Day 4. October 8, 2009

Smiles! We saw smiles today! Believe me, it’s not easy to get a smile out of a Russian but today we got plenty of them from our special Russian (soon to be American as long as court goes okay tomorrow).

When we first saw our little guy today he cried like he did the first three visits. I took him from the caretaker and immediately went outside to the playground while Michelle stayed back to speak to the caregiver about our guys’ daily routine. He and I sat on a swing and he stopped crying enough for us to have a chat about our court date tomorrow. I told him how important tomorrow is for our family and that hopefully when we see him tomorrow we will have good news for him. He didn’t say much in that conversation, but he did burp and drool which is about the interaction I get from some coworkers (though none of the ones who read this blog, I assure you). Michelle got some good information about sleeping and eating habits from the caretakers, then met us out on the playground. We had mild success on the playground, mostly in part to the traditional Russian toy we bought at the store yesterday. We bought some of these toys (sort of like a Weeble that makes a sound like a wind chime) for the baby home on our first trip, and our guy seemed to like them a lot. He still likes this toy, so we played with it a little on the playground then decided to head to the gym for the rest of our visit.

When we got to the gym we placed him down on his blanket and he cuddled up to Michelle and loved on her like he was doing on Trip 1. We were thrilled to see him like this, and we spent 30 minutes or so just enjoying watching him look us up and down. After a while we stated to walk him around the gym and eventually we went to the slide they have in there. I would guide him down the slide into Michelle’s arms at the bottom. This is where the magic happened and the smiles started coming out in force. He loved the slide and we did it over and over. Eventually we got to where Michelle would help him walk towards me and she would let him go and he would finish the walk on his own (only a step or two, but still amazing in our books). I wish everyone could have seen the full open mouth toothy grins he was giving us as he walked between the two of us. Michelle and I felt like we had won the lottery when we saw these smiles! We played like this the rest of our visit. Once we took him back to his caregiver, he cried when we handed him over marking the first time this week he seemed upset to leave us. Needless to say, we left the baby home feeling extremely good about the visit which is a good place for us to be as we head to court tomorrow!

Tonight we had a meeting with our agency to go over what we should expect for court tomorrow. Michelle and I went over our court preparations again, ate some PB&J and are now getting ready for bed. We have a big day tomorrow, and we feel like a couple of kids on Christmas Eve. Well, one of us feels that way, the other is a bit nervous but we both feel like we will have a good day tomorrow. Court is at 9:30am, then we will go visit the little guy for more slide rides and toothy grins (we hope).
We’ll let you know what happens when we get back to the hotel tomorrow!