Kaluga - Day 4 - Passing Inspection

We were packed up and ready to go bright and early on Monday morning. We needed to be at the baby home at 8 a.m. which gave Nathan an opportunity to try his hand at feeding breakfast. Sasha was eating porridge and ended up with a large quantity on his face, hands, pants, shirt, floor and anywhere else in a 3 foot radius of the bowl. It was a good test but Nathan was happy to try.

We then went to the music room for our visit. We had been advised that an inspector from the Ministry of Education would arrive to see our interaction with Sasha. I had the bubbles ready, Aleksei waiting, our family book, a photo montage to music that I had compiled the night earlier in our hotel room (yes, I am a bit of an overachiever but if Sasha was in a miserable mood, I wanted to show her that we did have 'Smiley Day' so it wasn't all bad). She came in and watched as Sasha smiled once at the bubbles then went into 'stoneface' mode. He pitched a fit when I removed Aleksei's coat that had plastic-capped strings that kept making their way into his mouth (we thought that if he choked on a toy that we brought him, that would surely cause a major deduction of points) and he didn't seem even mildly interested in anything we put in front of him. At some point I leaned in to whisper to him that this was for the big money but he just gave me a look that said 'oh, I could act SO much worse ... you have no idea'. I was scared.

We said goodbye to the Ministry Inspector and Svetlana came back with two big thumbs up - we had passed!

We picked up Alexander and were able to spend some time with his classmates. I sat in the middle of the playroom floor and four children climbed into my lap. As I stroked their backs, they seemed to melt. If one started fussing, I started to sing 'You are my Sunshine' and they just cooed. As much as I enjoyed spending time with our son, I have to tell you that spending time with these children was one of the highlights of my trip. I think I will always wonder if and pray that these children find their forever families. They are beautiful, bright children who would blossom in the love of a family.

We had quite a revelation during playtime. The entire weekend we had tried to get Sasha to walk or crawl. We would move a toy a bit out of his way and instead of crawling, he would scrunch up his face and cry in disapproval. As I was reviewing the playroom photos later, I saw a photo that took me by surprise. There, in the safety of his room and captured on film, was our son running without the aid of anything to support him! He had us completely snowed!

After saying goodbye to Nedezhda, Sasha and Sasha's caregivers, we spent the rest of the day in a whirl wind of paper-based activities. We met with the Ministry of Education official and received our official referral. We presented her a box of Russian chocolates as a thank you for her help. We then went to the notary office where we signed our letters of intent to adopt. We provided Alexander's new name to Gennady to complete our paperwork. He will be officially known as Alexander John Thomas Christensen. Such a big name for such a small boy. We decided that keeping some part of his birth mother's chosen name for him was important so he will be Alexander. His middle name is a tribute to our fathers and my grandfather. And, his last name celebrates the Danish heritage that he can now claim as his own. So ... he's American / Russian with French, Danish, German, Irish and English. Quite the family tree ... I'm sure it will take a lifetime to explain!

We said goodbye to Gennady and began our journey back to Moscow. We slept most of the way back, weary from an action-packed weekend. We checked in the Marriot Tsverskaya, secretly looking forward to the ultra comfy bed that surely awaited us.

We dined on snacks in the bar downstairs and sampled some red caviar (hey, when you're in Russia, you must taste the local delicacies). It was quite good, of course, I'm sure that the black caviar is much better. Perhaps we'll sample that on our second trip when Toni G. joins us. After all, we'll have a lot to celebrate on our next trip! We found the gift shop and purchased English versions of the Russian fairy tales that we had purchased in Kaluga, a toddler's traditional and a painted wooden egg. The quest for the Gotcha Day gifts will have to be continued.