Today is our last day in Novosibirsk. Shelly has finished packing our suitcases, Katya is pushing Vova around in the stroller (he likes having a driver) and Nastya is napping. So Richard gets to be on the Internet for a bit. We leave the hotel at 5:30 and our flight to Moscow is two hours later. We're going business class which is quite cheap on Air Siberia. I think it will be another of those Ilyushin Russian-made widebody planes. Vova has been told we are going to fly on a plane. It will be an interesting experience flying with the kids, no doubt. Some have referred to it as the flight from hell. Knock on wood, perhaps ours will be better. All the other adopting families have left Novosibirsk. We are the last of the year.

Nastya is really bonding with Shelly. That's a good thing and I'm sure she will later bond with me. Vova's behavior is getting better every day. We got through the breakfast buffet with no problems other than being rushed (we decided not to gulp an extra cup of coffee).

It's December 25th but it doesn't seem much like Christmas here (it's a minor holiday for the Russians who make a big deal out of New Years). This is the first chance I've had to get away to write on the computer in four days. Our first three days together were pretty rough. We're inexperienced as parents, the kids don't really understand what has happened to them. Vova is a very articulate and talkative little boy. Alas it is all in Russian and he is frustrated with us for not understanding him very well. We visited a photo studio to get their passport pictures taken and he remarked "What a lot of photographic apparatus" (in Russian of course). [Oh no I've told my first cute kid story - now you will all stop reading this. Oh well.]

Nastya is a very cute little girl. We put a bib on her at meal times. Now when she's hungry she brings us the bib and turns around to have it put on. She laughs easily and likes to rough-house with Shelly. She actually says googoo as well as kaka, nana, dada, lala and so on.

We're all pretty stir-crazy just sitting around this hotel for a week. It's a serious hotel for business people, with a business center, conference rooms, a bar and casino. Not much of a place for kids. Vova is very charming and goes around talking to all the staff people. He scores presents from many of them. So far he has gotten a plastic chicken, two mandarin oranges, a piece of paper, a pen (from a different person), a shoe shine cloth, a Do Not Disturb sign and some candy.

Tomorrow is our last day here in Novosibirsk. We fly out on an Air Siberia flight to Moscow in the evening. That will be interesting to try with the kids! I just hope they don't scream too much. We'll be staying at the Marriott Grand in Moscow again and they have Internet access in the rooms, so it will be easier to respond to email and to post pictures. Of course, I will have to haul out our little Sony Vaio computer and Vova will insist on learning how it works. So another thing to keep him occupied. The week wait here has been to get the kids Russian passports. In Moscow our task is to get their American passports and immigration permits.

We've been short of sleep as you might imagine. We finally figured out a sleeping arrangement that works: Vova and Papa on the bed, Nastya in a crib and Mama on the couch. I actually got a full night's sleep last night for the first time in a week. We've hired a Russian girl (Katya) who speaks English to play with the kids for three hours a day and that has helped wonderfully.

Merry Christmas! It will be wonderful to get back to the States. It's quite a trial to speak Russian all day when it's as bad as ours is, though I suppose that gives us some sympathy for what Vova has to go through.

Shelly forgot to bring her earplugs on this trip. She is a fairly light sleeper, and she claims that Richard snores; so she doesn’t get good sleep without dampening the sound a little bit. So, yesterday, we went to a nearby pharmacy to try to buy some. It was pretty funny watching Shelly in action. She used a few Russian words she knows—“I want,” “bed,” and “my husband”—and she pantomimed the rest. Her pantomime is much better than her Russian, so, as much as Shelly’s quest for earplugs could have produced something else entirely, we actually did get the earplugs.

Our flight from Seattle left five hours late, at half past midnight. Then the long ten-hour flight got us in to our Moscow hotel at nearly midnight the next day. So it's a lot of jet lag (eleven hours difference) but we are fine now and staying at the Marriott Grand. This is much nicer hotel than the Soviet era Hotel Ukraine that we stayed at before. The plan is to leave here tomorrow and fly to Novosibirsk, then have our court date on Friday, if all goes well. Then we have a few days in Novosibirsk getting the children's Russian passports and then back to Moscow to get their U.S. passports. There is a law that grants orphans adopted internationally immediate U.S. citizenship.

Just before we left, we got a call from Suellen and Doug's new daughter Kristina, who spoke to me in English! Her English sounded very good. She and her sister Zoya have quite a task learning a new language and going to regular school at the same time.

We're still mulling over different American names for the children. Every name has so many connotations and connections to people we know. We'll have to decide soon!

Later today we will head over to Detski Mir for some more children's stuff and then a few blocks away to visit Moscow's only vegetarian restaurant.

