View from the orphanage of the playground in the back of the building.

Last Tuesday morning we were picked up about 9:30AM to make our trek to the orphanage. Today we were nervous. We were going to show M the pictures of our home, family and let her know that we were going to be her parents.

Before M came in the room we talked with our coordinator to make sure she knew that we wanted to sign the petition to adopt M today. It would speed up some of the paperwork if we were able to get this done while we were in Russia. She took out a piece of paper from her folder and had us sign it. This was used to draw up the papers we would sign later in the day.

M seemed happy to see us and we quickly got comfortable on the chaise lounge in the room and looked at her purple book for the ducks (same game we were playing the day before). Then we told her we wanted to show her some special pictures. We got out the photo album and introduced her to the pictures. We told her who everyone was, including Yoshi, and introduced the house, the nearby playground, and her school. She was very interested in every picture.

She stopped at the picture of the front of the house and asked about the silver car in the driveway. We explained it was Papa's car, and Mama has one too but hers was blue. She thought that was pretty cool. (I was thinking about Bonnie at this moment, Rhonda!)

Once we got through the album we went back to the beginning and had her describe what who was who and what was what. She identified us a "mama" and "papa". She knew who my sister and brother were. She knew her "babushka" (Michael's mom); and Yoshi. She identified the front and back of her new home, and called her room "the room with the monkey" (because there was a monkey stuffed animal on the bed). When she saw the picture of me on a hike at Torrey Pines, and a picture of our backyard, she said "this is where I will walk". And when she saw the pool in the backyard she said "this is where I will swim". (All of this in Russian of course!)

We told her that we were going to be her mama and papa and asked her if that sounded good to her. She smiled, nodded yes and said "Da!". We also asked her if she knew this meant she will go to America with us and she nodded yes again. It was a really sweet moment.

We were able to spend about 2.5 hours with her in the morning; and 1.5 hours in the afternoon. We played with the blue balloon (again), Playdoh, coloring books, and some bubbles. The afternoon visit was really short but we had to get to the notary office by 4:30PM. We told her that we had to go back to America to get everything ready for her and that we would be back as soon as we could. We told her it may take awhile, that we would probably be there after Christmas but we would hurry as much as we could. She seemed to understand - as much as a six year old can understand this big event!

We hugged and kissed her goodbye. She was not comfortable with hugs and kisses but she didn't pull away either (this is a good thing). She left the room with our translator but came back and our translator said she wanted to give us a kiss goodbye but was nervous. So we gave her more hugs and kisses and said goodbye and said we would be back as soon as possible.

We were late for the notary so we packed up quickly after M left the room and quickly got on our way. We signed the papers (see one of my previous posts), got our things at the hotel, had dinner, and got on the night train back to Moscow.

I can't believe it's been a week since we were with M. Time is going quickly right now. Let's hope the wait continues at this pace!