devastated I nearly burst into tears. How dumb is that? Gawd I am a loon.

Oh and for the record... if you happen across a Japanese blog with a post about how dumb Americans are an there is a photo of a guy in a grey t-shirt and blue shorts at a Mariners game... that lady behind him in the red jacket... that is me. We had a great time at the game Wednesday night, but when purchasing the tickets forgot that the 300 level in right field of Safeco is the "Rabid Fan" section. I swear the Ichiro fans are crazy!!! It didn't help that we went to a Yankees game and the Matsui fans are even worse. But the dude in front of me did not shut up the entire game. I have never seen a person with such diarrhea of the mouth. I nearly kicked him in the back of the head just to knock him out.

Just Darn Special

2006-08-23T16:20:00.000-07:00

I get home from my day off (working) and there is a knock at the door. The mail man. The mail man only comes to the door if he is delivering something that won't fit in the box. This can only mean good things. He kindly hands me a box from Baby Style. Now I have been banned from looking at these kinds of sites because I already spend too much money on stuff for the boy at the stores around town. So this wasn't something I ordered. I open the box to find this beautifully gift boxed package inside. The tag says it is from my dear friend Jenny. I open the box to find the cutest little outfit. A pair of bright blue sweats and a crew t-shirt. I love it!!! It will go perfect with my boy's little Adidas tennis shoes. Thanks Chick!

So like everything else that comes from an online shopping source they send you advertisements for other things they happen to carry. This is a bad deal. Because it gets you to go to their website and check it out. Ok, bad for me anyway. Especially bad when the advertisement is Halloween Costumes. I love Halloween. I think it is one of my favorite holidays. I was more depressed last year on Halloween than Christmas. I wanted my little boy so I could dress him up cuter than all the other kids, take him to our church Halloween party, then maybe trick-or-treating at his grandparents. Alas, I sat at a table dressed as a barista bummed because the kids were just so darn cute and I was childless.

Not this year though!!! Halloween is going to be different in this house. So in the spirit of the season here is the page for Baby Style Halloween Costumes. Help me pick one out. I am leaning toward the Shark or the Turtle. Although they are all cute.

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*did you know spell checker tries to change Adidas to idiots. Too Funny!

Utterly confused

2006-08-22T11:54:00.000-07:00

Still not car photos. It was dark by the time we got home to the camera and CS left before I had my morning coffee this morning. I was in no shape to even think of photographing a car. I'll try tomorrow.

I am in an utter state of confusion around here. I am trying to get together our stack of gifts for people in Russia. I am getting totally conflicting numbers of caregivers, who works at the orphanage and who else there is around. I think I am finally getting it under control, but as soon as I start to think about it my brain says, "Uh lady... you are really pushing me to the limit. Oh look at the kitty."

The same holds true for the cash. Ack! I can't even begin to tell you how many times I have looked at my damn spreadsheet and said I don't think this is enough. My biggest fear is getting there and not having enough cash. I am terrified of sticking my ATM card into a machine in Russia. Sure... I'm not afraid of Hepatitis or Typhoid, but I am afraid of an ATM machine.

On a good note I did get the doctor thing handled. I finally got the nurse and she is just about the neatest lady ever. She is just too excited for us. She is sending all kinds of information that we will need and said to call if we have issues. That is a huge weight off my shoulders.

Anyway... better stop procrastinating. I think my timer tells me I am down in the 5 day range.

Good lord only 7 days left!

2006-08-21T09:41:00.000-07:00

Bet you thought you would get photos of our fancy new car today didn't you? Don't worry. You will get them tomorrow. We had to mill over which car we wanted. We drove 3 cars yesterday. A brand new Hyundai Elantra, a used Hyundai Tucson and a used Scion xB. I was totally sold on the xB. LOVE IT!!!!!! Unfortunately it ended up being out of our price range. It was a sad little good-bye between me an the funky beer fridge. So that whittled it down to the Tucson and the Elantra. Both very nice cars. The Elantra was an automatic and the Tucson was a stick. I currently drive a stick (so does CS) so that wasn't a big deal. The Tucson is this rocking blue color and the Elantra was more of a royal blue. More airbags, traction control and 4 wheel disk brakes in the Tucson. Elantra a little better on gas mileage. It really was a tough decision. We finally decided on the Tucson because of the added interior space, it would be easier to get little boy in and out of a higher up car, added safety features and not as important on the picking scale, but that color is just to die for! So we are making yet another trip to Olympia tonight to pick it up. The only downfall about it is there is not tape deck or mp3 jack. So no iPod in the car. But it does have a six disk changer so that helps.

Enough about the car. Back to that list and your questions.

Michelle, Pickle turns 22 months today.

I did get a hair appointment for Friday at 1. Thank God!!! I could see the judge turn me down. Um, I'm sorry, you have the worst hair evah. We can't possibly give you a child. I know I wouldn't get turned down due to my hair, but hey, I need to look good just for my own sanity.

