The process of getting the girls US passports was far less painful than we expected, even though we did have to run around like crazy people to get certified translations of their birth certificates and adoption decrees. (Note that there were already certified translations of these done while we were still in Russia so that US immigration would let us bring the girls home and make them citizens….those translations were good enough for that process but the same US immigration offices wanted a USA certified translation for the passport process.)  I would complain or get grumpy about all that paper chasing and crazy double rules stuff… but we are such pros now after the actual adoption process that now I just ask what I have to do twice and in different colors and wait for the answer.

Mark will be shooting for the first few days, and I’ll be working at nights to keep up with post production on images for two clients and several web sites that we are working on, but seriously? Working from a beach front condo, 10 days with my little family, on an island filled with french food and shops and ummm rum?  ok.. Our great friend Swank Kahuna will be staying at the studio/house and keeping the four legged kahunas and things loved and happy and running while we are gone (she’ll also be studying her ass of for her Medical boards so SHHHH be quiet!) Remind me to use the word GRATEFUL as often as possible.

Beyond the obvious things like the girls getting to play in the ocean for the first time, a real family vacation for the 5 of us, the hope of a slower pace each day….I’m super excited about the food.  The combination of Carribean flavors and spices with French Supermarche living seems just about perfect to me.  The bonus of Chef Kahuana (AKA our son Jordan) being with us to help experiment with the foods and cooking options both on the beach and in the little condo we are renting just puts me over the top.   Did I mention the word grateful yet? (did I spell it right? sheesh I never do!)

So, now the mad rush to get everything in order and projects launched so that we can really enjoy ourselves once we get there.  I’ve been trying to prep the girls about the trip since our last flight with them was the trips from Chita to Moscow then Moscow to Chicago. Elena (almost 4 years old now) has recently announced that she is actually a polar bear.  She approves of the plans for the airplane trip but pointed out that she’d need lots of water to swim in. (Lots of water on an island vacation? CHECK!) Zhanna (turning 5 in a month) was mostly concerned about what shoes she might wear on the plane.  I’m not sure I can do the conversation she and I had justice, but at some point I actually said “Yes, Zhanna…if you want to bring the sparkly pink shoes to wear just on the plane that is fine.” (She wanted to only bring them and I pointed out that they weren’t so much meant for the beach and 20 minutes later I was agreeing to a wardrobe change for a 4 year old during travel.)

The girls start summer camp in one week, and now with Jordan helping us here at home and in the studio as both a personal chef and assistant life is really smoothing out.  In some ways I can hardly remember our lives before we started the process of adding to our family..and in others it seems like only yesterday.

This summer we’ll be doing some major garden experiments and farmer’s market gathering for putting into the pantry to make the next winter a nicer place to live through.  I’ll be posting recipes and photos from all of that in the coming weeks.  Nothing funnier than a city girl with a bent toward tech nerd trying to figure out how to preserve/jar/can in a manner that will keep the food worthy of actually cooking with once the frost comes back.

best wished to everyone for a great summer!

Keep in touch!

I’m not certain how long she was calling out for me, but I didn’t hear Elena until after she had gotten sick in her bed and then become basically hysterical. (really is there anything sadder than a sick, cold, sad child who thinks she can’t find her mommy?)

We have a monitor set up in their room, and a receiver on my nightstand. But I didn’t bother to bring it downstairs with me because the girls sleep through the night on such a regular basis that it’s only real purpose has been to hear the early morning “I need to go potty” refrain.

Both girls still stay in their beds until we come in in the morning, as if they were in cribs and can’t get out. That has always seemed like a good thing, until tonight. Elena needed to get up, but was afraid too. Once she was feeling better and calm again we talked about it being ok to get up and open her door if she needed me. Elena nodded her little head and said she would, but it was clear she wasn’t going to really do it.

And now? Why am I writing a post after midnight? Because even though, once I managed to get her bedding changed and to get her cleaned up and in fresh “jamas”, Elena was ready to go back to sleep. She has a new fear. “mommy didn’t hear me crying”. So about every 20 minutes since 10pm she has woken up and performed a test of the emergency broadcast system (Elena Broadcast to be precise.)

I’m laying here in bed using the monitor to hear her breathe and hoping that the last test at 12:20 am was enough to prove that when she needs me I really will come. But I’m not betting on it.

