Wow, Time Flies, not Flight Times

Wow, time flies. My last post was six days with Danielle, then just a quick picture posting. It is now 26 days with Danielle so let me backtrack.

We finished our ten day wait after court on Tuesday September 9th. Yea!!!!, Danielle is officially our daughter and we are her forever family. David was very busy with the business of going to vital records to obtain her birth certificates, and to court where he was able to retreive the final adoption documents. Then off to the passport office to file for Danielle's Russian passport. On Wednesday morning he went to retrieve the Russian Passport, then we went to get the required embassy physical in the afternoon. On Thursday the 11th of September we traveled to Moscow for the last step of the process.

Still backtracking, Saturday morning September 6th the last weekend of our 10 day sequester, we went down to the beach (the limit of the distance we are allowed to go until we had documents from court) with three other families waiting for the ten days to be over. We let all the children throw rocks into the bay and touch the water. There is industry in the area and the children are not used to going to the beach, so they did not go into the water. The beach is rocky and there are wood pallets, to lay out on. There is broken glass mixed in with the rocks, so shoes are a must. Summer is at an end, so this may be the last weekend for the beach till next year. For lunch we had some grilled pork with a cucumber salad from a beach vender. We had to return early to allow Danielle to take her nap, we had a great time just getting out. On Sunday, we went down to the beach after Danielle's nap. We wondered around and checked out the various venders. We allowed her to throw a few rocks into the water and took some pictures. Then we walked up to the Armenian Restaurant near the convenience store. It has outdoor pic-nic tables built into wooden cabanas on a hillside, so you can look down the hill at the trees and bushes. There is a water fountain in the middle of the outdoor area. Danielle played in the fountain water a little and really enjoyed being outdoors. Ordering food was interesting. Our waitress did not speak any english and the menu was in Russian. David clucked like a chicken and flapped his arms (like in the movie Stargate) and he got grilled chicken wings with onions. I snorted like a pig and got grilled pork with onions. She kept asking us what sauce we wanted. Or another word that sounds similar to sauce, maybe she was asking us if we wanted onions. We kind-of waived to her to let her know we would let her decide what sauce we wanted. She said something and we nodded yes and we had a good meal. It was very peaceful and the weather was perfect.

On Tuesday the 9th, the dryer broke and was taken away, it returned on Wednesday, but the repairman must have forgotten to hook up something because now it only worked on air dry. I hope it is fixed by now. The dryer is very very loud and would appear to be on its last repair. Our hotel room looked like a laundry with all the clothes trying to dry before our plane trip on Thursday to Moscow.

Danielle has been wonderful. Each day she is learing a few new words and a few new rules and testing a few new fences. She is learning quickly and is doing wonderfully. David knows exactly how many staples are in each piece of trim and how many screws are in each ceiling board. I won't tell the answers, I do not want to spoil the surprise for those who still have to experience the ten day wait at Vlad Inn. We heard that Cindy and Mama Sarah got their court dates for the end of September. Yea!!! We were very concerned about Ike hitting Fort Lauderdale, we were on the bullseye for a few days. But we never want a hurricane to go somewhere else, we always wish they would just go away. With that said, although Ike missed us, he did not miss Texas. Our prayers go out to all the people hurting from the rath of Ike.

On Tuesday the 9th, we got together with the family who had court the same day we did and has a little girl from Danielle's group. We hired a driver through the hotel, to go down town for some pizza at the water front. We got appoval from Irina and she knew the driver and gave him the directions to where we wanted to go. Again what a nice treat to get out and about.

Flight to Moscow on the 11th. We had bulkhead seats, the plane had two isles with three seats in the middle, with two seats on each side. Our three seats were split by the isle. We were able to switch seats with two other very kind passengers and get the three seats together in the middle of the bulkhead. This was very nice, Danielle was able to nap on the floor between us and it made the flight much easier for us. Danielle had car sickness twice while in Vlad, I had taken along Bonine, a motion sickness medication for children. I gave her 1/3 of a pill for most of the car and air travel and when I did she did not get sick. However, I did not give her a fresh dose when we landed in Moscow, so she did get sick again in the car to the hotel. This was the last time she was car sick. I was more dilligent with the Bonine for the remainder of the travel. Since we have been home and she has been up high in the car seat and can see out the window, she has not had any more trouble with car sickness.