On another front. I am still trying to get that pediatrician lined up. I called the clinic this morning and went through all of the options on their dumb voicemail. Finally pressed the magic "0" and got kicked back to the main greeting. Ugh! Finally got a receptionist who was clueless and transferred me to the nurses. Got the nurse's voicemail. Please leave a message. "Hi, this is Elle....." I'm sorry your message is too short. good bye. Damn it!!! Now I have to try back later. I really want to use this clinic but I am trying to figure out how much experience any of the docs have with Post Institutionalized children. It is not an easy thing.

The cleaning fairies are coming today. Yeah! I might have to buy them a coffee or something. That is on the main agenda for today. We'll see how it goes.

How's that list workin' out for you?

2006-08-20T08:06:00.000-07:00

Let's have a To Do List review. First I have to give you the original list.

Find pediatrician (no comments on me not doing this in the months prior)
Visa applications
airline tickets
gifts for people in Russia
Photobook to show judge
find house sitter
Pack
embassy paperwork
pick up money at the bank
unpack car seat
unpack table booster seat
arrange drop off and pick up at the airport
prescriptions
buy remaining stuff for trip
take care of the bills while we are gone
cat food/ litter
clean house
notes for house sitter
finish babyproof
set up sprinklers
attempt to stay as calm as possible with only 8 days to do all of this.

I am keenly aware of the fact that there are quite a few items I could have done prior to knowing our court date, but I was so oblivious to the fact that we would actually get a court date I said screw it. So now I have 8 days 6 hours and some odd minutes to complete all of this stuff. Lucky for me I got to work.

Visas and airline tickets are taken care of. Visas should be arriving Thursday or Friday. Cutting it close, but I trust the travel agent. I found a house sitter!!! Yeah! I can't tell you what a load off my mind that is. Thanks Shey! Embassy paperwork was done last Wednesday. Easy. The car seat got unpacked on that last Manic Monday. The rest.... well that is still to do.

This afternoon we are saying good-bye to our Jetta and trading it for a more affordable car. Now the smart people would trade the Bug (aka. the Mommy car) but we like to be difficult. The Jetta is too expensive with the high car payment and the need for premium gas. So it is outta here! CS's mom and sisters are coming tomorrow to help me pack, babyproof and clean. Tuesday I have to work in the afternoon, so that leaves the morning to finish up some orphanage worker gifts. Wednesday I have to run my newsletter that I have been cramming in there too. Wednesday night is a Mariner's game with the fam. Thursday work all day. My last day actually at the church. I go to working from home once we get back. Friday I am getting my hair done if it is the last thing I do. Saturday is a house warming party for some friends. Sunday, last minute packing and watching Elle run around like a crazy woman because she isn't able to handle the fact that she is a) leaving the country for 3 weeks and b) is going to be a mom. Think CS should take a video of this?

Alright... gotta go install more baby latches.

10 days 5 hours and 2 minutes

2006-08-18T08:28:00.000-07:00

As if I didn't have enough stress in my life I decided to rip off Mary-Mia's countdown and remind me how much time I don't have before getting on a plane and leaving my country, home and cats for 3 weeks. I am so not prepared to leave the country. One would think that with all this time we have been waiting and all those fabulous lists y'all have published I would be Betty-on-the-spot. I guess this is what I get for being married to world's biggest procrastinator for 10 years.

As I sat down at my computer this morning I though I would work on my e-book of my photographs for CS's boss. Some of my artwork is going in their office and he needs the book to make his choices. Is this really a smart use of my time? Uh no. But it would be fun. Now the smart lady would say let me get that to you in October so I can include my small collection of Moscow photos.

I did however restrain myself once the pile of stuff on my desk started collapsing on its own. Evidently it isn't a good idea to stack books, files and paperwork on a stack of CD cases. Gravity doesn't like that.

Good news is that I did get 3 things crossed off my list of stuff to do yesterday. We got our Visa photos taken, I bought the airline tickets (*gasp and die), and on Wednesday I copied all of our needed embassy paperwork. I nearly had a coronary yesterday from an email from Olga. She said we needed updated immigration paperwork, notarized and apostilled. I ran around the house yelling at Captain Smartypants saying BUT WE DID THAT!!! I tore through the paperwork and scanned our copy and sent to Olga and said SEE!!! Crisis averted. Whew!

We did take some time to celebrate our anniversary last night. We had a fancy dinner out (probably our last for a loooooong time) at the Melting Pot. A fondue joint for those of you in Podunk, USA. When CS made the reservation he told them it was our anniversary so there was a long stemmed rose in a vase on the table and he even bought me a little gift. Personally I thought 10 was baby so I didn't get him anything. He bought me this beautiful resin cross with Corinthians 13:4-8 on it. That was one of our wedding verses. It is to go on my wall of crosses. I collect them. I think we are almost up to a cross in every room of our house.

I will get around to writing a post about our last 10 years, but I think I will do that over at Life of Elle. I have some great photos that I might make a movie out of. But that of course requires time. Of which I only have 10 days 5 hours and 2 minutes of. Better get back to work.

Dastardly Elle

2006-08-17T12:40:00.000-07:00

What?! You guys didn't like that? I can't see why you would expect anything different from me. Come on now.

