Monday, February 28

large, round, and puffy

Last week I took Oliver to the international adoption clinic at children's mercy hospital to get a check up or maybe it should be called a check in, since he just got here. Oliver is a whopping 23 pounds and stands 30 inches tall, just sneaking his way into the 3rd percentile on the growth charts. When he was done getting measured we moved onto exam room #1.
I hate waiting in the exam room, even when I'm alone. Don't bring me back unless you are ready to see me. Oliver remains fairly easy to entertain so we passed the 20 minutes by turning the lights on and off, spinning the stool, hiding in the corner, playing the in sink water, and listening to the paper on the exam table crunch when it's crawled upon. Yes, I bring toys in my bag but toys are not nearly as fun as exam room #1. The doctor comes in and Oliver sits on my lap acting cute. He stays cute until the appropriate time to start crying, when the doctor wants him undressed so he can look him over. That's done, dressed and cute again. Nurse comes in to do a TB test. I make them hold him, he screams, they finish and he stops. We go down to the lab so he can have some blood removed. Again I make them hold him, they comment on how strong he is, and some how they manage to steal 5 viles of blood, so they can test for everything under the sun.
Same afternoon when Jim gets home from work he says how is Oliver's TB test. I tell him how everything went and then we look at Oliver's arm. Oh gosh, that thing is huge (quarter sized) with a darker red spot in the middle and it's puffy and hard. Oh my. The weekend passes and it remains about the same. We go back to the doctor to have it read this morning. I say "if that's not positive I don't know what is" I'm right. Off we go to radiology for a chest X-ray to hopefully deny actually having TB. If Oliver doesn't have TB he has to take some pill for the next 9 months. If he does have signs of TB, well that's some other story with a number of medications. Hopefully the blood tests won't reveal any surprises.

Saturday, February 26

fear to phelps

Oliver thinks any time we enter the bathroom should be time to take a bath. Sometimes I have to move the potty to the hall way or his bedroom just so he will sit down for a few minutes. It's hard to undress him to get in the tub because he is already busy trying to swing his leg over the side.
So I figure if you think the tub is so great let's try the pool. I did some research and found a lovely indoor pool with a zero depth entrance at the Matt Ross community center in Overland Park. Not being sure if this will be fun or torture I'm a little nervous. Jim works on Saturdays, so we are going at it alone. It is $7 each, which if he loves it is worth it, if he is terrified it is kind of a waste...
We get to running our annoying errands; post office, bank, swim diapers from target, then head to the pool. The community center has a family changing room with spacious and private places to change and go to the bathroom. I'm already in love since I'm a huge fan of privacy especially when changing! We get our winter white selves into our bathing suites. Oh my goodness he is so cute in his little swim trunks, but we are at the pool and I'm alone so no photos. We open the door to the pool area and it's like a rain forest in there. Hot and humid and kind of nice. He is all pointing and excited about the splashing water.
I stand him up near the edge and show him how I can splash my foot in the water. He just looks at me like "you've got to be kidding me, I'm not ready for this" I pick him up and walk in. The deepest this pool is, is about 3 feet 4 inches...nothing too heroic. I could have let him go and he would have been fine, that's how hard he was clinging to me. No crying or pouting just clinging. The pool area has a small lazy river. I grab a noodle and we bob around the lazy river. After about 10 laps he starts putting his hands out and splashing. Loosening his grip on me he starts kicking his legs.
After about 30 minutes at the pool he has transformed from cling-on to wanting to jump off the side into the water with the "big kids" (3 year olds) After jumping in he likes me to hold his middle while he lays on his belly and kicking his feet and splashing his arms. He gets his face wet, he leans his head back in the water, he even braves touching the spraying water, but all he really wants to do is jump of the side. There is a woman holding her, what looks like a two and a half year old, telling him to look at the baby (Oliver) who is jumping into the pool. She says "look if he can do it you can." I just think, 19 days ago I turned on the shower to suggest bathing and he ran screaming and crying from the room. We bathed together with our clothes on for a number of days. Now he is a little swimmer.
After our workout we went to Panera for a cup of soup and a sandwich. Oliver sat like a nice young man, not moving from his spot. There is not messing around when food is involved, he saves his crazy for non food related events like the shopping cart at target. He enjoyed the baked potato soup, the hunk for french baguette and the turkey sandwich.
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P.S. Did you see his referral photos on the side --->
How could we ever have said no