The dining room? Not so much with that fourth coat of paint. I can only hope that the stuper brought on with 24 hours of flights Mark will have just completed will be enough to distract him from my almost completed surprise when he arrives in the morning.

This has been a test, only a test, if this had been a real emergency you would have had no idea what to do. We now return you to your regularly planned sleep cycle.

So, that was 9:30pm.

First it was a cat that suddenly needed to prove his prowess as a hunter by “capturing” a small stuffed Koala and carrying it up the stairs to lay at my feet. He was of course yowling the entire way. That was 11:15pm

Then it was the tiny voice of the 3 year old over the monitor “uh oh I’m wet”. Sigh, I knew that last glass of water was a mistake. Naturally the clean sheets and were down in the basement laundry room. Ok. I can do this. Calm sad and oh so groggy child down, get to basement, get child cleaned up and changed, get bed made, get child back to sleep. All while doing everything possible to keep from waking 4 year old zonked out in next bed. That was 12:45am

From there it was the natural result of all that hubbub. Just as I got back into bed, and settled down, the dog decided he had to go out….NOW. Ok. Back downstairs. Stand next to the freezing door and wait for him to stop playing in the snow and come back inside so he can bring his snow covered feet back to my pillow. That ended at 1:30am

Ok! Now it’s time for bed….a few hours of sleep and then…the SOUND.

If you have an iPhone, find the “boing” sound effect and turn your volume up as high as it will go. If you don’t, try to remember the sound from Road Runner cartoons whenever a large metal spring was used to fling anything over a mountain {{{BOINNNGG}}}.

I woke up to that sound echoing over and over again up the stairwell. At first all my groggy head could conjure was the idea that a smoke alarm with failing battery was going nuts. But it was so strange
{{BOINNNGG}}}
{{BOINNNGG}}}
{{BOINNNGG}}}

When I finally found the old model iPhone we gave the girls to play games on (in a toy box under the dolls) it was on the last round of alarm from a setting that showed “count down 12 hours”. It would appear that one of the girls was playing with the clock timer function at 2:30pm. Since that was 2:30am when it went off.

Ummm ok, maybe if my heart stops racing I’ll try to get some sleep before the morning starts.

I did eventually get a few hours in, but the girls woke up early and there is no snooze button for that.

It’s not that I don’t see those dates as important,  it is that from the moment we saw the tiny pictures, and read the brief medical documents and background information about the girls in the referral packets that our adoption agency sent us, I have felt like the girls were part of our family.

It wasn’t like we flew all the way to Siberia to go meet them and see IF we wanted them. We wanted the girls to be part of our family, and our only fear was that some part of the adoption process, as affected by the incredible number of diverse and often times overlapping agencies, would grind to a halt and cause us to be unable to bring the girls home.

International adoption is not for the faint of heart and each adoption is as individual in it’s process and experience as the children are themselves.  I learned very quickly to ignore any book, “expert”,  web site,  or blog that started any advice  with the words  ”The rules are…” or “In Russia….”  There is no such thing.  Much like the USA, each town, hamlet or burg of Russia has judges who interpret laws and process in their own way.  There may be standards, and rules, guidelines and even laws to follow – but to be certain our experience in Far East Siberia would not be the same if we went back and adopted from Moscow or Tver or any other of the 100’s of regions. So I’m not going to take time here to write down tips or guides on adoption.  We were extremely fortunate to have the stars align in so many important ways, which enabled us to go from the first act of submitting our paperwork to boarding that last flight home in less than 10 months time.

What I can speak to is the incredible amount of adjustment and change and well, life,  that our little family has experienced this past 12 or so months. These are the milestones we sweat over, and memories we will celebrate. Perhaps when the girls are older, and want to know more about how we became a family, the date we stood in front of a judge in Siberia will be marked on our calendars, for now I choose to use the holiday season to be thoughtful about memories and changes like this:

Like starting off trying to parent a 3 year old who spoke only fluent Russian and a 2 year old speaking baby Russian and having them both completely replace that language with English in the first few months of being a family to the extreme of now not even recognizing words or sounds from their first language. We still have some funny syntax things that I think are remnants of the way Russian is structured, and the order of the alphabet continues to allude our older daughter, but if you didn’t know they used to speak another language you would never guess.