Yes, we did receive our court date last night. I will come clean and say that we kinda knew about it on Tuesday, but it wasn't a 100% thing. Kathou called Tuesday morning to say they got word about their court date and Olga had instructed her to call me. Olga had also given her the travel dates and instructions to phone the travel agent to get things started. Kudos to Kathou for taking care of the flight arrangements! Thanks Sweetie! All I had to do was call Albina and give her my credit card number.

Tomorrow we head up to Seattle to drop off our Visa applications (all signed) and our passports. I had originally planned on doing it today, but I really don't want to drive to Seattle on my own. Yeah, I'm a chicken.

We are leaving on Monday the 28th and coming home Wednesday September 20th. The 10 day is never waived in Khabarovsk. We get a whirlwind tour of Moscow and then head home. Our flights are very similar to Suzanne's in that we will fly all the way around the world. I am going to lose an entire day of my life. I will never get that day back unless we fly the other way around the world. I could just see it now. 20 years in the future we go to Thailand or something. Hey honey, remember that day we lost going to pick up the boy? Oh look, we just got it back. Man I missed that day.

Ok, can you tell I have totally lost it? I tell you I am going insane. I think I have a stress induced tumor. I have a monster headache. I have a million things to do, but can't seem to get any of them done. Ack!

I've tried eating, but every time I do I start to get jittery again and then feel nauseous. It is pleasant. Time to stop procrastinating and start working.

BTW, today happens to be our 10 year wedding anniversary. I was going to write some long eloquent post about CS, but I think I might try it a little later. I don't have the brain capacity to even brush my hair at this point. I think I showered this morning. How do I smell?

-------------------------------------
I totally forgot to give you the answers to the B test.

Squirrels evidently live in a hole. Despite my best efforts she insists that they do not live in trees

Trees obviously live outside. I tried to guess outside in the sand, but I got a funny look for that one.

And candles live on a birthday cake.

How did you score?

Daily Wrap-up - Bullet Style

2006-08-16T19:56:00.000-07:00

I thought I would take a page out of Zoot's book and do a wrap up of the day Bullet Style. Not because my day was all that thrilling, but mostly because I am lazy.

I spent the morning leisurely reading blogs and attempting to comment on some of them. If you didn't get a comment it wasn't because I don't like you. It is more like I couldn't think of anything quippy to say. And god forbid I not be intelligent or funny when making comments.
Spent the early afternoon photo copying yet more paperwork. Cause we all know how much I love paperwork.
I then whipped myself into a manic frenzy and cleaned my kitchen. I bought one of those Mr. Clean Magic Reach things and my oh my how beautiful it is!!! I loves me a new cleanin' tool!
We drove down to Olympia to have dinner with CS's parents since his sister and our niece is in town from California. I spent the evening fielding questions such as, "Annie Missy (that's what she calls me) Annie Missy, what is work?" "Annie Missy, What is Christmas?" "Annie Missy, What are clues?" Did I mention she is 4 years old?
We got our court date of September 4th. We leave for Russia on August 28th.

So there you have. My wonderful fantastic very good day!!

Just for fun I will leave you with a B test. (B is my niece)

Where do squirrels live?
a. in a pond
b. in the tree
c. in a hole

Where do trees live?
a. outside
b. inside
c. outside in the sand

Where do candles live?
a. in Ernies window box
b. on a birthday cake
c. in the sink

Did you get the answers right?

Bam!

2006-08-16T10:37:00.000-07:00

Those of you who know me know I am not the biggest Emeril fan. I am more of the Alton Brown or Jamie Oliver type. But Emeril's "Bam" phrase is somehow appropriate.

Got an email this morning saying that Pickle's medical form was finally completed!!!!! See I tried to tell them he was healthy, but did they listen to me? Nooooo.

So we are inching closer to the ever elusive finish line. In the spirit of the wait I'll give you guys this mornings StatCounter Wars info.

Top 5 States:
1. California (Go Tricia!)
2. North Carolina
3. New York
4. Washington (Suzanne shouldn't you be packing?)
5. Texas

Top 5 Cities:
1. Charlotte, NC
2. Bronx, NY
3. Jackson, TN
4. Oak Harbor, WA (Really, Suzanne)
5. Shelton, CT (hey my family lives in Shelton, WA!)

We are at a total of 87 hits for the morning. Yesterday was 200. Your guy's all time high is 671.

Also, if refreshing my web page isn't enough head on over to Stephanie's. She gave us the tracking number for their dossier so we can obsessively track that too!

As far as the Bald and Fat PAP club, well... I would fall under the Bald and Stick-like PAP club. I think you guys are eating my share of the chocolate. Give it back!!!! Or am I going to have to do some house egging?

I'll take an inch

2006-08-15T18:27:00.000-07:00

I emailed our agency last week asking the ever burning question. Did the judge actually mandate that the Ministry of Health complete the medical form or was it merely a suggestion. I had to wait all freaking weekend for the answer because, well I am dumb and send my very busy coordinator questions on Friday afternoons.

