Insomnia..and Thursday with Lucas

It's about 6:30am Fri morning here and I've unfortunately been up for about 2 hours. And after being so tired yesterday I can't believe I couldn't sleep! Well, I guess I can...gee it's not like this is a regular old week after all :). So I've got caught up on some emails, skyped with a friend (thanks for calling Jen!), read up on how to fatten up kids, and had a cookie (what do you expect with all the reading about milk and butter?). And Paul's still sleeping...arrgggh.

Wednesday night we both stayed up really late in order to have a skype video call with Alexander and Kali back home. It was SO great to see his little face and talk about random things like the birthday party he went to on Monday and seeing his dinosaur sticker that he was saving for me. It is a weird feeling to want to be here and spend as much time with Lucas as possible but to also want to get home asap to see Alexander. Hopefully before too long they will be in the same place.

We got up on Thursday morning around 7a to snow flurries and after our usual breakfast of oatmeal went for a walk to the grocery store. This is pretty much a daily excursion since it's a good excuse for a walk and because we need one thing or another (we're not buying much at any time since we don't want to waste or have to bring stuff back home). Oh and before that I had my first cup of real coffee all week at Starbucks - finally awake! So after getting some apples and broccoli (getting a bit tired of carrots) we came back to pack our lunch and new toys for the day. Our driver came and since we had called our coordinator the night before to say we were accepting Lucas' referral, we were off to the notary to sign some paperwork. We received a copy of the official acceptance and petition to the court that we signed (all in Russian except for our signatures) so it will be great to have this for his lifebook.

From there it was on to the baby home. We arrived to find that Lucas was a little off from the previous days. He wasn't as happy and was spitting up a bit. He was dressed in a different outfit today, t-shirt and girls jeans :) and so we finally got to see his little arms. We played for about an hour but he didn't seem that into anything and we almost say his first tears when I tried to take a pack of tissues away (and then promptly gave it back when his face scrunched up!). Once of his caregivers came in at that point and also seemed to notice that he wasn't his usual self. She picked him and he started babbling something and she started saying that he was tired and wanted to go back into the kids room. Oh ok...:(. We asked if we could still come back at 4 and she said fine. We left early and were taken back to the 'mall'. However we were there for a couple hours this time since our visit with Lucas was cut short. I was really tired at that point and after lunch and walking the whole mall this time (and not getting lost as our driver warned us about :)), proceeded to plop down on a couch and fall asleep for 15 minutes. Maybe Lucas and I are on the same wavelength already - we both really needed a nap!

We got back at 4p and could immediately see that a nap did the trick - he was much more animated and curious. Also, our driver had come in with us and asked the caregivers how he was. They said he had just been tired and joked that when he heard that he was to be adopted he couldn't sleep last night :). We had a fun time playing with the usual stacking cups and rattles but today we also brought a little baby board book and he was fascinated by it! Yay - hopefully another bibliophile!! He kept coming back to the book to open and close it and look at the pictures. While we were playing with him a woman had gone into the kids room and soon after we started hearing some piano music. Apparently this was their 'music lesson'. When the music was playing we would notice that Lucas would start bouncing up and down 'dancing' - it was the cutest thing. When the woman left they brought us one of those music board books - the kind where you press buttons and it plays different songs while you read/sing along. He loved that as well and seemed to be torn between the music book and the board book we brought. OK I know I shouldn't read too much into any of this so early but Alexander was fascinated with books from day 1 and still wants us to read to him all the time.

We only had an hour's drive back to the apartment, and after dinner and some catch up with Kali at home, had planned to watch a movie and go to bed early. However we had a little excitement with the 'washing machine' in the apartment. I won't go into too many details but suffice it to say that everything is fine (no damage) and we learned our lesson about not using any foreign appliances for which we don't have clear instructions. LOL! So we went to bed a little later than expected and, alas, I am still up early.

Well, I think that's all for now. We'll be off in a bit for another walk - supposedly it was to get below freezing last night (it did snow a bit yesterday afternoon) but I can see blue skies! We'll have one visit with Lucas today and then back here to pack before our trip home tomorrow. I've added a few photos of some of the sights to and from the baby home.

Have a good night/day everyone~

Paka (bye)
Laura

Kids store in the mall

Grocery cart escalator

Russia White House