Coming home with both girls so underweight they didn’t show up on any growth charts. Their bodies had been conserving nutrition for their brains (a magic plan that nature puts into effect in times of emergency) so they hadn’t been growing, or having teeth come in, at the pace you’d want to see in small children – to now trying to keep up with our two robust little girls who have each had more than a 40% weight gain and grown more than 6 inches in one year (nothing like nutrition, sunshine, fresh air, and love to act as miracle grow for tiny ones.) Our youngest daughter is still really small for her age, and is working on catching up on those teeth coming in even now, but she is strong – really really strong.

The trials and tribulations of inserting myself as the mother to a child who for the first few years of her life was actually mothering her tiny sister.  When we first met Zhanna, even though she was obviously hungry and needing attention,  she wouldn’t take a snack or a drink from us without first insisting that Elena be given her own portion. She led her around the room and watched over her in a manner that let us know she had taken on the responsibility of caring for her sister and we’d have to earn that right.  I have used the phrase “you are not the mommy” more times than I care to admit, but it’s less and less often now, and the issues we deal with now are about being a bossy big sister and nothing more.

Memories of that first moment when we opened our front door and the girls began to scream and climb up as high as they could get on our shoulders to get away from our two tiny westie dogs. (At the orphanage the only dogs they saw were wild ones who came into the yard looking for scraps of food – the girls had obviously been told dogs were mean and scary and would bite you, as a way of being protected by the caregivers.) Now we have to beg the girls to stop hugging the dogs and give them a moment of rest, and both girls pretend to be puppies on a regular basis as they scamper across the floor.

The trauma of  having to put the girls through the battery of medical tests and blood letting and multiple vaccine injections so soon after coming home and then a few months later having to stay  in a hospital with Elena after they attached electrodes all over her head to try to rule out seizure activity as the cause of her suddenly loosing the ability to speak in multi-word sentences (a symptom that went away as fast as it showed up and has never returned.) For Elena’s part she was far more interested in the temporary tattoos that i covered her body with to keep her busy, than the electrodes and doctors and temporary confinement in the hospital.

Acknowledging that for our older daughter the extra time she spent in the baby hospital system while waiting for placement in the orphanage has at least slightly affected her ability to easily attach, to trust, to control impulses, and even to process information.  But seeing her face light up when her Daddy comes into the room, getting to share in her honest joy at every new discovery and chance to help, witnessing how excited she is when her big brother comes for a visit, watching her absorb new information, marveling at how fast she can grasp a new concept, and knowing that every day she gets a little better at taking a moment to think before she acts, at letting me actually be the mother to her small sister, and at letting me be her mother as well, makes it all fade away.

Realizing that there are some regular life things that the girls have never experienced so even the most mundane of chores or sights might still seem like magic to them. Sometimes overloading their senses at first experience – the first time we turned on the television, the first taste of ice cream or of COLD milk for that matter, playing in the snow (I know, you think since they were born in Siberia that snow would be a part of their world, but it turns out that the caregivers begin to bundle the children up in layers of clothes when the temp dips below 70 and once it gets really cold the children aren’t allowed outside at all.) Getting to be part of the shock and awe that they experience, the wonder and delight,  helps remind me to take moments, to value the getting there as much as the destination. Children do that naturally, getting to re-learn that skill has been a great gift.

Knowing that the incredible leaps of growth, knowledge and emotional stability of this past year are just the beginning of our life-long adventure in parenting.  Making the transition from approaching everything as a recently created/adoptive family to just family…  The adoption was an act, an event, a moment in time, the worrying effects of starting life in an orphanage diminish with each new day. Now it’s time to just be…

So during this  holiday season with the  chaos of cooking, gifts, tree trimming and family gatherings, and before the year ends, I just wanted to take a moment to remember what 2009 brought with it,  how far we have come – how much we have learned – and to try to keep the ideal of not taking these moments (especially the hard-earned ones) for granted.

We are truly fortunate, our little family….for my part, I’m looking forward to 2010 and all the promise and opportunity to make new memories the new year brings.

In 5 months there has been a lot of experimenting with menus of course, and a lot of success and failure along the way (I think it’s like this for every parent), except when it comes to breakfast. Breakfast is always a success. We’re convinced we’ve been able to get our girls to grow so quickly (they’ve each added 6cm and more than 30% weight gain!) because their most important meal of the day, breakfast, is one they always completely and happily finish and, amazingly, one that’s even great for them.