Friday the 12th, we visited with Natalia in the morning to complete the embassy application for the immigrant visa for Danielle. Natalia left to deliver the paperwork and we attempted to visit a museum, we started out early, successfully navigated the metro thanks to David and several maps, but the weather got too wet and too cold, so we headed back to the hotel. Saturday, I checked the weather and of all the days we were there, Saturday looked to be the best chance to visit the Moscow Zoo. We headed out early, navigated the metro and got to the Zoo two hours early. I was sure we would get lost but we did not. We walked till we found a coffee shop. I went up the steps to check the menu, walked inside, did not look down and fell down two small steps, twisted my ankle and hurt my knee. Poor David was at the bottom of the steps with the stroller and Danielle and I was in the entry on the floor crying in pain. He ran up the steps, saw I was alive, ran down the steps to get Danielle and then in to help me. The pain subsided pretty quickly, we did stay at that restaurant to rest my ankle a little. I was able to complete our visit to the zoo with only mild discomfort. Danielle loved the zoo, she fully enjoyed all the animals. The only difficulty was she cried each time we left the first few animals. We tried to communicate that we had to leave one wonderful animal to see the next wonderful animal. This must be very hard for any two year old to understand. Add to that the communication barrier and the limited experience she has had with life, and her disappointment was overwhelming for her. Till now her experiences have all been within the walls of the baby home where she had lived since she was three months old. After the first few animals and the tearing her away with promises of more animals, she began to understand and began to look for the new animal in the next cage. We all had a great time. We had lunch at the zoo restaurant. It was very good and very reasonable. We highly recommend it. You can enter it from the Zoo side or from the Street, so entry to the Zoo is not required. It has more of a German theme than Russian. The only reasonable food we have found here in Moscow. Added bonus to the zoo trip was the Harley Davidson shop just a block from the zoo. David stopped in and bought the most expensive T-shirt he has ever purchased from a Harley Dealer, ouch!!!! Here at the Marriott Tverskaya, our first night in town we were so tired we ordered room service, the cheeseburger, order of (9 each) wings and two sodas cost us over $50.00. The wifi costs about $20 per hour and lasts one continuous hour, (not a total of one hour over several days) so we have not been using our laptops. They do have one free computer on the forth floor lobby with an internet connection for free, so we have free internet, just not any skype or calls home. We are having our son call us here at the hotel using skype. There is often more than one solution to most problems. We removed the mini bar frige supplies onto the top shelf of the entertainment center and were able to use the frige for baby food, milk and drinks. We called down and got a microwave delivered to our room and we also read that we could have a coffee service delivered to our room, so we did that. It came with a hot pot. We were able to use the Foldgers one cup bags we brought to make coffee for David and use the boiling water to make soups for us we had brought from home. The hotel is close to the metro (subway) and we became fairly proficient at using it. Our last day we discovered if you walk out the rear entrance to the hotel, go right one street, then left, you are at a full size grocery store. We hear McDonalds is very close, but we did not venture to it. We also hear they have free wifi, but due to the time difference between Moscow and home, we would have to go to McDonalds at 8:00 pm to catch our son when he gets home from school. That was too late to have Danielle out, so we had our son call us in our room when he got home from school.

Our last night in Moscow, we were able to meet up for dinner with another couple on their first trip to meet their child in Moscow City. We have a mutual friend and live 30 miles from each other back home, but we met for the first time in Moscow. How ironic. We have been emailing back and forth for months, but finally meet in Moscow. Since David and I had become semi-expert at the metro, we took the train to near their hotel, and they walked down to the train station to meet us. We found an Italian restaurant and had a wonderful dinner with great company. Danielle was very good, but seemed a little off and very concerned, this was her first social interaction where there were other adults and no other children. We think maybe she was insecure wondering if life would be changing again. We have news for this little girl, she is our daughter we love her and no one this side of heaven will remove her from her forever family.

The long trip home, to save money we opted to go through Prague and connect to JFK. This added about 2 hours to our day, but saved us around $1,500. The first flight was short. We were actually flying on Aeroflot, commissioned by Czech Airlines. The flight was uneventful. The second flight, the long one was gruelling. We did not get the bulkhead as requested. We got the next seat back. There were babies everywhere, so someones child cried most of the time. Danielle was very good and slept when we asked her to and played as best as she could between us. The bulkhead people in front of us all put their seats all the way back for the whole trip so our space was very tight. Plane ettiquite as I have learned is to slowly recline your seat to allow the people behind you to adjust to the seat change. The people in front of us did not know about plane ettiquite because they just slammed their seats into full recline on several occasions. My poor husband who is 6'2" had his knees slammed so many times, he was holding himself back from some dastardly plot to teach the rude man in front of him a lesson. Fortunately the plane flight did eventually end and my husband did not completely loose it. Previous to this flight I thought Vlad Air was the least pleasant flight I had ever been on. Now they are the second least pleasant flight. We will never fly Czech Air again. The flight attendants did only what was required, if you did not give them your garbage on the first trip through the cabin after they dispensed only the required drinks or food, there was no such thing as any additional garbage trips. Since Danielle was eating more slowly then their required schedule, we had to go back to dispense of her tray ourselves. The flight attendants had closed the curtains around themselves and had a gossip session. If you wanted an extra drink of water, soda or juice, they made you feel like you were putting them out and interrupting their most important gossip. Finally, the flight ended.

