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| Day One |
| Friday, December 14, 2007 |
So I thought I'd tell a past story with each current daily story of how Andrei is doing. The past one is really all that much of an ancient story. It's about our trip to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. First off, I was really disappointed with the whole thing. I was expecting this beautiful building with marble floors and columns, marines marching around or standing at attention. You know, something impressive.
Not!!!
The building looked like some rundown post office or school building. Yes there were guards but not in cool "spit & polished" uniforms. But the staff was extremely nice and helpful and congratulated us, wishing everyone the best. There had to be about 20 kids in the room with their new parents. It was really a fun scene.
We met Chris and Danica which was really cool!!! Chris leans over and says "Are you Steve and Stefanie from the Dad's Adoption Blog?" I say "Yea" and he introduces himself saying he reads our blog and says their the Justice Family Blog, and I'm like "Dude, we read your blog!" It was kinda funny. Boy do they have their hands full, they adopted twin girls. And I thought we had a challenge keeping up with our little guy. But they were smart and brought along grandma as an extra set of hands.
Just a side plug. Their blog always has some great detail of the process and what goes on (one of the reasons it's one of our daily reads). So if you haven't yet, you might want to take a look.
Day 1 for Andrei
The first day went fine till about nap time. It was really obvious that the jet lag has a massive effect on a toddler. Andrei had plenty of fun during the morning. He had a nice breakfast and had a blast playing with some of his new toys. We also took a walk outside in our yard and he was really into it. He enjoyed walking around and looking at all the plants without any snow on the ground. I bet his little mind was saying, "Where's all that cold white stuff?"
He also met our dog Chianti and our cat Merlot. We were a bit worried about his reaction to them, although we had seen both dogs and cats at the baby home and knew the kids had seen and even played with pets before. And he really was great with them. Chianti is a Yorkshire Terrier and has very long hair but Andrei didn't once try to pull it. Instead he petted him gently and even fed him a dog treat!
We also took him for his first shopping experience: Target. Which he thought was fantastic. He did a great job sitting in the cart with those little seat belts on. He loved looking at all the stuff on the shelves. And he even helped pick out one of those little water toys that tell you if the bath water is too hot (they change color on the bottom of the toy).
Then he had his first real American lunch...Macaroni and Cheese!!! And yes it seems the rumors are true, every kid no matter where they are from loves Kraft's mac & cheese. He's been allowing us to feed him from day one so we're now letting him feed himself since he's doing pretty well with the bonding.
Nap time is where he hit the wall of jet lag. He went down for his nap fine but only got in an hour before he woke up and was cranky for a good 3 hours before he fell asleep for good (as in the rest of the night). So he missed dinner but we felt it was better for his body to try to get all the sleep he has missed and get his internal clock right. So he fell asleep at 5:00 pm (followed closely by Stef and then me). I woke up around 11:00 pm but then back to bed by midnight.
But overall it was a great first day. |
posted by Steveg @ 12:12 AM  |
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| 3 Comments: |
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Yeah, I remember our first day back home when we returned from Russia. It's both fun and tiring as you are excited to be with your child and to explore and introduce their new home and environment. At the same time you are still so exhausted from the trip home and jet lag. Enjoy Day 2.
- Nina
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The portion of the embassy we visited was the consulate part for visas. The nice part is a different section I'm sure, where the diplomats meet.
Do you remember back in the 80s when there was a big flap about all the bugs the soviets planted in our embassy during its construction? They had to tear down the embassy and start all over, using exclusively US labor and materials.
Did you notice that most of the guards weren't marines, but Russian Nationals employed by the embassy?
We've been having the same jet lag and melt down issues here. The orphanage said the girls were on 1 a day naps, but we have switched to 2 a day. They were just getting to cranky.
It sounds like you are setting in nicely!
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Sounds like a great first day. How American - Target and Mac & Cheese!
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I'm Steve and this is my wife Stefanie. This is our story, mostly seen through my eyes, of the journey to create our family by adopting a child from Russia.
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"The two greatest obstacles to democracy in the United States are, first, the widespread delusion among the poor that we have a democracy, and second, the chronic terror among the rich, lest we get it."
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Yeah, I remember our first day back home when we returned from Russia. It's both fun and tiring as you are excited to be with your child and to explore and introduce their new home and environment. At the same time you are still so exhausted from the trip home and jet lag. Enjoy Day 2.
- Nina