Yesterday rolls around and I get an email from Olga. Good news! The judge did in fact Mandate that the MoH complete the report. Yeah!!! The catch is because they are a government agency she can't specify a time limit, but it is pretty much understood. So tonight officially marks the 2 week mark. My "10 days" are up! Woo Hoo! (ok that's a lot of exclamation points)

So start up the Stat Counter Wars again ladies! We are officially in the final stretch*.

*There is no real confirmation that this is in fact true, but I am getting back to that manic mode and I am dragging all of you with me whether you like it or not.

Damn Tourists

2006-08-15T09:28:00.000-07:00

Evidently Seattle has become the new HOTT tourist destination. I don't see why. Beautiful 75 degree days, gorgeous views of the mountains and the sound. Cool places to visit like the Space Needle and Pike's Place Market. Why would anyone want to come here?

The Genius (me) thought it would be fun to spend our afternoon at Pike's. Anyone who has ever been to Pike's Place Market in the summer knows that it is the ultimate Seattle tourist trap. Pasty white people wandering the street not paying attention to where they are walking. (oh wait... those are the locals) Pike (in the market) is the only street in Seattle where you can cross against the light. Because there are no lights there. People wander haphazardly into the street no paying attention to the cars. Danielle told me not to aim for them.

Thousands upon thousands of tourist impeding my way. Gah! All I wanted was a sandwich, a coffee and to sit down to eat. We finally did get our little lunch and enjoyed listening to the strange man in the park yelling at Sheryl Crow on his little portable radio. Not quite sure what she was saying to him, but evidently he didn't like that every day was a winding road.

After our lunch of little baguettes from the French bakery and coffees from The Original Starbucks (for tourists only!) we stopped for dessert at Piroshky Piroshky. Love them!!! The rhubarb ones are to. die. fo.

We made a quick stop at Market Spice to pick up some essentials for our trip to Russia. Can't live without curry for 3 weeks. Then found the best place evah!!! Souk. It is an Egyptian/Indian grocery. I was like a kid in a candy store. The place was about as big as my office, but I could have spent hours in there. I went in for Tandoori paste, but walked out with 2 kinds of Dahl, cumin seed, ground coriander, coriander seed, garam masala, pakora mix, tamarind concentrate, and Tandoori paste. All for $25! What a deal!!! I was so excited.

Despite having to navigate the hoards of tourists I had a great afternoon.

------------------------------
Ciarai, sorry I didn't call you. I got distracted by something shiny.

Just another manic monday

2006-08-14T08:58:00.000-07:00

I miss my manic high. Remember? The posts from here, here, and here. But then came that crushing blow. No court date for you! Our agency said it should only be a 2 week delay for the Ministry of Health to finish up the paperwork and get it into the judge's hands. Well... today will be 2 weeks. Ok, actually tomorrow will be 2 weeks, but today (tonight) is 2 weeks from our pre-trial hearing. Confused yet? So am I.

I am of the mind set that I won't believe it until I see it, but I want so badly to get excited about the possibility that this might actually be the week. I got so much accomplished in that 1 day!

Now normally I would be sitting on top of my computer all day, but not today. I am headed out to Seattle to spend the day with one of my good girlfriends. So in all likelihood since I am not sitting on my computer the "call" will come. Wouldn't that just be fantastic? So I can get a little excited huh?

Let's go check my email real quick ok. Yeah nothing. Shocking!

Crazy doesn't begin to cover it

2006-08-11T11:17:00.000-07:00

Some of you were may have been wondering what my Avatar said. It was a bit difficult to read unless you went to my profile and clicked on it. This is what I have been feeling like the past couple of months and in the past 2 weeks fo sho.

Of course there were a few other happy bunny pictures I could have chosen like "you smell like butt" or "Make the Stupid people shut up," but I thought this one was appropriate. I love It's Happy Bunny. I'm not one to go out and buy a bunch of crap with the bunny. I do however, like a cute little animal that really tells it like it is. So here's my bunny telling it like it is. I'm nuts!

So nuts in fact that I once again re-did my personal blog. I would love to move this one and get away from the gigantic sucking sounds that are Blogger, but CS won't let me do it. The theory being that I can screw up my own blog first. It would just be a damn shame to mess this one up. Besides, I would have to figure out how to code wordpress with 3 columns and I am just not that bright. Let me tell you, coding for wordpress is hard! I can see why so many people hire people to do it. I can also see why designers make so much bloody money. (not really, but it's more than me)

Anyway, I hate to make those of you who have that blog on an RSS or in your blogroll change it again, but hey it's not about you, it's about me. And I now have my own domain name. Just one more thing to take my valuable time. Cause that's what I need. So check it out. If it doesn't work let me know that too.

Comfort Beer

2006-08-08T10:03:00.000-07:00

I am aware that the title of this post may further your suspicions of me drinking too much due to stress. I assure you that it is far from the truth. While it is true that I like a good glass of wine with dinner I abhor getting drunk. In fact the last time that happened it involved a Mexican and a bottle of tequila. Let's just say that it wasn't a shining moment in my adult life.

