Going Great!!

Sorry I haven't updated, but we've been somewhat busy :) The past 2 days, we've had good visits with Roman. He's warming up faster and faster each day.

Wednesday, the first day after court, we Skyped with family members and got to see Kate on the camera. She LOVES seeing herself in the computer screen, so she kinda makes you sea sick b/c she's dancing around like crazy :) It's SO wonderful to be able to see her and talk to her. I cried at breakfast today thinking of her and missing her. This is already been the longest I've gone without seeing her. Hopefully, the remainder of the trip will seem to go quickly.

Anyway, we had a great visit yesterday. We're starting to see more and more of his personality the more we get to play with him. After going to the orphanage our facilitators took us to New York cafe (yahoo ladies will know it :) for business lunch. They've been trying to get us there for business lunch since we came in Jan!! ha! Business lunch is cheaper and goes from 12 - 4. We arrived at about 3:30, so they were out of the 2 entrees Wes and I wanted, so we were stuck with beef liver stroganoff - yuck!! oh well, we survived. While we ate, our facilitators checked out ballet tickets for us. We could have chosen Romeo and Juliet for last night or a Russian ballet for Sat. night. We chose the one for Sat. night, b/c we can't go to the orphanage on the weekends, so it gave us something to do. Even Wes is excited about it - ha! So, since we had such a late lunch, we just snacked for dinner. We were so proud of ourselves, b/c we stayed up until 10pm! Woohoo!

This morning we knew they were coming a little earlier to get us, b/c we were going to be able to see Roman eat his lunch and see his room. So, we got up, got dressed and went to Travler's Coffee for breakfast. It was great! Our visit today was awesome!!! We took pictures and video of Roman's rooms......the sleeping room, play/eating room, and the bathroom (VERY interesting). Roman uses a potty and he's only 13 months old - I forgot to ask what they do at night. I'm guessing cloth diapers? Diapers are too expensive for the orphanage to use, so they set him on the potty every couple of hours (and after lunch, nap, etc.).

He did great eating his lunch. Wes is convinced that they gave him more lunch today than usual :) I'm not sure, but he ate it all! And he enjoyed it very much......kicked his feet while eating. He started out with some soup, then he had an oatmeal-like muesli and fruit compote. We got to feed him, and when he was done, give him his fruit juice. He did great!

I was mostly amazed at being able to see the other children in his group as well as his sleeping room. There are 16 beds/cribs in the room. They had a mixture of ages. When I videoed the sleeping room, there were some toddlers in there napping. It broke my heart to see those children (around Kate's age) sleeping so soundly and knowing they don't have mommies and daddies. I just can't imagine. I will say that the caregivers seem amazing, and the orphanage is great. We couldn't ask for a better place for Roman to have stayed. It's very clean.

There has been another couple on their first trip who have been visiting with a child in the same room while we've been visiting with Roman. We asked them if they wanted to go to dinner tonight, so we told them we'd meet them at their hotel at 5:30. Well, we had previously asked our facilitators to let us take them out to eat to thank them for everything. So, it turns out they took us up on that for a business lunch at a restaurant right here by our apartment at 3:00. Of course we said sure, and it was a great time!! But now, I just ate and have to go eat dinner again in an hour! Oh well :) I'm sure it will be fun!

Will post more soon..........