Tuesday, February 22

adventures at home

getting ready for the park

park-
Oliver is lacking vitamin D according to the orphanage, so we spend plenty of time outside soaking up the sun at the park. Since it's the middle of the day no one else is at that park giving us plenty of time and space to explore it. Today Oliver discovered the joy of the slide and it only took about 8 practices to show him that walking over the the stairs is actually faster than attempting to climb back up the twisty slide.

words-
Oliver doesn't say many "real" words, just babbles. When we visited him at the orphanage he never make a sound, none at all so we are happy to hear his little voice. The one word he does say and uses in proper context is "whoa" He says it when he is pointing at birds in the feeder, or cars going by, or shadows that he finds surprising. When he says whoa he makes this face that I can't capture on film (yet). At first I thought it was an "I'm scared and going to cry face" but it's not. It's a wide eyed mouth in the shape of an O kind of face, and it's totally my favorite. He also says "papa" but I think he uses it to describe any man. This morning while we were making oatmeal he said "papa" while pointing to the quaker oat guy....
Oliver follows simple directions like sit down, stand up, no, yes, come here, go get it, and look. He has a pretty high success rate when it comes to pointing to eyes and nose on people and the owl. The owl's eyes are so huge though, so the odds of getting that right are elevated.

food-
At first Oliver would pack in as much food as possible then attempt to chew, that was not working. Jim and I have to make exaggerated chewing motions to remind him that chewing is the good choice, he seems to be understanding it. Oliver enjoys eating, and we have yet to find a food he won't eat. Breakfast is usually scrambled eggs and oatmeal or cream of wheat with some baby food fruit mixed in. Organic Stonyfield Farm whole milk yogurt drink seems to be his favorite snack or regular whole milk yogurt or fruit. For dinner he has tried and enjoyed roasted chicken and scalloped potatoes, spinach squares, chicken pot pie, chicken salad, various vegetables, pasta, and curry. For lunch we always eat leftovers from the previous nights dinner.
Because my secret dream is to raise a child that would love to cook I do a lot of cooking with him in the ergo or sitting on the counter. He likes throwing stuff into the mixing bowl or into the pan and, like me, he especially loves the kitchen aid. What he does not love is that everything baked gets shipped off. He got lucky today, I needed to make 9 dozen cowboy cookies and ended up with 9 dozen and 1.
crackers & hummus

applesauce

water

baking

cloth diapers-
I'm not a crazy cloth diaper mother. Some people blog exclusively on the topic alone, I won't. I use cloth diapers because I enjoy the earth and they seem good for baby bums. It's challenging to ask Oliver what he prefers, but I try. I lay down a cloth diaper and a disposable he lays down on the cloth, so he must like it...right? We use fuzzi bunz and bumgenius and they have been working really well even at nap, even at bed time, even on errands. Just like a "regular" diaper but with more laundry time and no landfill time. Oliver also sits on the potty about 3 times a day.

tub time-
He can't get his clothes off fast enough! Today after I washed his hair he used the wash cloth to scrub himself off. He plays until he is too chilly then stands up and motions to get out.

mail time-
Oliver received his first bits of mail on Tuesday. He was a little cranky from just getting up from a nap but I convinced him that opening his packages would cheer him up.

package from auntie Audrey


nesting sock monkeys from Amy

Cousin Laura also sent us a set of awesome Sarah Boynton books (my personal favorite), but we were unable to catch a photo this afternoon.