We have met many people who are adopting, both on the plane and in the hotel. We chatted in Sea-Tac airport with two who are also going to Novosibirsk and staying at the Hotel Sibir. There is an email list for those adopting from Novosibirsk region and we had exhanged email with her earlier. It's a small world sometimes. We've learned that anyone with small children in a Moscow hotel not speaking Russian is almost certainly adopting.

Today was our last full day in Moscow. While we don’t relish the idea of tomorrow’s 10.5 hour plane flight, we are ready to go home. We both feel weary. Probably from a combination of things—the usual fatigue of “living out of a suitcase,” not quite adjusting to the change of time, many hours of driving on bumpy roads in Novosibirsk, maneuvering around on public transportation in this weather (it’s been cold, colder and coldest), and the emotional energy we undoubtedly spent around our big meeting with little V. and A.

We started off today by visiting the Cosmonaut Museum. It’s a long Metro ride north of Moscow. The Metro lines go deep in the ground, with very long escalators to get there. They say the Metro is built to withstand a nuclear attack. The Cosmonaut Museum is at the base of a very tall statue of a rocket take-off. Not many people visit it anymore, but it was quite interesting to see the original space suits and space capsules of Yuri Gagarin, and also the early space dogs Laika, Belka and Spelka. They also had space food that they squeezed out of tubes like toothpaste.

Then we went to Arbat Street to buy more souvenirs. We had lunch there, bargained with the street vendors and finally found a nice big all-in-one-place store that had everything we wanted. Richard says it’s been a lot of shopping. Shelly fit it all in our suitcases. Tomorrow we leave for home. We hope to return within a month or so for our court date and to get custody of the children. We’ll be glad of some time at home to get ready.

Last night was the first night on this trip that Shelly slept through the night. (Her body doesn’t cooperate as well with time travel as Richard’s does.) So our batteries were charged and ready for sightseeing and shopping. But we didn’t quite get as early of a start as we intended. At breakfast, we met another American couple who just adopted their first child (a 7-month old baby) and we sat and gabbed for a while. This couple adopted their child straight from the hospital. In Russia, when children are abandoned (or taken from their parents), they go to the hospital for an exam and she had stayed there ever since (all her life).

Shelly made phone calls to our Russian teacher Lolita's relatives in Moscow and also Suellen, Doug, Kristy and Zoya's interpreter Sergei. Sergei was at work so couldn't talk long, he seems like a nice person.

We took a trolley-bus and the Metro to the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts this morning. They have a wonderful collection. We spent most of our time seeing the French Impressionists -- many famous paintings.

Here is a picture of the GUM store by Red Square in Moscow. It now has fancy shops with designer goods. It's also nice and warm, a great break from the cold weather.

We're back in Moscow now at the Hotel Ukraine. The flight from Novosibirsk was pleasant. We flew business class on a Russian-made Ilyushin 86 which is a widebody with two stories - we climbed the staircase to the upper deck. We took public transit to Red Square and visited a craft fair that Shelly had read about. We had coffee and tea at the GUM store and then back to the hotel. It's very cold here and we did a lot of walking.

Here's a picture of Shelly, Florida (WACAP representative) and Anna (interpreter) at the baby home, in the office of the head doctor.

How funny that we wrote about the seasonal birthday parties yesterday, because, today, while we were visiting the children, they had one of these celebrations. We got to sneak in the back to watch. We consider ourselves fortunate to be able to do this, because parents aren’t usually allowed to see the other children. The Russian government is very careful about the children’s privacy. We could take pictures of V. and A., and we could take pictures of the caregivers, but we were not allowed to take pictures of any of the other children.

Although we planned to “sneak” into the celebration, shortly after we sat down, V. noticed us and exclaimed, “Papa!” Then he made a small ruckus climbing out of his place on the bench and scrambled over to join us. If we weren’t hooked before, we sure are now!

The celebration was simple but cute. They decorated a bit with balloons and paper flowers. A few of the caregivers put on a little play, dressing in simple costumes. They sang “happy birthday,” did a few circle dances with the older children and passed out pieces of apple for a treat. They dressed up some of the children for the occasion, especially the girls with pretty dresses and these huge bows that most of us Americans would find silly-looking. The orphanage staff really seem to care about the children and do a good job with their limited resources.

Since today was the fourth and last time we visited the children on this trip, we had a few things we wanted to accomplish…

We measured the kids, so, on our next trip, we could bring them clothes that fit. None of the orphanage clothes come home with them. One of the nurses helped us with the measurements, and little A. was not a happy girl. It’s the only time she’s cried during all our visits. We figure that we saw a glimpse into what future doctor appointments will be like. Once the measurements were (quickly) done, the tears disappeared.