It took the airlines forever to find our stroller. They were cleaning the plane and preparing it for the next flight and security had done their checks and balances by the time they found our stroller and brought it to us. We were the last people to be at the plane and security followed us as we found ourselves to the Passport Processing Desk, the blessing here was there was no one else in line by then, so we walked right up to a very joyful and kind passport processing agent. He was very happy to be processing Danielle into her new citizenship in the United States of America. Thank You God, the USA, the Russian Federation, Children's Hope International and all of our family and friends for making it possible to bring our daughter home.

A brief stop to retrieve our luggage, go through customs and then we had to change terminals and recheck our luggage for our final journey to Fort Lauderdale. We had about three hours to wait till we could board the next flight. Here is where the most difficult time began for David and Me. Our friends Vicki and Greg who had done this twice before had wisely sugguested we get a hotel in New York and fly back home the next day. We should have followed their advice. We wanted so much to get home to be ready to see our son we choose not to follow their advice, this was a mistake. We were so tired and Danielle who could sleep on the flights was full of energy. We were so exhausted, we took turns walking Danielle around the terminal. Then when we would trade her off, we were so tired we would actually get angry with each other. Time did slowly pass and we did not kill each other. Finally we could board the plane for the last leg of this never ending day. Somehow our seats were in front of an exit row and did not recline. David would not have been able to fly this way. These seats were just too tight for his long legs. Fortunately, the flight was fairly empty and he was able to switch to an exit row, bulkhead and had plenty of room. Danielle and I stretched out on the three seats and we both slept most of this flight. Yea!! It was finally over, we were home at the Fort Lauderdale Airport. Again, our stroller came up last. By the time we got to baggage to retrieve our luggage, the three pieces were set off to the side and were about to be taken to the secured area for baggage. David went over got the three pieces and our sister in law was there to pick us up.

Finally home. David goes into the house to see our dog and calm her down. I bring in Danielle and the dog is so excited, she walks up my body and puts her Boxer face right in Danielle's face and sniffs before I can stop her. Danielle replies by screaming in complete terror. We have been home a week and although it is better, Danielle is still afraid of our dog. Now if you can imagine, I am dealing with a terrified little girl and the phone rings... it is the airline, someone had taken one of our suit cases by mistake and we had theirs. Remember our luggage was sitting on the side, we did not think to check the names on it since it was all together. But someone with a matching suitcase had taken ours by mistake, and they needed their medication tonight. So poor David had to jump in the car and take the 45 minute round trip back to the airport to exchange the suit case. We put the dog in our room and I began letting Danielle explore her new room and we started the bed time routine with Danielle. Finally, we went to bed in our own bed 29 hours after we woke up in Moscow.

Wednesday morning September 17th, we woke up and began our morning routine with Danielle. Our friend Vicki who had made our son part of her family for the last 24 days dropped our son David off at school and then came by our home to meet Danielle and drop off David's luggage. We are so blessed to have family that watched our home and dog and friends that were able to take care our our son as one of their own. Thanks Dottie, Cecil and Travis for watching the dog and to Vicki, Greg, Alexander, Veronica and Maria for making David part of their family. Danielle was slow to warm up to Vicki at first, she did begin to warm up a little by the time Vicki left. Then at noon, David went to retrieve little David from school. They stopped to buy Danielle and me flowers. It was such a joyous time to all come together. Danielle warmed up quickly to her new big brother and David was so excited to be home with us. We hugged and kissed and I may have even shed a tear or two. What a great day.

Now I will be brief about this last week, it has been a week of physical recovery from jet lag and of bonding and adjustment. The most difficult adjustment has been for Little David. He had expected his sister to be his equal, to be able to play the same games, to understand him and to play at his level. He did not expect a little sister that has to be taught everything, even to speak in his language. We had tried to prepare him, but how much can you prepare an almost four year old for such things. He has been our only child and now he has to share his toys and parents. His sister does not do what he asks her to do and he wants to show her how to do everything instead of letting her learn how to do it herself. It has been difficult. We did expect it, but had hoped it would go a little smoother. As of last night, they were actually playing chase together and getting along wonderfully. Little David had been very close to learning to swim when we left and we had hoped he would learn to swim while staying with Vicki and Greg since they have a pool. We were able to go over to visit with Vicki, Greg, Alexander, Veronica and Maria on Saturday evening to see David swim. He did learn to swim while we were away. It was such a nice evening to relax and allow David to play with his friends and show us his new skill in the pool. I went in the pool with Danielle and expected her to be frightened. The little girl that is afraid of Dogs is fearless of water. She had such a great time in the pool. It did not take her very long to get used to wearing water wings and be able to splash around just like one of the bigger kids. When we got out of the pool we had hot dogs and Vicki was able to play with Danielle and by the time we left, Danielle was hugging Vicki and did not want to leave. What a great evening out. God has truly blessed us.