We Met Him

What a day. I'm tired. This morning we crawled out of bed at 5:30 and were ready to go by 6:30 when Oksana called our room to let us know she was waiting for us in the parking lot. The long drive began. Addie and Will caught little cat naps while Jason and I fought off the queasy tummies!! Fun three hour ride. Nothing ever came up, for your information. The countryside between here and there was beautiful. Mountains, sneak peaks of the ocean, trees, little villages.

Finally we arrived at the Childrens Hospital and were taken in to a little room to wait on little Jack Nikolay (which, by the way, is pronounced Nik-o-lie). The wait was short. In came a caregiver toting our little boy!! He wasn't totally sure about the strange people who talked funny, but it didn't take him long to warm up to us. I think having the children around helped him out. I'm a little worried, though. He seems to have taken a real liking to his big brother-to-be Will. That's scary. Already he reminded us a lot of Will and was trying to climb up on whatever was climbable. He can't quite walk, but I'll be shocked if he isn't by the time we leave on Thursday. He hangs on to our fingers (much to his dismay....he is extremely independent) and zips off. He laughs all the time. He sucks his thumb. He's energetic. Oh wait, did I already mention that?! The morning visit was spent in a room full of chairs as they thought it was too cold for him to be outside. We got to feed him his morning snack, which was a delicious bowl of...something. He chowed it right down in between craning his neck to see what Will was rip-tearing around doing. After that visit we talked to the doctor for a while and she gave us some information that we didn't already know. We had to leave by 12:00 so he could get in his nap.

The afternoon visit was from 2:30-4:00 and we were able to take him out to the playground. Of course, he was bundled up and had a jacket on, but he loved the outdoors!! His favorite was sitting in the dirt and trying to eat handfuls of it. He appears to be a perfectly normal one year old. 4:00 came too fast.

Now we are back at our hotel. The children are exhausted and running around our room like little hooligans. The adults are lying around trying to keep eyes open til bedtime. Right now, the men are looking through different menus trying to decide if we are brave enough to eat Russian food for the second night in a row.

Tomorrow morning we will be heading to visit Mr. Jack at 10:00. The schedule will be the same as it was today, though instead of meeting with the doctor we will be meeting with the social worker.

The children are doing much better at this Russia deal than we expected. Proof that prayer works!! Even seeing Oksana and spending the whole day with her hasn't seemed to upset the little minds. Addie's biggest issue currently is that she didn't want to leave Jack at the hospital when we left this afternoon. Heading back to Ohio without him may not be too fun.

I should go. Thank you for your prayers and please keep them coming.
His blessings to you all~