I will say that I do like the taste of some alcohol. The complexities of various wines. The subtle differences between Scandinavian and Russian Vodka, or the memory a good beer evokes. I would be called more of a connoisseur of liquor more than a lush.

There is one taste that is like a good comfort. It may seem simple, even cheap, but the taste of Molson Canadian is one of my favorites. It is what I would call comfort beer. It symbolizes a great hockey season, summer barbecues, and a nice quiet evening at home with a pizza. In essence family time.

This last spring Derek (ok, I'll use his real name for this one) and I were forced to spend every waking moment with each other. Stuck in a tiny hotel room in a foreign country where we didn't speak the language. When your husband is your best friend this isn't such a bad thing. We spent our afternoons watching movies on the computer and fixing a little lunch. Just enough to satisfy us until dinner rolled around. Lunch consisted of a noodle bowl, some bread and cheese and on a few occasions a great Russian beer. Great memories.

On a different note yesterday we laid my Tiny Papa to rest. Our family gathered around at a cemetery in North Washington to pay our last respects to a great man. A prize fighter, a hard worker, a devoted husband, an avid fisherman, and a well respected man of 98 years old (I finally found out his age.) At the conclusion of the service we took the time to talk to extended family members. Meet people we never knew existed and reminisced about the life of our Tiny Papa. My immediate family had plans to have lunch together at a local casino buffet.

Sunday I declined the offer to join them, as I am not much of an Indian gaming person. I planned to do a little shopping at the outlet mall or try to catch Suzanne for a quick bit of coffee. My mom looked at me and said, "are you sure you wouldn't like to join us?" I tried again to decline, but she kept asking. I was hungry and my step-dad was paying. I hadn't heard from Suzanne and I really didn't have the money to go shopping. So I joined them.

My mom rode in the car with me and we had a lively discussion about faith and religion. One of the first times we have carried on such a conversation. As we sat at lunch I looked at my family. Mom, Mike, my grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins. A family that had just lost it's oldest member. A family that has stuck together through anything. A family that has taught me so much over the years. People who have made me laugh, taught me to be strong and defended me when the boys came knocking. I realized that there isn't anywhere else I would have been yesterday. They constantly reassured me that Pickle was coming home. Reminded me to have faith and repeatedly said they couldn't wait to meet him. What a comfort.

I said my good-byes to my family and hopped in my car for the long drive home through Seattle traffic. Hot weather and dumb drivers are enough to raise your blood pressure and set in the little bit of road-rage. By the time I got home I was tired and frustrated. But I opened the fridge and waiting inside was a bottle of Baltika. The Russian beer we drank on those quiet days in Khabarovsk. The first sip was like a reminder. We must make memories that last. Whether it be mint green furniture in a tiny Russian hotel room or your uncle brow beating you to eat more; it is these kinds of memories that you keep with you forever. It is what makes up family.

Unraveling the converter mystery

2006-08-06T10:21:00.000-07:00

In keeping with the whole travel theme as of late I thought I would shed some light on the whole converter/adapter mystery. For those of you who have traveled abroad you can stop reading now. For those who were like me, never been out of N. America prior to trip #1, this is important stuff.

When plugging in an electrical device in a foreign country you will need one of two things (or both.) A power converter and/or a plug adapter.

With both of these devices you plug the US end into the converter or adapter and then plug the European (heretofore known as the "Russian end") into the outlet.

To determine which to use you must study the device you want to plug in. Look at the cord of your device. Is there a big black box somewhere on the cord? No? Then you will need the power converter(PC). Yes? You will only need the plug adapter (PA) in most cases. This is the tricky part. Look at the black box. See the writing on it? Find where it says "Input." If it reads "100-240v" then you only need the PA. The PA makes it so your US plug fits into the Russian wall socket. There are of course cases where you are unsure of what to use. You could experiment, but be willing to sacrifice your electronic device. Let's just say I needed to go buy a new set of researchable batteries for my digital camera. Good thing I brought extra batteries.

Now if your cord does not say this or is lacking the black box you will need the PC. The exception is for travel hairdryers. A travel hairdryer has a switch that says 240v or 100V. When you use it in the US switch it to 100v. In Russia switch it to 240v (or 250v like mine) and plug the cord
into the plug adapter then that into the wall socket. It is important to make sure the switch is set correctly. On our first trip there was an incident with a travel hairdryer that caused a minor power outage in the hotel.

There is one little exception you will find when you arrive. The wall sockets in Russia are recessed into the walls. The Power Converter does not fit into them. So you have to take your Plug Adapter and put it on the end of the PC, then plug it into the socket.

I hope this has shed some light on the Power Converter v. Plug Adapter mystery. As to where to buy them, that is up to you. We bought our original set at Target, but somehow misplaced it in between trip #1 and #2. Fortunately, CS's parents had one and let us have theirs.

The Voice of Experience

2006-08-04T09:33:00.000-07:00

You people's list making has inspired me to provide my little bit of experience of travelling. Granted, I have not travelled out of the country very often (read twice) but I have travelled to Russia twice (hmm) and I kinda know what I'm doing. So I thought I would pass onto you my packing list of stuff for the first trip, or 2nd trip if you happen to be like me. Lucky one who gets to travel 3 times.

