Of Whining Toilets and Happy Boys

Okay, so Andrew is a little jealous I’ve been writing all the entries. :) So I’m relinquishing my writing just for one night so you can get his perspective. :) The only thing I will say is that our toilet is whistling and I don’t know if I will be able to sleep. The hotel says they can’t fix it, that it has to do with the water pressure. Wow, it’s annoying!

Andrew now: Everyone’s either moving out or about to. The Pushkin is closing to everyone except members of the visiting presidents’ entourage. I’m not sure, but President Puten of Russia may be staying here – in our room, even? They better fix the toilet before then!!

Anyway, one family is flying to Almaty tomorrow, their process nearly complete. Another family and their two little boys (6 and 4) are moving to their apartment tomorrow, one day early, because they’ll have more room there. All parties involved will likely be happier; they’ve done okay and had lots of fun in the last 24 hours, but I know they’ll be delighted to have more room than in their hotel suite! The rest of us are moving out on Friday.

We’re thinking a lot about our apartment and what it will be like for ourselves plus two little boys. Our suite probably wouldn’t be the greatest with our ceramic tile floors (the first time Calvin banged his head on it would probably be the last time he tried, but I can only imagine blood everywhere) but we’re a little concerned about the apartment, too. Alaina described it some, as well as its owner, but think of it this way – we’re moving out of a relatively bright, streamlined suite into an apartment of three rooms, a little dark. There’s stuff everywhere. She said she’d put the china up off a low shelf to the top of the cabinets and clean up the tiny toys, but I am still concerned it may not be very baby-proof. (But grandparents, don’t worry – we’ll watch them like a hawk!)

(By the way, the toilet continues to whistle / whine; it’s almost like a distant rotary hammer drill boring through concrete. Nice. The landlady did promise repeatedly that the apartment is quiet, so that aspect at least will be nice.)

Both boys were great today. Patrick laughed a lot today, in part because Alaina was tickling him so much. He loves being tickled. He likes his food, which I give to him (helping to build trust and attachment with me) but he doesn’t get mad when there’s no more of it, like Calvin often does. Our main driver / attorney came today to take pictures of him. Patrick was great for the family photo and front view, but didn’t want to cooperate for the profile photo. Every time he heard the camera warm up, he’d turn his head to look at the camera and “ruin” the shot as the flash went off :) We finally managed a decent shot when I took our camera and took pictures from the front of him at the same time! Like yesterday, Patrick didn’t want to go back to his caregivers, which made us feel happy!

We normally share the play room with another family when we visit Calvin, but they were delayed in making it to today, so we had about ten great minutes with Calvin all by ourselves. He was in pretty good spirits today; he didn’t laugh as much as some days, but he didn’t get upset much, either. It’s so much fun to watch him discover things – for example, how to pull our three-dimensional puzzle apart, or the delight of riding a rocking horse. He squealed with delight as I pushed him around the room on a big truck, pausing once each lap for Alaina to give him a drink (and to give Daddy a break!)

As I mentioned above, Calvin loves his food. Today we gave him a teething biscuit and he tore into it. Half of it was gone in less than five minutes. After that, he slowed his pace a little. The next quarter took probably ten minutes, and the next eighth another ten. The very last little bit, probably one-sixteenth of the whole, lasted in his hand for a long time; he just didn’t want to eat that last little bit . . . it finally disappeared in the last minute of the day :)

One of the cool things about our time here in the Pushkin is that the five families who have been here our whole time have become like family. We all have suites on the third floor, and often through the day we leave our doors open and people go up and down the hall visiting. We share all kinds of things with each other – DVDs, chargers, food, baby clothes, advice, encouragement, etc. It’s really cool.

Tomorrow morning our paperwork will be filed with the court and we should get our first court date!

(The toilet is still whining. It’s terrible!)