Friday is Oliver's appointment at the international adoption clinic at Children's Mercy. I'm a little sad we don't get to visit the doctor that helped us though the referral process and the first trip to Russia, but Omaha is a bit far and I've heard great things about the clinic here. I'm excited/nervous to see where Oliver falls on the growth charts, what the doctor says about his Russian "ailments," and what we need to do to help him continue to grow and thrive.

Sunday, February 20

ignorance is bliss

This story dates back to January 24th the day before our court hearing...

On the 24th that dreaded blacklist came out. It's a list of all the agencies that Russia wishes not to deal with because, usually, they are the agencies whose parents are not doing post placement reports. Well the 24th is the day before our court hearing. I hear about this blacklist, but there is no way, no way I'm going to look at it because if our agency is on there I'm going to loose it. I don't know what loose it would mean in that case but it wouldn't be pretty. We are in Russia, we are going to court tomorrow, and this is not happening. So I don't look, I don't say anything to Jim, and I just forget about. Tomorrow is our day, we got this.
As you have read previously everything at court went just fine, and because of that I don't need to even bother looking at said list, right? Well I read another blog from our area that is using that same agency (hey Denise) and we are on there. Ugh. Not sure what that means for me now, so I hesitantly email our international agency and ask what it is going to happen.
Turns our that if our judge didn't look at the list, or if she did she had pity on us. Whatever, she had the right to put us back on a plane for home to redo that whole month long home study process. That delay would also cause numerous other documents to expire alone with our medicals. All that is inconvenient, costly, and annoying but not nearly as bad as the heart break that would have come from being so close one moment and then so far away seconds later.
So God is good and ignorance, in this case, was total bliss.

Saturday, February 19

are we there yet?

February 17, 2011

Vlad picked us up promptly at 8am. He asked if I had everything together and wondered where my coat was. Oh Vlad, I don’t need a feather filled coat to ride an airplane to Atlanta and then to Kansas this fleece and my hat will do. He thinks I’m crazy, they all do. Oliver’s coat comes apart and he is wearing just the inside part which is also a cozy fleece and his hat. I can just manage to carry everything on my own and if I had on all those extra clothes I would just overheat and fall down, really.

On previous car trips Oliver hasn’t made a peep. Like total silence. Today was not that day. Today he was all over looking at everything and making all sorts of noise. Vlad says “that is the first I hear him.” Little did I know, at the time, but that car ride was a sign of things to come...

We arrive at the airport and I’m nervous about a few things.

  1. My travel agent said “they” will be upset that I got Oliver a round trip ticket. (it was about $300 less than one way)
  2. Do I have all the proper paperwork that says I’m him mom and not some random lady trying to snatch him.

Vlad walks us over to the Delta ticket counter and the line is ominous. Not really thrilled about that. First we stop at the passport checker guy and he asks those usual questions, who packed the bag, what do you have, is this your kid, etc. After passport checker the line to check in starts but some Delta agent lets us cut the whole thing and check right in. The lady checking us in doesn’t say anything about Oliver’s round trip ticket and she doesn’t ask for any other documentation besides our passports. Lovely. We get our tickets and Vlad walks us over to the passport control area. He can’t come any further so we say goodbye. He is a really nice guy and I found this help, especially since I was alone, invaluable. Well worth a good tip at least. Oliver and I head into passport control land I wonder if they will ask to see any paperwork. While I’m waiting in line I look back and there Vlad is, still watching to make sure we make it in okay. The woman asks for nothing besides our passports and sends us on our way. We give Vlad a wave and move on.

Now it’s only 10:30 and our flight is at 12:50, so we have time. My plan is simple, run baby around the airport that whole time, so he will sleep for some portion on the almost 12 hour flight. We walked all over terminal D, looked out every window, played pee-a-boo around all the columns, and at a little lunch. I’m pretty sure he put in more mileage at the airport that morning then he has in this whole life. I soon discover the joy of a child during the boarding process, getting to go first!

