Only four more days to go before we get custody of Roman…we can’t wait!
On Tuesday, we were given permission to take Roman to have his picture taken for his Russian passport and US visa. We arrived at the orphanage and were presented with a squirmy bundle that looked for all the worldlike the “Michelin Man” (you will see what we mean when you see the photos). Our friend Heather was also given permission to take her little boy Alexander (whoa lso bore a striking resemblance to the Michelin Man).
Roman did great in the car and enjoyed looking out of the window but Alexander didn’t seem to enjoy the car ride at all. However, as soon as we got into the photography studio, Alexander was all smiles, while Roman burst into tears and clung to mama and papa. We had a really difficult time getting a good passport picture, and we ended up having to sit him on Helen’s lap, the photographer then photoshopped Helen out of the background (we had a feeling that this wouldn’t be acceptable to the US authorities, and sure enough it turns out that we will have to get his picture taken again for the US visa…we’re not looking forward to that).
We realize now that we will have to take things slowly on Tuesday as all the new surroundings and people will be overwhelming for him. We had known that this is the case with children who are adopted from orphanages, as they don’t get to experience much of the outside world, however, we had thought our sociable little guy might be more curious than frightened. Our plan for Tuesday is to come right back to the hotel and just enjoy being together, play with toys, maybe go out in the snow, take a nap, have a bath, and read some bedtime stories….just have fun being a family. The three of us are already feel like a family. Roman calls us mama and papa, and imitates some of the words we say. He loves to play peek-a-boo with papa, and when he is upset he holds his arms out and runs to his mama. At the moment, he especially loves to exploreour faces and pull our hair! He likes books but prefers eating them to reading them. In fact, the onlything Roman doesn’t put in his mouth is food. So far,he has refused to eat any snacks we’ve tried to give him (although he did enjoy playing with them).
Tomorrow, we will be buying $1000 worth of diapers for the orphanage. All adoptive parents make a $1000 donation to the Russian orphanages. They asked us to spend it all on diapers, so we will probably be buyingt he entire stock of the supermarkets in Roman’svillage. We’ve been trying to figure out just how many diapers that will be! In one of the pics you will see Rich with Raisa, the“babushka of the baby home.” She is 70 years old, and her main job is to take all the children out in strollers one at a time. She is a wonderful lady, and we told her we would like to adopt her too!
We will be visiting Roman again tomorrow, sight seeing on Saturday, having a lazy day on Sunday (our last child free day for oh, at least 17 years), visiting Roman on Monday, then picking him up forever on Tuesday. We just can’t wait for Tuesday!
Hope you all have a good weekend,
Dasvidanya,
Helen, Rich, and Roman
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