Day 8, October 12, 2009

Father-Son Day at the baby home…

Before I get into the details of today’s visit, I need to backtrack to some information we learned last night. Our friend Kenny came to our room at about 6pm last night and told us that he had found out that Russian Prime Minister (and former Russian President) Putin was going to be visiting a government complex right next to the Vlad Motor Inn today. This news directly affected everyone at the Vlad Motor Inn, as we were being told that nobody would be allowed out of the area after 7am this morning and nobody would be allowed in before 8pm tonight. Obviously this concerned us because we were supposed to leave at 11:15am to visit our little guy. We received a call from our agency shortly after Kenny let us know what he had heard, and our agency confirmed that things were going to be a little crazy around the hotel today. The agency said there were basically 3 scenarios for being picked up by our interpreter and driver. 1, the driver and interpreter would make it into the hotel area like usual. 2, the driver and interpreter would have to park a little ways away and walk in to get us. And 3, nobody would be allowed in or out. Obviously options #1 or #2 were fine with us, but #3 was not good.

This morning we woke up and before we could even deal with the Prime Minister, we had a bigger problem. Michelle was feeling awful. We think she has a bad ear infection and her throat has been giving her trouble for a week now and everything came to a head overnight. She was really caught between a rock and a hard place as she had to decide whether to go visit the little man and risk getting him sick, or staying back and missing out on a visit. Ultimately she decided not to put the little guy at risk of catching anything she has. He is coming off a tough cold of his own, so we didn’t want him to relapse and start feeling bad again. I haven’t ever seen Michelle this bad off, she is really ill, so I think she made the right decision to stay home today.

So, minus my better half I set out to fight my way through the Russian security perimeter to get to the baby home. Our interpreter Anya and our driver Sergei met me in the lobby and informed me that we were going to be fine to leave the hotel but we had to walk to get to their vehicle. They had to park about 3 blocks away, so it wasn’t bad at all. On the walk to their van, we saw several military guys in the side streets around the hotel. Most of them stared intently at me as I was carrying a backpack that was making a lot of noise. I was really hoping that none of them were trigger happy because I didn’t want to be taken out due to a children’s toy making a little noise in my backpack. Perhaps I have seen too many movies because I sort of anticipated a Red Dawn style chase scene with the Russian military in hot pursuit of Sergei’s van as we left the area, but I was pleasantly surprised as nobody even looked twice at us while was we hit the road. (I am willing to bet that was the first ever “Red Dawn” reference in adoption blog history. What a great movie!).

Now on to the best part of the day…the visit. When our little guy’s caretaker brought him out of his baby room, he looked at me and stated to cry. Hopefully he missed his Mommy, but I took him and assured him that we were going to have a great day no matter what. He only cried until we got to the gym, where he saw the slides and decided that this was going to be a fun day after all. He and I spent some time playing on the mats, and then we got up and played on the slides and walked around the room. There were two toys that were a huge hit today, his Redskins plush football and the traditional Russian weeble toy we have mentioned in the past. He carried that football with him the whole day, which made me happy! He made a lot of sounds today too which is something he had only showed brief glimpses of on prior visits. He really came out of his shell about halfway through the visit and became really active. He played with his toys more than he ever had for us, and really seemed to be enjoying himself. Of course we rode the slides and rocked on the rocking tiger again too. Father-Son day was really a lot of fun for both of us I think, but we are both looking forward to having Mommy back in the action with us tomorrow. The little guy and I took plenty of videos to show Mommy back at the hotel, and she has already been through them and said she can’t wait to get out and see him tomorrow. When we returned to the hotel we were stopped by a guard, but our driver said something to him in Russian and the guard allowed us to drive right up to the Vlad Motor Inn parking lot.

While I was gone, Michelle said that word of her sickness spread around the hotel, and several families chipped in some cold medicines and things to get her health headed on the right path. We really appreciate everyone’s concern and willingness to help! Thank You.

Tonight we will take it easy and rest up for what will hopefully be a full family visit tomorrow. As far as we know nobody famous is visiting the Vlad Motor Inn, so traveling around the hotel should be back to normal again!