Moscow...

Well, we successfully made it to Moscow but yesterday was a long day! We woke up at our normal time and daddy spent the morning playing while mommy finished gathering and packing everything up. The weather was not very nice (chilly and rainy) so when Alec arrived around 1:00, he came up to our apartment to help carry all of our luggage to the car. Once the car was packed, we said goodbye to the apartment that served as our home for 23 days.

We picked up Natasha on the way to pick up his passport. John went into the office with Natasha while Laurie and Baby stayed in the car. There was a waiting line at the office and it ended up taking over 2 hours to get the passport. There was some confusion in the office and they couldn’t find any of his paperwork. Just as John & Natasha thought we might be in St. Petersburg another night, they found everything. We then said our goodbyes to Natasha and Alec took us to the airport. We arrived at the airport just over 2 hours before our flight. Alec helped us carry everything in to where we could check our bags. We were in a different terminal than when we flew home last visit (since this flight was domestic) and we were thankful for that as we didn’t really care for that part of the airport. Once our bags were checked, we walked around a little bit and fed our baby his dinner. Soon it was time to board the plane and we were ready to get to our destination. Overall he did great on the plane…as long as we kept feeding him – haha! He was a little fussy at the end and we wonder if his ears were bothering him or if it had something to do with his earlier than usual nap and the fact that it was very close to bed time.

After we got our luggage, we met Victor our new driver. He speaks English very well which we were relieved about. Victor was very prepared for us - he had a car seat (this is not a law in Russia so most people don’t have one) and CD’s with children’s music (in Russian though of course). Baby O was NOT pleased with being put in the seat but we think this was mostly because he was extremely tired. Our first views of Moscow were that it very much resembled home. There are, of course, the old and beautiful buildings here as well but overall it is much more modern and commercialized. We reached our hotel (it was approximately 30 minutes away from the airport we landed in – we will be leaving out of a different airport) about 10 minutes after he fell asleep but he woke up in the transport to our room. Victor told us he would be back to pick us up at 8:45 for our appointments in the morning. It ended up being a late bed time last night – considering we didn’t get checked into the hotel until almost 10pm and had to wait for them to bring a crib to our room.

After getting ready this morning, we ate breakfast in our hotel (it’s included in our room fee which is a nice convenience). Victor was right on time and we went to Baby O’s medical exam – the car seat went over a little bit better today than last night. We met Anna (one of our Moscow coordinators) at the medical clinic and she prepared our paperwork (stuff that she had, that we brought from home and from St. Petersburg) for the Embassy while we went in with the doctor. The doctor’s name was Boris and he was very friendly…we liked him right away because he commented on how handsome Baby O is :) Boris told us that his lungs sound clear and that Baby O is teething which is most likely what is causing his runny nose and cough which was good to hear. Everything checked out great and we were told that he currently weighs 20 pounds. He said that orphanage children will eat 25 hours a day and that it’s important to not feed them until they explode, but just do several smaller feedings throughout the day. We were happy to hear that we’ve been handling that correctly :) Boris was able to recognize something in 15 minutes that we’ve realized over the past few days – that even though Baby O loves his daddy, he is a mama’s boy. He said that it’s important that the child feels loved and gets attention, but it’s also important to realize that he knows how to manipulate with his big crocodile tears and “mama has to take care of her back”.

We left the medical clinic and headed to the US Embassy. John went into the Embassy with Anna (so that he could pay for Baby’s visa) and then returned to the car while Anna presented our paperwork to the Embassy officials. We will return there tomorrow for an appointment at 2:00 to have an “exit interview” and get his visa along with other important documents that need presented to the American officials when we land in Washington DC. After our short time at the Embassy today, Victor took us to a grocery store to get water, milk and some “snacky” stuff for Baby O and then we returned to the hotel for lunch and nap time. We plan on taking a walk this afternoon to Red Square (a short distance from our hotel) and finding a yummy place for dinner.

Only 3 more nights and we will be sleeping in our own beds!