In my carry-on, which is an Eddie Bauer backpack:
Dossier binder - heavy, but I won't let it out of my sight
1 book - I am slow reader and get airsick easily
i-Pod - didn't have this the 1st time, went nuts. listened to it nearly the whole ride home the second time.
dvd player - didn't have this the first time. second time it was a life saver. one word: LOST
dvds - mostly Lost, but a few movies too
neck pillow - bulky, but worth it.
ziploc bag containing - 1 t-shirt, 1 pair of socks and 1 pair of underwear. 1st trip also included a nightgown, had an overnight
eyedrops
saline nasal spray
allergy pills
dramamine - I don't go anywhere without it
contact lenses - didn't wear them, but I won't check them either
glasses case
kleenex - very handy for trip 2 because I had an Elle special allergy attack
tylenol pm - trip 3 I am taking ambien. the pm didn't work on trip 2
goldfish crackers - would you think anything different of me?
ibuprofen and tylenol
purell
digital camera, 3 extra cards and 1 extra set of batteries
photo album of our house, town, family and friends
toothbrush & toothpaste - if you fly Asiana they have these in the plane washrooms, but sometimes they run out.
moist wipe face cleaners - Avon makes some great ones
immodium
prescription drugs

My suitcase - quantities not included since trip 1 and trip 2 were different lengths:
plain stretch t-shirts in bright colors - no black or white
kahki type pants
1 pair of jeans
extra pair of shoes to alternate
socks & undies
comfy jammies
a regular type t-shirt and "hospital" pants for lounging
sweaters and 1 sweatshirt
jacket
scarf, hat and gloves - trip 2 it snowed
orphanage donations
small gifts for driver, translator, and facillitator - trip 2 only since they had waited so long for reaccreditation too
make-up - very litte, foundation and blush
travel hairdryer
contact lens stuff - disinfectant, case, extra pair, saline
hair brush & comb
more batteries & battery charger - CS effectively blew it up though
power converter and adapter
head scarf for the Orthodox churches - we went during holy week so I thought it would be respectful. normally women only cover their head during service
first aid kit - very small

I am sure there are a few other things that I am forgetting, but those were the majors. Now I have to figure out how to fit all of that stuff and Pickle's stuff for the next trip without adding another suitcase.

Oh! one bit of advice. We did use space bags and they were a life saver. on the first trip they protected our orphanage donations from an exploding bottle of bodywash.

half assed update

2006-08-03T19:10:00.000-07:00

I have nothing. This really is one half assed update. So since I have nothing and I need a laugh, and who better to make me laugh than my own adventures, I will tell you my most embarassing moment.

I used to work for a major greeting card company when Captain Smartypants and I were first married. My job was to travel around the country installing and revising greeting card departments. During my training I worked with other installers in my state. One of the first jobs I went on was with a guy from Seattle. The job was in Eastern Washington (over the mountains.) It was December. I met this guy at his house and then we proceeded to drive over the mountains. Near the summit of Snoqualmie Pass the traffic stopped. You see... there is a "shed" that covers one side of the freeway on the East slope of the pass. The shed makes a nice ramp for snow to slide off of onto the Eastbound lanes (our lanes.) Ergo traffic jam.

So we sit in this traffic jam for a good 2 hours. We are not near anything. I mean nothing. No rangers station, no gas station, nada! It is also a well known fact that I have a bladder the size of a pea. I go quite often. 2 hours is about my limit. Oh would you look at that! We'd been sitting there just about that amount of time. I tell the guy I really have to go. He said, "well you could go on the side of the road." I'm not shy. Ok. We're on an overpass. I'll just go underneath and go.

Not a car to be found. I climb up under the overpass where the road meets the slope and proceed to check for cars. All clear. I squat to do my business and around the corner comes a car. Great. I'm thinking, I'm wearing a dark coat and I am all hunkered down, maybe they don't see me. Car goes by and stops at the stop sign. Whew! To my dismay I see the reverse lights kick on. Well crap. The car backs up and the passengers watch me pee. The good thing is I had on a really long coat so I don't think they saw much. But I have to say that having strangers watch you pee under an overpass in the snow is not the picture you want people to have of you. Now I at least try to find a bush.

That's more like it

2006-08-02T21:25:00.000-07:00

I finally wised up and crawled in bed with the computer. I really should have done this earlier. Kitty is cuddling nicely with me and I am doing my part at yelling at the television and laughing at how truly short Regis Philbin is. Great... now you know that I actually watch America's Got Talent. Hey, we all need some kind of useless fluff on occasion. And please tell me where is the talent in stripping. And to defile the Kit car!!! That is just sacreligious. There are children in the audience for crissake.

Thanks to all of you for your kind support. I have come back to check for comments repeatedly and it lifted my spirits. I tried to be a productive member of society today, but the furthest I got was to make my bed. That was just dumb.