I’m talking about Malt-O-Meal, which is what my wife grew up eating. I was a C-O-W kid, never had Malt-O-Meal at all, but my wife was from a M-O-M family, and she insisted from Day 1 that we try it. Home Run!! Malt-O-Meal with butter, brown sugar, and blueberries (the girls’ nickname for it, “mush!”, which they evolved from their Russian “kash”) is THE signature meal in our home. In the beginning, to help get the weight-gain ball rolling, we’d make it with whole milk, and even added a little heavy cream. Once their cheeks starting getting chubby, we went back to the regular recipe. But from the start, and even now, these tiny girls are putting away a whole adult serving of M-O-M each and every morning.

And so here we are, 5 months in to our parenting journey (AND the first morning of pre-primary school for our oldest girl!) looking once again at empty bowls, smiling, healthy faces, and full, happy tummies…theirs and our! Thanks Malt-O-Meal!!

The girls are still recovering from ear infections and the weather here in Chicago has been blustery (go figure!) so we have been mostly trapped indoors. And I’m running out of things for us to do.

Don’t get me wrong, shredding up the junk mail while sitting on the kitchen floor IS super fun, I’m just not sure how long the girls will let me get away with it as a project.

The routine is, well, routine. Bed time, wake time, snack time, lunch time, nap time, bath time, diner time…. All relatively predictable.

What is never predictable are things like how many words Zhanna will suddenly add to her new English vocabulary. Very important additions in the past two weeks include “more juice/milk”, “be nice”(which she is now saying to Elena about pet interactions), “rosie/apoleon” (the puppies who have gone from sources of terror to sources of comfort-she asks where they are almost as she wakes up), “bless you”, “wow” (especially when peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with no crust appear on a plate), “lola” (the dog from next door who barks and scares Elena-as in “NO LOLA”, “shoes”, “cool” (includes a thumbs up), “peace” (includes an attempt at two fingers up)

It blows us away how quickly she is replacing words- counting in English has started and letters too.

Elena has a tiny tiny voice (unless she’s screaching with crazy delight at something.) she will say more please, and bye bye and juice etc but mostly she let’s Zhanna speak for her.

In the middle of this past week we experienced a moment right out of a movie script. During the girls afternoon nap I let the pups outside in the back yard, when I let them back in Rosie trotted up to me with a kitten in her mouth! Yes, an actual kitten. At first I thought she had hurt it or worse, but after basically running up the stairs to the studio with a handful of kitten wrapped in a baby bib (I don’t know, I just grabbed for something on the counter and that is what I came up with) mark and I checked out the smallest kitten I have ever seen and found nothing wrong other than the terror of having a puppy carrying it around. We looked for the mommy cat and any signs of other kittens but found nothing and the weather was getting awful outside. . Ok, now what?! Our house is already a zoo with the two dogs and three cats and two children. The last thing we need is some more responsibility. And surely the last thing this tiny scared kitten needs is to be “loved” by the girls who are currently showing affection to the full grown cats by pulling whiskers and smothering them with full body hugs. Then it hit us, big brother, Jordan has been talking about wanting a kitten for his new apartment. An overnight stay at the vet for testing and a trip to Petsmart later and “Matza Ball” has a new home.

Sometimes I think our lives would make for a pretty good sitcom. Other times? I’m certain of it…

Back in the day to day we continue to find other unpredictable things, especially which foods the girls will eat. It eludes us since there isn’t a real pattern. Both girls continue to devour peas and carrots, green beans and sweet potatoes. Malt-o-meal is a big hit and so are scrambled eggs. But the home made sugar cookies were turned down with the same face you’d make if I handed you a plate of poo. Chicken and hot dogs are considered “kaka” and spat out with disdain. But tonight Zhanna ate 3 ounces of poached salmon. And the other day she slurped down cream of tomato soup so fast that it was awe inspiring. They both will drink only small amounts of the whole milk their tiny bodies need so much of, so we are hiding it in the “mush”, in the eggs, in the sweet potatoes, in the tomoto soup etc. They guzzle apple juice, and even the scary “first juice” for infants made of carrots and apple or bannana carrot (it has half the sugar of the apple juice and also vitamin D)

The TB test were read on Thursday, both girls showed no response to the special test given them since they had been vaccinated with the live BCG vaccine in Russia (often children adopted from Russia are given the stronger test by well meaning pediatricians which results in antibiotic treatments as a precaution). We are really fortunate to have a team if International Adoption Specialists at the University of Chicago Children’s hospital. (only 6 blocks away from the house).

