Tuesday, June 30th

Entering the home stretch of our bonding period. Roman was rather calm today when he first came in the play room. We tried to play with various toys, he wasn't so interested in the macaroni today. I brought stacking cups, he just tried to play with some of the toys already there. There's a plastic infant phone that makes annoying noises that he likes to play with. He seems really bright and is interested in trying to figure out how things work, like that plastic phone or our camera. Sometimes he gets interested in learning the English for a few of the colors and at these times, I can see his eagerness. Other times, he gets distracted from one activity to another, but I think this can be attributed to his age too, we will see as he gets older. Oh, at one point, he found our hand anti bacterial bottle from Bath and Body. At first he didn't like the smell, but then he started rubbing it on his legs and even his face. We couldn't get him to stop and I kept telling him 'ha va teet' which I think means 'that's enough'. We had to hide it and he kept asking 'gde?' which is 'where' in Russian. And boy, he got mad, he is strong willed and he kind of stomped around...somehow we got him distracted with something else.

He loves bubbles and when he saw the bubbles Galina gave me, he went wild over them. He ended up spilling the little bottle of bubbles I bring. Tip for those who bring bubbles for older children....bring a small bottle and refill it at the hotel. He always wants to do it himself but inevitably, it all gets spilled out so I always insist on holding the bottle while he blows bubbles.

Whenever we go outside and his group or the other group his age comes outside, he wants to avoid them. I think he is worried we will take another child home instead. Maybe he has seen other kids leaving with their parents or even children being returned.

Here is a family picture:


And here is a picture with our translator, Galina. She is so sweet and so great with Roman, telling him to sit up when he is eating and making sure he knows that I'm his mama and gently scolding him when he has taken too big of a bite of the banana we gave him.


After our visit, Galina went with us to the Green Market so we could buy the flat bread I am now addicted to and to buy some fruit for the babyhouse. She also took us to the chocolate shop inside which sells the locally made chocolate by the brand name of Paxat (means pleasure).

I guess I never blog about the girls except that I miss them! So since someone asked, they seem to be doing well, except they do miss us. We talk to them usually in the morning when we are getting ready and in the evening before we go to bed. Their grandma says usually they are so busy with activity during the day that they don't miss us till it's later in the day. Sometimes we do video Skype so we can see each other too. My in-laws have been taking care of them and their cousin has been there helping to occupy their time. We are so grateful they could all come help with the girls. Olivia was going to theater camp for the last 4 weeks which ended in a performance last Thursday (which we sadly missed) and Claire has been going to summer preschool 3 days a week in June, this being the last week. I also set up a few play dates for the girls. Some other things they have done is our local museum, the La Brea Tar pits, the Museum of Natural History (both of these down in Los Angeles), our local zoo (kind of a zoo, very small), swimming in our pool, and going to the movies...they just saw 'Up'. Olivia's 7th birthday is on Wednesday and they will all be going to the big pizza place in town to celebrate. We will have a swimming party to celebrate Olivia's birthday after we get home. And in just 4 days we will be reunited with them!