I did finally eat today. Apparently Goldfish crackers (and later ice cream) didn't count as a meal. I beg to differ. CS's parents came and took us out to dinner. Good thing too since if they didn't CS would be having a Rhonda special of cheese sticks. I don't think we have cheese sticks. Ummm, left over and expired cookie dough. How bout that?

Slump

2006-08-02T12:54:00.000-07:00

Thank you all for your stories of your families and friends. I do appreciate them so very much.

I bet you all are wondering how long I can hold out before grief kicks in an knocks me off my manic high. Let's just say lunch consisted of Goldfish crackers. yeah! they're staying in.

I am running between sad, angry and depressed. Not only did I lose my great-grandfather we found out this morning that it could be a while until we hear about a court date. The good news is the judge didn't kick our case out of court. So we won't have to make yet another trip to have our own medicals re-done. The judge didn't schedule the date like we were hoping, but she pretty much mandated that the Ministry of Health complete the medicals for Pickle. The estimated time frame is it shouldn't take longer than 2 weeks to have them completed. The hope is the judge will schedule our date quickly thereafter.

So yeah, I'm feeling pretty blue. Big ol' case of the it's not fair. But you know me. I'm not one to be much of a whiny baby. I am trying to look on the bright side of things. Unfortunately right now I can't find much of a bright side. My bed is looking pretty tempting at the moment. The worst part is CS is working out of town today so it's just me and the cats. They are trying their best to comfort me, but it is mostly just walking under foot.

Good Night Tiny Papa

2006-08-01T22:36:00.000-07:00

As of 10:27 pm we have 664 hits. I won't do a state by state update until tomorrow.

I will say we did get out of the house for dinner this evening. It was planned last week as a celebratory dinner with Kathou and Paypay, but unfortunately we didn't have much to celebrate. What we did celebrate is that the restaurant we went to had fantabulous drinks! 2 Vodka Collins, 2 glasses of wine and 2 glasses of port is enough to make anyone celebrate. Needless to say a good time was had by all.

I would like to shift gears for a moment though. Our phone did ring at about 10:00 tonight. For a brief moment we were all excited. But, the excitement was not to last. It was my Mom. She informed me that my Tiny Papa (aka: Great-Grandfather) was very sick and likely to not make it through the night. Of course Kathou and Paypay were here and rather than sit around and cry about it I told them about my Tiny Papa. I pulled out the photo album to show them photos. About 20 minutes later the phone rang again. This time we knew who it would be. My Tiny Papa passed slowly into the night, surrounded by his family. He was 97 years old (i think).

While I am saddened by his loss I cannot help but think about the joy he has brought me over the years. There aren't many people who could say they actually knew one, or more, of their great-grandparents. In the end I think Tiny Papa stood all of about 5 feet tall. In his younger years he was a boxer and worked on the railroad in Everett, WA. Quite the barrel shaped man and in full control of his mind until very recently. He love to play checkers and his favorite Christmas gift was always a bottle of Scotch. Good man. My fondest memory of him was his basement in their house in Everett. Tiny Papa was an inventor. He was forever modifying something to make life easier. His greatest "invention" was the exercise bike sander. He somehow rigged a stationary bike with a block of wood under it that slid back and forth. You put whatever you wanted to sand under the block and start riding. WaLa! Sanding done. And you get your workout in too. He was handy like that.

I could tell you so many stories about Tiny Papa. His love for his beautiful wife. How he'd jingle his pocket and slip my cousins Zach and Tyler money. How he always knew CS's name. He was a great man who lived a long and great life.

So no boo hoo here either. I don't believe death is something where we mourn someone's loss. It is more of a time to celebrate their life and come to realize how much they really mean to us. How this one life impacted our own. So we'll have a Coffee Talk discussion.

Topic:
Did you ever know any of your Great-Grandparents. If so what did they mean to you. If not tell us about a relative who impacted your life for the better.

I'm dyin' ova hea!

2006-08-01T17:06:00.000-07:00

First... you all have 1 job. Go over to Suzanne's blog and give her some huge congrats! She and Jamie have a court date of August 31st!! Woo Hoo!

As for us and Kathou & Paypay... well not so much with the court date. Now don't get all, "oh elle, I'm sorry to hear your bad news." I don't want that crap from the likes of you.

Here is what we know at this point. Remember that medical release letter that was supposed to be signed? Well, it wasn't. The good news is that letter is not the responsibility of us our our agency. We have complied with everything to the letter. The signing is the responsibility of the local Department of Education. They are supposed to make sure the Ministry of Health signs the release.

So enough with the boo hoo. Onto more funner things. (ACK!!)

StatCounter Wars:

Total hits for the day as of 5:12 pm - 527

Top 5 States:
Washington
Georgia
Oklahoma
Maryland
California

Top 3 Cities:
Lawrenceville, GA
Kingfisher, OK
Gaithersburg, MD

Now here is the trick to drive up your state or city. You can't refresh more than once an hour. Any refreshes within any given hour count as one hit. We have use of CS's parents video camera so we'll have to come up with some kind of movie for the StatCounter Wars.