So with that hurdle behind us we are on to dealing with Zhanna having to take medicine for an internal parasite, and poor thing has made it clear that it tastes awful- she swallows it all anyway with no more than some kind words of encouragement. 12 more days of that 3 times a day then we should be through with the yucky stuff.

We spend a fair amount of time each day picking out tights and shoes to go with the dresses the girls pick out each day. Zhanna would wear her fur lined boots to bed if we’d let her and she has found that even pajamas with feet will fit in them. She’s a trendsetter to be sure!

Mark and I are doing our best to navigate the white water rapids of toddlerhood. The not wanting to share thing and Elena tossing herself on the floor when unhappy is pretty eye opening (to the fact that their tiny bodies contain a world of emotion and plans and energy all bundled up and ready to spring out at a moments notice.)

But the girls continue to play together and run to us with hugs and pretend food and bath time has turned into a whole event of water play that includes mommy and daddy in bathing suits so we can join in. Zhanna gets so sad when we stop the water and dry off that we have to bribe her with baby lotion and extra time in the frog hood towels.

So, in a nutshell- Life is good, exausting, messy and chaotic. We wouldn’t trade any moment of it for anything!

The increase finally tossed both girls onto those growth charts we’ve been fretting over since we got the medical information that came with the referrals for the girls. They are just barely on the charts now, but at this stage every positive move is such a huge relief that we’ll happily celebrate it.

We survived the blood draws and TB test yesterday (the girls we’re wiped out after all that stress and took five hour naps, and  to be certain both Mark and I  could have used a stiff drink after having held down frightened screaming little girls while it was all hapening, but it is over…) we’ll get test results next week, but the great news is that the girls are putting on weight quickly and continue to eat sweet potatoes and peas and other veggies like they might be discontinued at any moment.

Both girls are doing great. We’re settling into a comfortable routine that even includes some real sleep for the mommy and daddy:

Zhanna loves music. She figured out the harmonica today and sings little songs in Russian to us all the time. Unlike her mommy she seems to have the ability to keep a beat and loves to dance to any music we play for her.

Early this evening she and Mark spent some really nice time together, Zhanna learning to strum the guitar and then Mark playing songs for her to dance to.

Elena and I have found a new game that involves emptying and refilling a bag of cotton balls. Who knew that $1.25 of beauty supplies would be our favorite thing! Both girls like to pretend that every day things are happening, they make a big show of playing bath time sitting in the bin we have in their playroom to hold balls, and they spend a lot of time playing cooking and eating.  Oddly enough this play includes talking on cell phones…we can only guess that the care givers at the baby home were “keeping in touch” with the outside world on a pretty regular basis.

Time to go figure out what to make for dinner. Surely they are getting tired of the sweet potatoes- I know, I know, stop calling you Shirley…

Here’s some new pics to keep you smiling. 

When one child needs to go potty or is out of sync with her sisters sleep cycle or once in a while a mommy may just need to take a potty break hereself, or a coffee break, or just a break, we don’t have a way to ensure the girls are safe without putting them back upstairs in their cribs. So we went off in search of a standard playpen. You know square mesh sided baby jail for quick in and out times. It turns out that they no longer exist. The people at the baby store and target both pointed us to really complicated devices with changing tables and craddles and small living rooms attached. Yikes!

We finally settled on a system of little walls that you click together to make a colorful and musical (yes the darn thing takes batteries!) rectangle that the girls seem to really like. We leave the little door open and they go in and play tea time and slide and read books even when they don’t have to be inside (it must be funny to see Bobbi sitting in a baby jail with her daughters, but it’s more fun to be in there with them then outside.)

We are five days into the antibiotics for the ear infections both girls had coming home and all seems good there. This coming Tuesday will be the harrowing full medical review and blood work for both girls. We are heartsick about putting them through it all, but we know it is the right thing to make sure we are doing everything we can to get and keep them healthy.

Sleep time is getting easier each night with less rocking on there own and lots more hugs and kisses ‘nite ‘nite. The girls are eating well and we can already see a nice rosy color coming into their cheeks.

We even hit the park today and tested out the baby swings. Zhanna is a daredevil and kept asking to go higher.

