Days of Elijah Day 5

Monday, December 6, 2010

Let's see...I didn't jot down any notes from this day, so let's see what I remember. It wasn't that long ago, but it's hard to remember which day is which.

I just have to make a quick comment here about names...even though we have been calling Elijah by his name since we started this journey, it is not what we are calling him now. We are calling him by his nickname for his given name - what the nannies (and his parents) call him. (The nickname is not any shorter than his given name, so not sure how that works, but it is what it is. :-)) So, it seems a bit weird to me to be typing "Elijah did this and that". Just one of those things. LOL After court, we will start transitioning - slowly - to his new name. He definitely knows his name now. And to be honest, in a way, I'm regretting not using his given name in his new name to honor his heritage and his parents. But perhaps, we can add his given name as a second middle name when we get home and have things finalized. I understand it to be a mess to try and do that here.

And speaking of his parents, we decided not to post photos of them until after court for security/privacy reasons. And if anyone was wondering why we didn't wait until after court to agree to meet them, it really wouldn't have mattered. Remember, the 10-day waiting period is there so family members can appeal the adoption, so waiting until after court would have been a mute point.

Ok, onto our day! Our visit in the morning went well outside. Oh, it was pretty cold that morning. By far the coldest it's been. It may have been the first hard frost they've had here. Some of the leaves still had ice on them when we started walking around that morning. As usual, we got Elijah all bundled up before going out. I asked if he had mittens (through charades) and was told no. I was a bit surprised by that as my hands were cold from the walk to the orphanage. (I forgot my gloves.) The next day when I talked to Marina about our court date, I asked her if she could find out if they would like some mittens donated. She told me to put the nurse on the phone when we got there, so I did. I'm not sure exactly what she asked, but when I got the phone back, she explained the nurse told her they do have them for the kids, but they don't use them in this weather as they want to get the kids used to the cold weather - toughened up so to speak. Later on that day, the nanny told me I could buy some for Elijah if I wanted. So, I'm not sure what to think. I brought some mittens for him from home, so I carry them with me now. I'll let you know if I decide to a "mitten collection drive" or something like that.

Signing Mama again! Could I be more proud? :-)

Fun on the swing! Don't you love the pastels? :-)

He does pretty well climbing the stairs hanging on to a hand and the child-sized hand rail. These steps are a bit shorter than ours at home, so it will be interesting to see how he does when we get home.



After our morning visit, Pat made me a nice lunch while finished packing up our things.



When Pat was over here this summer, he learned its all in the presentation! :-) Whatta guy, huh?



Our landlord called a taxi for us to move our things to the new apartment, which was a blessing as it would have taken us a few trips and it's about a 15 min walk. We got settled in a bit and left again for our afternoon visit.



The play area outside our apartment. This equipment is in about the same shape as the stuff at the orphanage.




How did we accumulate so much stuff in a few days???



The nannies had the rest of Elijah's grouppa in the playroom (a good thing for the kids!), so we went to a waiting room outside another grouppa. It was pretty hard to keep him entertained for 2 hours, but somehow we managed. I certainly was wishing we had brought the laptop though to watch a Signing Times DVD.

Bringing the ball back to Mama

It is so wonderful to see him snuggling in with Papa for a bit. It was also wonderful to see him sit still for awhile too. :-)

This boy loves to watch TV! Almost everytime we come in the afternoon, the grouppa is watching a DVD. He would much rather watch than come play with us. :-) But we are making progress though. He doesn't fuss now as much as he first did. The other night, sweet Shea was saying something to Elijah in Russian (all I caught was Mama), but I think he was saying something like, "Are you crazy? Your mama's here and you want to watch TV?" It was very cute. :-)

This large poster was in the room we played in.  It was fun to see a familar name, and in English no less. :-)