Two for the Road

Today is one of the days we did not get to go and see Maia. It is hard to be here for the purpose of getting your child, and not be allowed to see her. I can’t imagine how she feels now that we are not showing up every day. Poor little thing – she gets used to us coming daily, and then after three weeks of daily visits, we don’t every day anymore. Imagine how that must make her feel! It breaks my heart, for her, even more than for me. I can’t understand the purpose behind not seeing her – it can’t possibly be better for her to see us less when she is going to start living with us in a couple short weeks. We’ve been waiting a very long time for the day we can get her, and I can’t wait until that day comes! It should be 2 weeks from today when the 15 day period after court is over. We want to get her as soon as possible so we can start to get to know her routine, what she eats, what she won’t, where to get more food and diapers when we need them, she gets to know us better, we want to feel comfortable in our apartment in getting to know her, we want to know people we trust are here in case there are questions after we first get her. If we wait to pick her up until it’s time to leave Petro, then we won’t know her at all, we’ll be in a city we aren’t comfortable in, we’ll be in a much smaller place (a hotel) and we won’t have the assistance of Masha and/or even the baby house if something comes up that we really need help with! The last thing I want to do is ‘get her’ and then board a plane headed to a place we don’t know. That certainly would not make it a good transition and it certainly would be an uncomfortable one. So, two weeks from today should be the day – yippee!

So, without our visit, Mom and I went exploring today! Only three and a half weeks after arriving in Petro!! It is quite a nice day, gorgeous sunshine, melting ice… we went out on two different excursions, with a stop home in between. We did see one sidewalk that had been partially cleared (many of the streets are closed to clear the ice away – with heavy machines or men with shovels beating the ice until it cracks and then scooping up the large chunks and putting the chunks in the back of dump trucks to haul it away.) The other part of the same sidewalk that was not clear had FOUR inches of packed, solid ice. That’s what we’ve been walking on! I knew we were walking on ice, of course, but I had no idea it was SO THICK! So, to see spots that have melted or been cleared away is wonderful. It really makes the walking so much easier without the ice! For our first real adventure by ourselves, we took it at our pace, but we are quite the proud peacocks that we set out and accomplished something! On another day ‘off’ from Maia, I’m sure one trip will be to the coffeehouse, but we did not go there today. Maybe Friday or Sunday. We also want to buy more souvenirs as well sometime.

Tomorrow we are supposed to take Maia to get her passport picture taken! I get to bring an outfit (since you’ll see the upper part of her body) in the picture. How exciting!! It’ll make our actual playtime less, but it will be a great job done – and a necessary one – before we are able to get home. Anything we can get done now to speed things up after the 15 day period, I’m all for! I am enjoying our time here, but must say I will be very ready to be home and see Matthew and have Maia with us full time! So anything at all to shave a day off, if possible, would be great!

We had the funniest thing happen this morning! (Actually, if the truth be told, I was still in bed, but it was still funny!!) Remember the living room lamp that shakes when the people upstairs walk on their floor, the same one that REALLY rattles when they walk hard or run on their floor. It is a lamp with five bulbs, and the ‘covers’ over the bulbs open down. (So when you look up at the light, you can see the light bulbs.) So, when Mom went to turn on the living room light one of the light bulbs ‘blew’. But it didn’t just ‘blow’… it exploded! Made a HUGE noise, ‘pop’ or maybe a ‘bang’ and then, the whole glass piece fell out of the light cover and on to the table below, hitting a plate that I had left on the table last night! The base of the light bulb remains in the light. The amazing thing was, although there was a little bit of glass on the table below, the bulb itself stayed intact as did the plate below that it fell upon. I couldn’t believe that! Mom thought for sure I would bolt out of bed to see what happened. I just thought she dropped a plate so I went back to bed. This is the 4th light bulb that has blown in our apartment in the past three days or so. The rest were contained in their fixtures though, so we don’t know what ‘happened’ to them!!

I just want to thank everyone again for your comments and emails! It’s so great to hear from everyone – it really makes us feel in touch!