V., on the other hand, was very interested in our tape measure. You pull out the tape, and it stays pulled out until you push the button. Then it zips back into the plastic casing. We played with that for quite a while.

We wanted to talk to V. about the adoption process so he’d understand a bit of what to expect once our visit ended. We were concerned about his feeling re-abandoned in between our trips. But V. was much more interested in playing. So we shortened our speech and said that we were going to prepare his (and his sister’s) room with beds, clothes and toys. We asked him if there was any particular toy he wanted, and he answered “minogeeye” (many). But, as we’ve seen in our other visits, he wasn’t selfish about it. When we asked if he thought there was any particular toy that his sister might like, he also answered “minogeeye.”

Little A. was as adorable as ever. One of the things we got a kick out of was how she’d come up to one of us, sort of back up and then kind of fall backwards. She was sitting down and just assuming a lap (or hands) would be there to catch her.

While we wait in between the two trips for our notice to travel again, we’ll miss both of them. At least we’ll have some tasks to occupy some of our time—buying many toys!

Tomorrow we return to Moscow for several days of touring and shopping, and making a few phone calls.

Happy Thanksgiving! We know that, because it’s Thursday. Other than that, there was nothing else in our day that resembled any Thanksgiving either of us have ever experienced. No turkey for Richard. No non-meat protein for Shelly (it’s not easy being a vegetarian in Russia). No visiting with our Gig Harbor relatives. But we did spend time with (our soon-to-be) family today! Like yesterday, we drove out to the baby home with Anna and Nicolai, and we spent couple of hours with A. and V.

The baby home caregivers decided that their big room was warm enough for us today, so we had lots of room to play. This room is big enough to hold all the children at once (right now there are 50 children in the baby home, but we don’t think that the very littlest infants participate in any of these assembly activities). The kids have music lessons in this room twice a week. They sing, dance and play kiddie instruments. And the kids have their quarterly party in this room (unless it’s a nice day outside). At these parties, they celebrate the season and birthdays for all the kids born in that season. We saw a few photos of one party that was held in this room one winter, although we’re not sure if this was the winter birthday party or a special new year’s party. The photos showed a visit from “Father Frost” and his granddaughter. In Russia, Father Frost and his granddaughter distribute presents to Russian children on New Years just like Santa does in the U.S. on December 25th. Russian’s celebrate Christmas on January 7th, according to the Russian Orthodox church, but they exchange gifts on New Year’s Day.

There’s a piano in the big room, so Richard played a bit. The kids didn’t seem particularly interested, and so, when Richard discovered the F# sounded more like a G than he G actually did, he decided that it might be time to change activities. We’ve been bringing our stuff in a green bag (mostly toys that we’ll later leave at the baby home and some cookies), and the kids both went for this bag right away today. They quickly found the animal cookies. Then we played ball. And the kids had a blast on their little play set (including a little 2-foot slide). Little A. tried her best to keep up with her brother—she seems game for anything. After seeing how easy it is to spend a lot of time on the floor with the kids, Shelly says she’ll need to get knee pads.

Lunchtime was as entertaining (for us) as it was yesterday. We hope that A. eventually slows down in the food department, but, meanwhile, watching her shovel it in with that big spoon makes us laugh (and laugh). It’s interesting and kind of amazing to us that, in Russia, kids eat off of china. And the main drink for Russians of all ages is tea. So, in between shoveling in the food, little A. grabs her tea cup and gulps some tea… and not a chip on the china!

The kids have a pretty bland diet. Richard teased Shelly about her (lack of) cooking by saying that the kids will probably appreciate her cooking. Lunch is the big meal in Russia, and they usually have soup, mashed potatoes with some kind of meat pieces mixed in, bread and tea. They usually have cooked cereal for breakfast and often for dinner too. We were told that they had cheese and bread before we arrived, so, perhaps they get a morning snack. And we saw them have cookies for an afternoon snack on our first day’s visit. Anna says that the only fruit they eat are bananas and apples, but they don’t get fruit every day. They don’t get oranges, because the doctor thinks that citrus is bad for the children. Yesterday, we bought apples for snacks for each of the children in A. and V.’s group.

The children spend most of their time in “group.” There are 5 groups of children, and each group has two rooms—one for beds and one for playing. A. and V. each have 11 children in their groups. They each have 5 caregivers, 5 teachers and 3 nurses. All the children regularly see the speech therapist, the psychologist, the head doctor and the assistant doctor. A social worker visits the home regularly.

So, since A. and V. aren’t in the same group—they are organized by age—they don’t see each other everyday. We’re told that V. often asks about his sister. And it’s apparent, when you see the two of them together, that she knows that V. is her brother. When it was time for the kids to go to a different room for lunch, V. took his sister’s hand and walked her to the next room. Talk about kvelling!

