The Day we Met

After showing up to the district office on Tuesday morning, we got our referral for Pavel. There were about 10 other couples there doing the same thing. We drove to the orphanage and saw the cutest little pack of kids all wearing hats, warm jackets, and warm shoes like it was the middle of winter. One of whom was our son Pavel. They were walking along waving oak leaves, playing some kind of game, waving them and yelling about the mighty leaves. Pavel was chatting up a storm until one of his care givers said "That's your Mommy and Daddy" (in Russian)....then he froze. Everyone says he is very smart, but shy of strangers - which is a good thing. He shows that he is aware that we are new and he doesn't know us yet. He let us hold his hands as we walked down a path and he said "dog" and "car" as we saw those things on our walk. They call him "Pasha", a nick name for Pavel.

After visiting in the morning and it was lunch time, Pavel waved goodbye and went off to lunch. As he was sitting down we heard him tell one of his care givers "That's my mommy" (In Russian - he's smart, but not smart enough to be bi-lingual yet), and heard her reply, yes, that's your mommy. Then he kept waving at us and we got banned from lunch for being too much of a distraction.

While he was having lunch, we filled out paperwork and went to a cafe (what would be similar to a Olive Garden) by the orphanage to have soup (2 bowls of soup, 2 cokes - $35)

We got back to the baby House at 4:30 for more play time. He saw us coming, and came running up to Amy and gave her a big hug - which was awesome!) He let us hold him for the full two hour visit in the afternoon and he didn't want us to put him down, no smiles yet, but we know that will come before we leave.