Keep em coming folks. This is really entertaining for me. Keeps my mind off of things like oh... MoH signing stinkin' release letters!

Some Shred of Hope*

2006-08-01T11:41:00.000-07:00

The 3 waiting families are pretty much all nuts now. I sent out an email asking who would be the first to email Olga. Of course our trusty Suzanne was the one. Good girl. I'm too chicken. The reply is that Olga didn't hear from the in-country facillitator, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Evidently web servers often go down in Russia causing emails to get stuck for eons. So Olga is going to call Irina in "her morning." It is currenly 5:36 am Wednesday in Khab so we still have a few hours to go.

I really feel for my co-workers at the church, because this is where I will likely be when we get the "call." I apologize to all of you in advance.

----------------------------------
*with a stat-counter update!

you guys are too funny. So I'll give you a little taste of what our stat counter is doing. Our highest hit count ever in one day was 245. That was last week I think. Yesterday was 344! and as of 12:39 Pacific it is at 301! Holy crap.

My top 5 states are Missouri, Washington (that would be Suzanne), Illinois, Oklahoma and Texas.
Top 3 cities: Columbia, MO; Decatur, IL; and Oklahoma City, OK.

You guys are great. To know you are going nut with me makes it seem like I am less crazee.

WARNING: blogging sleep deprived and prior to coffee

2006-08-01T07:45:00.000-07:00

so tired. didn't sleep. no news.

CS suggested setting up the baby monitor in front of the speaker of the computer so we could hear the bing bing of the email notifier. Guess it's a good thing we didn't since I think I would have had to kill Suzanne at about 1:00 am when she left a comment on Life of Elle thus sending me an email notifier.

I think you all had a plan last night with sending Rhonda over to Olga's house. Wish I would have thought of that.

So onto another day of manic. Good thing, the church kitchen needs cleaning since today is my 1/2 day.

Over the Edge

2006-07-31T22:17:00.000-07:00

Those of you who have me on bloglines are probably going to egg my house now. No... I don't have any news. Yet. It is 10:14 pm my time and yes, I am sitting here in front of the computer. I am about ready to take the laptop into the living room and watch a movie.

For the record, mom, yes we did get out of the house. I had a little bit of a moment there, but after about an hour I calmed down. MIL & FIL, if I don't remember much of the conversation from dinner I apologize. We arrived at the airport to pick up the in-laws and of course that aforementioned Pilsner Urquel had kicked in. We pull up to the arrivals area of the airport and I don't think the car was at a full stop before I jumped out. I saw the in-laws and ran up to them. FIL threw his arms open thinking I was so excited to see them. "Where's the potty?" were my greeting words. MIL points and I take off. Sprinting like a mad woman through the airport to the closest toilet. I think the run did me some good.

Neeless to say we came home from our outing to nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch.

That magic email better come tonight because if it doesn't I'll have insomnia worse than normal. Although, don't be suprised at blog posts from 3 am.

Not Yet

2006-07-31T17:50:00.000-07:00

See, I told you, you would get a million posts from me today. I should have just made them one really long post, but that just is not as fun.

The List: Shower - Check

Put Bedroom back together - Check

Clean floors - Check

Pick up parents - can't do that yet since their flight doesn't come in until 6:50 pm. UGHHH prime email waiting time.

So to fill in the gap I decided to clean my office. Well, really I was going to start downloading the church production of Godspell onto the laptop, but I couldn't find my desk. So I had to clean off the desk. Rather than shove and stuff the stuff off my desk into the closet I had to clean the closet. In order to clean the closet I had to pull out every single Rubbermaid container and reorganize them. Ok, I didn't so much have to reorganize them, but it passed some time. Oh! I also found a whole whack of yarn. I am a very bad knitter. I have no clue why I have so much yarn. Anyway, I got that accomplished. I even took a photo of my destroyed office, but then I accidentally deleted it. Oops.

With still extra time I cleaned the kitchen. Not a big deal, but we found a container of Bar Keeper's Friend. Best cleaner evah!! Thus I had to scrub the stainless steel sink and the stove top.

I am also effectively polishing off a bag of goldfish crackers and the last Pilsner Urquel. I totally feel like jumping out of my skin. I haven't felt this wired since our camping trip and that was just a sugar high.

Ok, gotta keep moving.

Thank heavens for Mr. Bubble

2006-07-31T11:20:00.000-07:00

So I didn't shower yet. I took a bath*. I figured I needed some time to relax. I found the last smidgen of Mr. Bubble in the bathroom cupboard. Yes... I own Mr. Bubble. Love the stuff. Terrible for my itchy skin, but who doesn't love Mr. Bubble. Come on.

I also got an email from Kathou this morning that says she got word from Olga that our package is officially in Khab (we knew that) and we are ready for the pre-trial hearing!!!!! Nothing more than the waiting. Oh God, this is going to kill me yet.

Also on checking stuff off my list: Bedroom is put back together. I have so much energy I am blazing through my list. I am going to run out of stuff to do. That huge box of craft projects I have is looking pretty promising.