We found our seats and got settled. Snacks here, toys there, a lesson on how the window shade works, shoes off, get comfy. Shortly after takeoff they serve us some lunch. Oliver is a little bird hungrily eating the pasta primavera, a roll, a cookie, some water, and crackers. Then they put on a movie and I think okay now would be a great time to nap, nope. That movie finishes and another starts, how about a nap now, nope. Then another movie and another movie, so that’s at least eight hours awake on the plane walking laps, playing shadow puppets, eating cheerios, playing toys, operating the window shade and visiting the bathroom to look in the mirror and play in the sink, all mixed with bits of yelling and slapping mommy. I don’t blame him because, unlike the tub, this is actual torture. His eyes are getting glassy and bloodshot, he is sooooo tired. Next three sitcoms play, still awake. Finally after 11 hours and 15 minutes we start to see the ground in Atlanta. Just as the plane is landing Oliver thinks this, this would be the perfect time to nap. So he did sleep, about 5 minutes out of the possible 720 minutes we were on the plane. Of course he promptly arose when I picked him up and loaded him into the baby carrier.

We get off the plane in sunny 72 degree Atlanta and head to immigration. We need to hand over a specially sealed package of papers to the immigration desk and wait for them to process it, after about 45 minutes (still awake) they call us over and stamp Oliver’s passport and suddenly I’m holding a little dual Russian/American citizen. We go get our luggage because they make us recheck it and go through security again, off to our gate to wait out the next 2 hours of our 3 hour layover. I let Oliver down, and take my boots off because I’m just that hot (temperature) and classy. Bags down on a bench and we start walking laps around our gate area. He is so tired, I am so tired, it’s 3am where we came from and we have been up since 6am. Not lovely.

This next airplane is the kind with two rows of three seats. I ask the gate agent if maybe there is a row that is empty so we can have that extra third seat in case he decides he still has an aversion to sleep. There is a row but it’s the last one, I don’t care please switch us. Just before boarding, back in the baby carrier, Oliver is taken over by sleep. A nice man lets me cut to the front of the boarding line and we get to our back row and settle by the window. I put my legs up on the seat purchased for Oliver and that extra third seat.

A few rows up some men are moving about because there are some extra seats. Someone gets on the plane late and is supposed to be in that seat in row 36, the guy sitting there says “is this your seat” he says yes, but I’ll just go sit back there pointing to what I really wanted to be my foot rest…oh well. Now this isn’t just any guy. This guy is that guy that has been “wronged” by the airline. You know him, he is grumpy and loud and bossy. He is mad because on his flight from FLORIDA (we are in Atlanta, so what is that a 5 minute flight) they checked his bag all the way to Kansas when he thought they were just going to put it under the plane to pick up between flights. He is mad because his keys are in it and what if it doesn’t arrive. He is loudly stating his story to the people around him and to the stewardesses who are trying to ready the plane to leave. He wakes Oliver up and looks annoyed when Oliver starts to cry. I say “I understand you have had a hard day but we have been awake for the past 21 hours and just arrived from Russia and this is the first my kid shut his eyes, if you could just be a little quieter I think he will fall back to sleep.” The guy calms himself and Oliver and I sleep. That hour and 45 minute flight felt like 10 minutes in comparison, but we slept the whole way so we both feel a bit better.

Oliver wakes up upon arrival in Kansas. We get off our plane and are greeted by that classic "Welcome Home" group. Jim made a few signs and brought some flowers and balloons. We are so lucky to have good friends from church. Thanks for coming guys, it was really wonderful to see you and have such a sweet welcoming.

The next morning I take a breath and think ahhhhh this is better. Then I check my email. I have a message from our coordinator. Congratulations on completing your adoption. In the next 7 days you need to send us this paperwork, that paperwork, and the other paperwork. At least it does not need to be notarized and apostilled.

