Balloons, spit, tickets, and a James Bond moment

On the rocking horse

Looking at the book

Playing with a balloon; Alex's teenage friends looking at his book.

Us with the director

A shorter post today, due to the late hour. We had an action-packed day…here are the highlights:

• The director sought us out to have her picture taken with the three of us, a task carried out with much amused laughter on her part, due to the language barrier and Alex’s total lack of interest in looking at the camera, despite a nanny’s valiant attempts to lure his eyes by acting silly and singing, “Cuckoo!” We finally did get the pictures and a promise to see her again on Monday before we leave.
• We were joined by a gaggle of four teens at one point during our visit. They gathered around to watch Alex play with a balloon; we would blow it up, then release it and watch it fly all over the place, to the general amusement of everyone. The teens tried to communicate with us as best they could, and in fact asked for their own balloons, which we gave them (uninflated). They also pored over the family picture book that we brought for Alex, which he still prefers to flip through over several other picture books. They are a great group of kids; hopefully they will all find permanent homes.
• We saw more babyish acting out behavior from Alex today, including more spitting. As we carry him through the halls, he likes to shout to hear the echo, and he likes to spit on the floor—not on people, but just on the floor. Spit, ha ha ha ha ha! Spit, ha ha ha ha ha! So it goes. We tell him “no” and “don’t do that” in Russian, which has no effect since it is not backed up with any consequence greater than me stopping our progress down the stairs or through the hall, turning him toward the wall, and ignoring him while he spits to his heart’s content. If the floors weren’t verboten around here, I’d put him down, too, and step away for a few seconds, until the behavior stopped, but that will have to wait until we are home. Anyway, for now, we just stop everything and quietly wait until he is sick of spitting, and after a few seconds more, resume our progress. This is a very slow way to get outside. We will see whether this has any effect over the next few days.
• We bought tickets! Barring a snag in the process of acquiring Alex’s passport and visa, which we are told is unlikely, we will touch down in Chicago at 3 p.m. Thursday afternoon, and in Minneapolis at 7:35 p.m. that evening. Right now we’re leaning toward staying overnight in Minneapolis, considering that we will have been awake for 24 hours straight by that point. We purchased travel clothes for Alex today (no, he doesn’t get to take his orphanage wardrobe with him!) as well as a sturdy umbrella stroller for the airport.
• And probably the most exciting few seconds of the day came when our taxi driver decided to take his hands off the wheel, lean across me, and open the passenger door, then slam it shut, while we were moving down a busy, unstriped road. Recall, dear reader, that they laugh at seatbelts here. Then he arched his back over the seat to reach Susan’s passenger door to do the same thing—again, no hands, ma! Well, one hand held a cell phone. And people wonder why you’re 100 times more likely to die in a car here than in the U.S. Well, as I casually quipped to Susan immediately after, “It’s an adventure around every corner here, isn’t it?”

Did I mention that we’re coming home in six days? And counting? With a sweet, sweet little boy who we could hear crying and crying and crying all the way down the hall as we left? Two more days ‘til gotcha day, kiddo…hang in there!

Me with Volodni, our regular driver, who has a working seat belt and does not
open the doors in transit. He is also locally famous--everyone seems to know him.