The highlight of the weekend was that Jordan finally got to spend time with his new little sisters. Those of you who haven’t seen him since he was a toddler himself, should note that at 19 years old he is now 6′ 3″ and sports a full set of tattoos and in proper punk rock fashion a different hair color on a regular basis. He had told us that he was worried the girls would be afraid of him or that he wouldn’t know what to do. It didn’t take two minutes for both girls to be climbing all over him and Zhanna (who has been very specifically attached only to Mark) climbed into his lap and sat with him. He was gentle and kind and natural with the girls and even brought coloring books with magic no spill ink. (elena spent some time trying to eat those so we’ve put them away for a bit)

Jordan Tvoy Brat-means Jordan is your brother, and what a good brother he is! He, by the way is already planning to help Mark scare away any bad boyfriend material that tries to slink by our future door.

Jordan is one final pastry course and an externship away from graduating from the Le Cordon Bleu culinary program here in Chicago. We are so pleased that he is planning to stay here in the city working towards being a chef so that we can have regular family meals (better with his newly learned skills involved) all of us together.

We are going to be transitioning this blog into one that lets us track behavioral, medical and developmental, and educational milestones, in addition to being the place were we update friends and family and do things like store favorite recipes and latest photos and things the girls do well with. Since we’ll want the new version to be less public it will be password protected.

Any if you friends and family who wish to follow along can just send an email to weekahunas@reallyreallybig.com and we’ll happily set you up for access.

For those of you who are done following us on this path, we thank you for the support and hope you’ll keep in touch.

The pics of the girls in their Obama shirts are our not so subtle hint that we hope you’ll vote for him and ensure that our girls get the changes we all need! It’s shamless, we know, but we have even taught Zhanna to say “go ‘bama”

Best Wishes,

The Hendersons

So, where do we start?! I’ll go with the most often asked questions you have been sending:

Have we slept yet?
Well, yes we got off to a good start on Sunday night when even though both girls slept for most of the ten hour flight home from Moscow, they still let us put them down to sleep for the night. We were feeling pretty great about our little schedule until Tuesday. After we got back from the pediatricians office, we put the girls down for their mid day nap and set up the baby monitor and grabbed some zzzz’s for ourselves. (the jet lag and first week of parenting from a stalinesq hotel had caught up to us) we started naps at 2pm-woke up at 7pm and found the girls still hard asleep. We debated about waking them and tried, but they were having none of it. So, at 10pm when they woke up we realized that we had just set ourselves up for flipping night for day. We’re easing our way back into the real world but it requires the adults to go with less sleep than planned.

Dogs and kids?!
Right, many of you asked about this, the children in the orphanage are taught that dogs are scary and bad and will bite you (we actually saw wild dogs sneak onto the playground during our first trip to meet the girls.) our first night home the girls screamed with real terror when we let the dogs inside. They held their hands up high and even when we carried them it made them shake when the puppies got too close. Within a couple of hours we were at the point where they would walk around with the dogs in the room and by Monday they were patting heads and saying “Be nice” (our first English words!) so, kids and dogs? Da!
I’m sure Napoleon and Rosie are a bit shell shocked by the girls, but they have already figured our that the high chairs mean food will magically rain down from above.

Are the kids eating or hating all the new food?
Both girls weigh less than 22 pounds, but I kid you not when I report that they are eating our cubboards bare. Major favorite include malt-o-meal, mac n cheese, peas (but only if they can smash them a bit) yogurt and really anything that we put on a plate. I think today we may have finnally filled them up. For the first time Zhanna didn’t insist on eating every last crumb on her plate. Maybe they are starting to understand that there will always be more if they want it. One of the things that breaks our hearts is that even though she is only 3 years old Zhanna has been making sure Elena gets enough to eat or drink (to the point of actually giving up her own food to her little sister). It is great to see her relaxing this responsibility a bit and trusting us to take care of them both. Mark has been playing the piano with the girls after we eat- they both love music so it is our way of transitioning dinner time from an assembly line thing to a family time thing

How are you all doing?
We’re all doing great. Tired but great. The girls favorite thing right now is playing dress up and walking around the playroom carrying my old hand bags filled with blocks and other toys. There seems to be a little story being told through interpretive dance at the same time. It is like watching a strange fashion show mixed with a Martha Graham dance routine. We are also getting to spend some nice time each morning while Zhanna brushes my hair or let’s me do hers. It is just so sweet. She hides the brush when we are done to make sure she will still have it when we need it again.

