Wednesday, May 14, 2008

More Andrey ...


Andrey, continued...

After experiencing difficulty with the wireless connection in our apartment, we're finally up and running!

As you can see in the post below we've had a chance to meet Andrey (or Andreyushka as they affectionately call him.) Yes, he is a sweetheart! We met yesterday for the first time. I'm sure it was overwhelming for him; Andy, myself, our translator, Katya, our attorney, Tatiana, the orphanage social worker and her assistant, in addition to one of Andrey's caregivers were all crowded into a small office as he was brought in to meet us. We arrived to the orphanage a little later than we hoped, thanks to heavy Moscow traffic and a one hour delay at the Ministry of Education where we stopped to get the "official" permission to meet him.
Andrey had just finished lunch and was headed for his 3 hour nap. They kept him awake so we could meet him. We were expecting crying and fussiness; he was very pleasant considering the fact we interrupted his naptime.

After our brief introduction in the social worker's office, we were brought in to speak with the pediatrician who is the orphanage director. It wasn't hard to see that Andrey appears to be a favorite of hers as well as the other caregivers. They say he's calm and quiet. He is serious, especially when it comes to eating! He enjoys stacking cups, taking things apart and putting them back together. He eats all types of foods (apparently he has quite a sweet tooth) and feeds himself with a spoon. He says several words but understands and follows commands without any difficulty. He's had an exciting week; one of the little girls in his group bit him on the cheek. I guess he was just so cute she couldn't help herself :-)

Andrey!


Friday, May 2, 2008

Moscow here we come!

Good news! We'll be leaving for our first trip to Moscow on May 11th. What a coincidence that it happens to be Mother's Day :-)

No matter how much we've prepared, many thing just couldn't be arranged until we had our travel date. We couldn't apply for our Visas until we had both our travel dates and the hotel information. Needless to say we've been busy the past day getting all these things in order.
It's all good, though. Shortly we'll be meeting Andrey for the first time.

We'll try to upload picture of our trip while we're in Moscow so that you can all see our little guy.