Sixth Sunday in Siberia

I maybe shouldn't use this as a blog title as it's a little depressing! But for those of you who have commented about me maintaining my sense of humor – well, I have to as the other adult in the house pretty much lost his around week three! Well, maybe it's not that bad but I'm definitely a "half glass full" person while Brian's the other way – probably why we can get along for how many weeks now of 24/7?!? Ying and Yang and all that… I have lived abroad before…granted I always knew my return date though!! It's the being away from JJ for this length of time that gets me down when I think about it too much – before this I think the most I had ever been away from him was like 4-nights or so!! He's usually always with me – and when I hear now that he had a bad day or something happened to make him sad or even when I hear something good, that's when it's very hard to be here. If only this stay over here wasn't so long! BUT we can't do anything about it so we just have to make the best of it and realize every day is one closer to going home! AND we know it's all God's timing, not ours – but I sure hope he pulls some strings in the passport office!

We all slept until after 8am again today but last night was late for all of us. Genya went to bed at 10pm but Brian and I now have figured out the VCR player here so are working on the pile of tapes here – some of which we saw in 2004! But it's good late night entertainment. For the second night in a row now Genya woke up around 1:30am & got out of bed but when I asked if he had to go potty he said no and went back to bed and sleep. Last night when he was sleeping he had his sock half off and leg sticking out of the covers – looked so much like JJ from the back! I think it's the clothing that is making JJ & Genya look so much alike – especially that shirt Genya had on yesterday… several times when I glanced at the pictures in the computer quickly I actually thought it was JJ for a second!

So we had a lazy morning – I made oatmeal but Genya just ate the strawberry jam out of it and had a few bites, ate a yogurt and drank some juice and then said he was full – but had room for a pear yet! We watched some of the DVDs Brian bought yesterday and cartoons on the TV. I took a leisurely bath while the guys hung out on the couch. We pulled one link off the chain. Then it was time for lunch so Brian and I had leftover beef stew and Genya had a kids buffet --- hard-boiled egg, salad, yogurt, milk, pickles (wouldn't share the pickles with Brian!). Then we played a little 'hide and seek' – Genya caught on to it quite quickly! But he isn't good at staying quiet when he's hiding so he'd always easily found! Then he and Brian played some games of "war" again… We're sure he's a little card shark as when he'd deal he'd keep the face cards for himself! And when they'd have the 'war' many of the times he was right in calling who the winner was! It's so nice to see them playing together!

Irena stopped by after dropping the Holmes off at the airport – I'm sure that was a teary goodbye! Judy had left us a few gifts – including a number of clothing items for Genya! He took the "jeans" and hugged them! Also loves the Spiderman sweatshirt – so when we dressed to go shopping I let him wear the new jeans and the sweatshirt – he was proud! Didn't even want to wear his snowpants but I prevailed! The gifts were all nice, Judy, and we thank you for them all! (he was afraid of the little bugs for the water tho – it was so funny to watch him!)

So then we headed off for shoe shopping. It was a fairly long walk to the children's mall but he did great the whole way. We found him a nice pair of tennis shoes with Velcro (most of them were Velcro actually). Then we stopped at the toy store on the lower level and got two new DVDs – one is a Spiderman that caught his attention (I never would have picked that for him!) and a Disney one with Pluto on it – they're like $3.00 each so not much investment!

Then we walked up the walking street and stopped in another kids shoe store and found him a pair of slippers (70r), like $2.00, so even if he doesn't like them much we're not out too much money! The selection wasn't impressive to say the least – lots of quantity but the designs?!? Hmmm… So then we went to the Sunshine Café – I wanted to see a little on how he'd react at a public restaurant, especially for when we're in Moscow. He did great! He wanted "pizza" and at the whole slice! So he must have had exposure to it somewhere! But here's a question for other adoptive parents – are the kids trained to wash their food down with drink? Genya does it with almost everything – fills up his mouth, then takes a drink and swallows it all. He does it with my food and did it with the pizza so I know it's not just my cooking! Lol

On the way back to the apartment we did a quick stop at the grocery store – I went inside to get some "Men's Day" gifts for my two men here and a few other things… Then back to the apartment. By now Genya was getting tired of walking (and so was I!) so Brian would carry him a block and then he'd walk a block. I lifted him up once in all his snow gear and he weighed a ton! But he carried his little plastic bag with his packages the whole way from when we got them…wouldn't let us hold it for anything! Oh yeah, we also stopped for more cash/rubles – but it took three tries before I could get the money out as it kept saying I was requesting too much – must be because of the holiday weekend? And then I got 500r's instead of the usual 1000's. But regardless we have rubles in hand again.

Since we had the (heavy) snack at 3pm or so we'll dinner a little later. Not like anything we have to wake up for tomorrow anyway other than handing out the "Man's Day" gifts! Right now Brian and Genya are building the toy that the Holmes gave him… and oh, yeah, he hasn't taken the tennis shoes off since we let him put them on in the apartment! That's ok – they're probably the first shoes of his "own" ever and he needs to get used to them anyway for when we're in places the boots shouldn't go (like the airplanes and embassy!) Those shoes won out over the slippers – he told us something about the slippers but we didn't understand! Maybe after his bath… And now, for probably the first time, he's playing by himself with some of the toys – not "pama gee" (help me) – Brian says maybe because we finally got him shoes!

I'm thinking I haven't mentioned the weather in the past few days – that's because it has actually warmed up some! Today it was about -11c, as it was yesterday. Feels like a heat wave (not! But it is nicer). On Friday when I was in Angarsk the lady asked if we were cold in Siberia and about the weather where we're from – luckily we're somewhat used to the cold. Everyone keeps assuring us the extreme cold is rare and done – I say "thank you for arranging that cold" (sarcasm!) and l say we're looking forward to warmer weather!

So after supper (a ground beef, rice, veggie mixture) Genya got another bath and then we finished up "Madagascar"… Now Brian and I are watching "Pearl Harbor" and Genya's to bed early (9pm) but he got a lot of air and exercise today!