July 11th - Saturday

We woke up and packed our bags and anxiously awaited our ride to the baby home. We arrived at the baby home at 1:30pm and were allowed to visit until 3pm (longest visit yet!). They brought him out and he was such a snuggle bunny. The weather wasn't that great so we went straight to the gym to get as much interaction in as possible.

Throughout the week, he began to mimic our behaviors. He likes to feel textures and put his fingers in holes. We had a plastic link toy from Aunt Carolyn that he continually put his fingers in and out of. When he pulled his fingers out, I would make a pop noise with my mouth. he began to look at me each time he took his finger out in anticipation of the mouth noise. Also, we clapped and said "yay" and "good job" a lot this week each time he mimicked or made a small accomplishment. This day, he clapped along with us for the 1st time. It was short lived, but still a nice step forward. Another thing he mimicked this day was a mouth noise. Bill sounds like a squirrel when he plays with him... and this day the little guy mimicked his mouth noise - so cute!

Before we left, we asked if we could look at him unclothed just to check everything out. The answer was surprisingly yes. The little guy is quite the exhibitionist. When I started to take his clothes off, he immediately started to smile! Everything looked great, and I hated to put his clothes back on because he was thrilled being naked! I am sure this will someday embarrass him, but he has the cutest little butt. He started to give us open mouth smiles during this time and didn't stop. Finally we dressed him and he started to get tired. I gave him to Daddy and he started to fall asleep in his arms. Precious!

It was time to take him back to his room and we both started feeling a mixture of emotions. For me, the emotions were a new, never experienced combinations of feelings. Sad, happy, blessed, anxious and in love. As we handed him back to his caregiver he woke up. For the first time, he looked back for us. It broke my heart. We went silently to the van and for the first time, the tears started to flow. This little guy was our son and we wanted to make it permanent and care for him the way he deserved to be cared for.

We treated Elana and Vladimir to lunch at a restaurant in Artem. We had some traditional Russian food and then they saw us as far as they could into the terminal at the airport. We hope to be back very soon.