Ahhh. The end of the day and all is quiet. Shelly and I are winding down, as we check our respective email accounts. I shouldn’t mislead you like that. All-in-all, it was a smooth transition from the orphanage to our care today.
We arrived at the orphanage around noon with celebratory pies in hand. We were asked to provide the caretakers clothes for Max to wear from the orphanage. Shelly handed over what she deemed appropriate for his first outfit, khakis and a polo shirt. Moments later, he arrived in his new attire, not too sure what was going on! The Medical Director reviewed his information one last time; we signed her ledger, gathered our paperwork and headed out the door. We were about to face our first hurdle, the car seat.
Since he had never ridden in a car before, much less sat in a car seat, we feared this might be traumatic for him. Call it parental intuition (or just common sense), but we were right. He tried everything in his power to try and get out of that seat as we struggled to figure out how to use it properly. Poor kid, it was the blind leading the blind! Fortunately for all of us, we figured it out and we were on our way.
It didn’t take but a minute for him to settle down and take in all the sights and sounds of the busy streets of St. Petersburg. It’s hard for us to imagine what was going through his mind as we zipped through traffic, but based on his facial expressions, he was amazed. I don’t think I saw him blink once. He looked out each window as if to say, “What is that? And that? And that?” And before we knew it, he was fast asleep.
We arrived at the hotel after about a half hour ride, and tried to get him out of the car without waking him. We were unsuccessful. We hurried up to the room via the elevator. He wasn’t a fan of the elevator. He was clinging so tightly to me, and with every new sight, he held me even tighter. We got into the room, and he settled down as it was approaching “nap time.” That was a good thing, as Shelly was on her own with him for the next couple of hours as I headed off to the passport agency.
When I returned, I found Max and Shelly, playing with toys on the floor. He missed his 3 hour afternoon nap. We hoped that wasn’t a big deal. Turns out it wasn’t.
We abandoned the room, and headed for the park for a walk. This was Max’s first stroller adventure. He loved it! He was interested in watching the pigeons and the ducks. Overall, he was perfectly content in his new ride. So, we decided to take a walk down the block to McDonald’s, since Shelly and I had not eaten all day.
While we dined on some familiar cuisine, he snacked on some Goldfish crackers. We walked back to the hotel, and played for awhile longer until it was his dinner time. Tonight’s meal? Vegetable Beef Dinner (in a jar), bread and some yogurt. Judge for yourself how he liked it:
We got him cleaned up and it was back in the stroller and down the scary elevator so that we could eat something as well. We sure as heck weren’t going to finish that nasty stuff in the jar! We ate at Stolle, our favorite pie and soup joint not far from our hotel. Max had a sampling of my beef pie and Shelly’s mushroom soup, accompanied by some low calorie chocolate chip cookies.
It was quickly approaching bed-time, and Max needed a bath prior to bed. These were two events we thought we were really going to have a hard time with. Once again, we were wrong!
He LOVED taking a bath. He laughed and played and really enjoyed himself. We actually had a hard time getting him out of the tub! So then, it was time to get him to wind-down and go to sleep, but we weren’t sure how. So, we put him in his crib/pack-and-play, and within a matter of 15 minutes, he was asleep. Piece of cake!!! Now, will he sleep through the night? Let’s hope so. We need some rest!!!
So, we hear that being a parent is a learning experience. Today's lesson? "Expect it when you least expect it." We fully expected today being a really tough day for all of us, but it turns out, we were wrong. Now what should we expect for tomorrow? Guess we will have to wait and see.
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