Any trouble with attachment or bonding?
Well it is early to have a clean answer, but both girls call for us when they wake up, spend a fair amount of time attached to one parent or the others leg and our most often repeated game is bringing a sheet of stickers over to a parent and then spending close to 30 minutes taking a sticker one at a time from mommy or daddy’s chin or nose or cheek and gently peeling it off then bringing it to the other parent. it may sound strange, but the whole time they are making close eye contact with us, touching our faces and giving hugs. . Mark and I couldn’t feel more attached them, and we see both girls getting stronger and closer to us every day.

We’ll post more soon. But first I’ve got to go dig out some more options for fashion night from the back of my closet. You know, and wash the peas and stickers out of my hair.

We’ve hit a pretty good grove, managed naps and meals and traversed some pretty nasty results of mistakingly thinking that mushroom rissoto would be a simple enough dish for tummies that are used to poridge. Eek!

Only one last checkmark needed on the long list of hurdles to being a family back in Chicago. Just a long flight. How great is that?!

The six hour flight lasted seven and a half hours with a delay on the ground then multiple circles around Moscow before finally…finally…finally landing to much applause by the passengers of the plane.

All in all, we did really well. Mark experienced his first diaper change at 30k feet and it was a DOOZY! Elena has taken to only letting Bobbi hold her which made for a five hour wrestling match with a 20lb child – a match that Bobbi isn’t entirely certain she won.

We fell into a grove at some point and found that a pack of stickers is the magic solution for calming down a three year old who is tired of sitting.

We had to fly into a different airport because VIM is no longer flying direct from Chita, so the drive to the new hotel (the price at the Raddison has trippled since our stay there two weeks ago due to a major covention) took about an hour. We thought for certain that the car ride would result in major melt downs, but both girls sang little songs to themselves and yelled out Machina (their word for car) every couple of minutes.

We managed a room service dinner, done play time, some potty time and then after figuring out how to se up the portable cribs we spent about an hour finding the right combination of night night routine to get both girls down for bed. Of course, it may be 10:30 pm in their little heads and their tiny bodies skipped their daily 3 hour nap…so sleep seemed liked the right choice. Unfourtunately it’s actually only 3:30 pm here in Moscow. But hey, we aren’t Intersted in sweating the small stuff like time zones since we’ll be heading back home to Chicago in 4 days and we’ll be able to set a schedule then.

For now? We give in too. Nighty nighty. Para Spat (time for bed)

After we said our final goodbyes to the kids and to the head of the orphanage (who said her goodbye to Elena in the hallway as she made the sign of the cross on her forehead) it was off to the passport office where the dads signed for our kids’ Russian federation passports—repleat with babydoll-like photos in them. Simply adorable. Now we’re back in the flat, beginning the final packing process and toasting many nasdarovias to Katia and Eugene and her father and the judge and all the caretakers at the orphanage and everyone who has helped this to be the most amazing and gratifying adventure of all time.

Next? A Wednesday 6am calltime downstairs for the final trip to the orphanage, where we’ll quickly re-dress all the kids and then it’s off to the airport for the 6 hour flight to Moscow…and then the drive to the Belgrade Hotel on the Golden Ring, the official doctor’s visits for the signoff that the US Embassy requires, and THEN it’s bath time, dinner, and a well-earned sleeeeeepy.

Playing with our daughters…little voices practicing words in English…little mighty hands throwing a ball so far that we think we might have a future solution for the whitesox bullpen if they can get over that whole “throws like a girl” myth…trying on little crocs on tiny feet (which lead to spending our lunch break picking out snazzy fur lined boots for zhanna since her crocs were a bit snug) …prying crayon out of Elena’s mouth for the fifth time…having the girls hapily test out the portable potty (thanks Tony!), being the private audience to the nursery rhyme dance telling the story of an old woman who lost her two geese, then joyfully found them-starring Zhanna as one of the two geese…drying Elena’s tears and learning that we can comfort her when she melted down at the end of the show…ALL OF IT!!!! Because they are ours! All ours!!!

Mckinley clan also had a terrific day with their boys—and so now we’re all just basking in the glow of our first actual full day of parenthood and resting up before we reward ourselves with rounds of ‘nasdarovya’-filled vodka sampling.

Tomorrow we pick up the girls’ new Russian Passports, and get to spend one last afternoon at the baby home.