Wednesday, February 16

svo - atl - mci - home

This morning I was thinking, Oliver must think this is his new life. Hanging with me at the apartment playing with our five toys and anything we can make into a toy, taking baths, skyping, turning the TV on and off, diving into the pack&play,hiding the annoying potty, walking to the grocery story, chasing pigeons, and eating all our meals sitting on the floor. It really has been fun but oh my dear boy have I got a surprise for you...
Our flight tomorrow is at about 1pm, but Vlad is coming to get us at 8am. You never really know how long it is going to take to get to the airport with all the traffic plus check in and security. Then an almost 12 hour flight, 3 hour layover in Atlanta (including immigration where Oliver will become a dual citizen!), then a quick two hour flight. Putting us in Kansas at 9:30pm central time 6:30am Moscow time. Say a little prayer for us.


While I am excited to be going back home, and I know Jim can't wait to see us, I really did have a wonderful time in Kemerovo and here in Moscow. Back when the trip first started I decided I was "all in" and was going to enjoy my time here. I wasn't just here to finish Oliver's adoption, but here to experience a glimpse of his first home. It is different than the US, not different better or different worse, it's just different, and I had fun. Everyone I met was kind, old ladies stopped us on the street to say sweet things (judging by tone of voice), and when he is ready to go back and visit I'll call Natasha, for the 100th time, to get my visa. We just can't visit when he is between the ages of 18-35, because they have mandatory draft here and Vlad says the army is like prison.

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Yesterday, while walking home from the grocery store Oliver discovered pigeons. I let him down from the baby carrier and he was all about waddling around after them. This morning he kept bringing me his boots and grunting at the door, so we went outside in search of pigeons. Oliver wanted nothing to do with being held and insisted on chasing them on his own two feet.


and falling into snow banks

finally made it to the swing

he enjoyed the swing but knows the pigeons are that way--->


inside we played stacking cups

When we stack the cups in a tower or put them inside each other I'll count them. Now when he plays with them by himself he says "da, da, da, da" as he places each one in its proper location.

Operation "tub is not torture"
Yesterday was session 6. A naked baby was in the tub playing, a fully clothed and only one arm wet mom was on the outside washing happy baby's hair.
Please note-this is not considered a success unless it carries over to his actual bath tub at home. We soon shall see...

After this we will work on "brushing teeth is not torture"












Monday, February 14

stop, please stop

The apartment has a potty. This particular potty plays a little jingle when it gets wet. I guess the jingle is to say "good job" to the babe. Anyway, it is currently about 9:00pm here in Moscow. Oliver sat on the potty at about 5:00pm. I rinsed it, I dried it with a towel, I blew on it, I can't get it to stop playing. There are some small things that make me kind of nuts and repetitive noise is at the top of the list. The apartment also came with a ticking clock above the bed, who would do that? I promptly removed it from the wall and put it on the kitchen table. The potty has been banished to the oven, but I think I can still hear it.

Today's game of choice
1. Baby climbs on bed
2. Mom runs from the other side of the room to tickle silly baby


3. Silly baby thinks he wants to get off the bed head first
4. Mom explains that head first is only for diving into the pack&play

To celebrate Valentine's Day Oliver and I wore our festive T-shirts, not matching ones. I was excited about this day because it meant I got to wear a brand new clean really clean shirt that I had saved for the occasion. After nap we walked to the market and got some chocolate to share for dessert, but ended up eating some of it before dinner. Yesterday when we were out on the town with Vlad I asked him is Russian's celebrated Valentine's Day. Only teenagers. They go ice skating, he said. So you're not going to get your wife some flowers or candy? No, I get her flowers all the time. What a nice guy.

Operation "tub is not torture" session 5
I got a naked baby into the tub, all the way in the tub not my lap, I washed his hair, I got out after about five minutes, he continued to play for 20, when he was done he stood up and raised his hands to be removed. Maybe tomorrow I won't have to get in.