[Because of Russian adoption rules on privacy, we have agreed not to put up pictures of the children on the Internet. We are also abbreviating their names to V. and A. The business center here closes early and this is the first we've been able to get on the Internet. Sorry for the delay! And I'm having trouble uploading pictures from this computer. We both wrote the following account of what's happening.]

We arrived in Novosibirsk on Monday night, safe and sound. Our plane was a Russian-made Tupelov 154, and the seating gave a whole new meaning to “cramped seating.” They landed with three inches of snow on the runway, apparently standard practice here in Siberia. We’re now staying at the Hotel Sibir. Temperatures are around 0 degrees F.

We were met by our WACAP people: Florida (adoption expert), Anna (translator) and Nicolai (driver). They’ve been very friendly and helpful. We’re trying out our Russian on everyone and they are patient with us.

So, on to the main event! After a meeting at the Department of Education, we got formal written permission to visit the kids. We drove out to the baby home, met with the head doctor (who is the director of the baby home) and then they brought in V. and A. They were so little! They told us that V. is often afraid of men, but he did just fine with Richard. We broke the ice with a couple of small toys, and we both got along great with both the kids. They are both intelligent and alert. A. looked so sad and serious in the first pictures we got, so it was especially fun to see her smile and even laugh a little. She has a cute way of smiling—you can tell she’s going to smile before she actually does, because she kind of purses her lips and then breaks that when the smile takes over. We talked Russian to V. I don’t think he noticed that we don’t speak it very well! We gave them animal crackers which they loved but didn’t bother wasting time looking at the animals. They told us orphans love their food, and it’s certainly true with V. and A.

Both kids are good natured and seem quite healthy and nice. They loved the little photo album that Shelly made and recognized the pictures of themselves and of “Papa” and “Mama.” V. was especially excited to see “sabakki” (dogs)—our four-legged neighbors Hector and Kelsey. We showed him the picture of the lake and told him we would teach him how to swim—he seemed up for that. When he saw the picture of Richard playing the guitar, he called it a balalaika. And V. was excited to see us in our cars—he said he was ready to go!

Then we got out the video camera, and they were both really excited to see themselves on the monitor. V. was very interested in how it all worked. But not so much so that he didn’t notice when his sister dropped her toy. He hopped off the couch, picked it up, gave it back to her and then came back to sit on the couch again next to “Papa.” Both of the children are remarkably polite and well-behaved, putting away their toys without having to be asked and such.

When it was time to go, the caregivers came to get the children. They told the kids that it was “time to go back to group,” and V. burst out in tears. Talk about a heart-tug! We told him, “we’ll be back tomorrow,” and he dried his tears.

The WACAP people were anxious to get going. “It’s getting cold,” they said. Richard and I thought that was hysterical—it felt like we were in a scene right out of the movie “Fargo.”

Wednesday, we drove out to the baby home with Anna and Nicolai. We talked to the children’s’ caregivers, speech therapist and psychologist. Everyone was very nice to us and raised no concerns about the children, who seem to be exceptionally healthy. We spent some more time with the kids. We gave them a couple more gifts. They were as interested in the boxes that the toys came in as they were in the toys. That there was a picture of the toy on the box seemed to especially make an impression on V. Both of them are so polite and well-behaved.

A. is smiling very readily and eats everything she can get her hands on. And we do mean “hands” in the plural sense. When we gave them “peechenya” (cookies), she held one in each hand! V. is also eager to eat, but he’s a more refined eater. We also helped them eat lunch. They use a very large spoon for their soup, but seem to manage. Even little (18-month old) A. manages to shovel in at least half of each spoonful. V. seems especially interested in how things work. We imagine that he’d enjoy a more interactive toy, so we hope to pick one up for one of our next two play sessions.

We made the big decision to formally accept these children today, our 14th wedding anniversary. These children are so sweet, we are sure it is the right decision for us. And such a special way to celebrate our marriage. Now they will schedule a court date for which we will return to Russia. Meanwhile, we still have two more days of visiting the children before we head back to Moscow.

Here's a picture of Shelly and our guide Garman walking by the Kremlin wall yesterday, near the tomb of the unknown soldier. The Kremlin has many grave sites, some within the walls and some on the ground just before the wall. They are all heroes of the Soviet Union and such.

Here at the business center, I have learned that alt-shift changes between Roman letters and Cyrillic. Other than that, it's just like regular old Windows. We're checking out in a hour and Garman is taking us to our Siberia Air flight to Novosibirsk. Tomorrow is the big "meet and greet" day.