3 Growing In My Heart: Back to Russia

Well someone has been praying and I thank you very much! Would you believe that are bodies are on Russia time!? We arrived in Ufa yesterday at noon local time (again with all our luggage, hurray!) quite tired from all our travels. I slept a little on the drive to Sterlitamak, ate and showered at our hosts (wasn’t nauseous this time either) and then went for a ‘nap’. My plan was to only sleep a little since it was 4pm and I didn’t want to sleep too long and then not be able to at night. Well a short nap didn’t happen – I basically slept until supper, woke up more tired than I was originally, and then pretty much went straight to bed after eating. I woke up at 12:30am to go to the bathroom and thought ‘oh no, now I’ll be up all night’. Nope, went back to sleep quite easy and then did it again at 4am. I slept until 7:30am! So here I am just before supper and feeling fine! Last trip I was exhausted for at least the first two days and never did get on ‘Russia time’. Aaron did better than me with all the time changes last trip, but is doing even better this time too. Soooo great!
Today we did the usual two visits at the orphanage. The boys remembered us and we basically were back to where we left off after about 5 minutes. They are also consistently calling us ‘mama’ and ‘papa’. We were first treated by Alexander doing a dance for us with a little girl from his group. They did awesome – seriously, I was so amazed and am certain he dances better than I. They were also in costume and looked absolutely adorable – I can’t wait to post pictures! (I think I can after court?) Both Alexander and Carter also sang a Christmassy song for us too. All very cute!
The rest of the first visit had its ups and downs. Again the boys were often more interested in playing with the ‘new’ toys than with us at all. Also, telling them ‘no’ when they are misbehaving doesn’t bring any response from them because at this point there are basically no consequences to not listening to us. I did take a toy away from Carter since he insisted that it was for hitting Eli in the head. He responded by saying ‘Give! Give!’ over and over and having a mad fit on the floor for a few minutes, and then was back to his giggly self. The second visit though we were in that Sensory room, so brought no toys and had a blast with them. At the end of the time we were left for a couple minutes with Eli (usually they take him away first but Alexander and Carter left first this time) and he immediately seemed more comfortable. Aaron was ‘allowed’ to sit closer and talk a little to him (usually this would have him crying) and I had him almost laughing! He then walked with me holding his hand (absolutely refused to last trip). Although I knew Eli doesn’t know his older brothers, I hadn’t realized that he was actually so frightened by them too. It makes sense though since no one in his baby group would be so loud, active, and fast. So that too was great!

There have been a few changes since last time. Carter is talking sooooo much more and Eli is walking on his own! Great to see them developing more to where they should be for their age (although seeing Eli walk on his own for the first time would have been special too). They cut Eli’s hair short – not so crazy about that… We also have a new driver, which is too bad because I was looking forward to introducing the young handsome single one to Beth :)

I almost forgot about London! We had approximately 10hrs of time to spare between flights so we hopped on the ‘tube’ (‘mind the gap’) and walked around catching a bunch of sites in the city. We saw Buckingham Palace, the London Eye (closed for maintenance), Big Ben, and a few others. It was a balmy +12’C…about 35’ warmer than home. Russia however is exactly like home weather-wise, lots of snow and –20’C.