Last Day in Russia!

Hello from McDonald's again! Did you know that in Russia you can get carrot sticks in your Happy Meal? And, I had a salad topped with shrimp! It took some coaxing to get Jill to eat a carrot, but once she did, she liked them and has eaten a bunch along with her chicken nuggets. Not terribly much to report today. After eating the hotel breakfast buffet, we came back up and started packing a little. We had plans to go to the zoo after the embassy appointment, but someone needed to use the toilet-but wouldn’t. She would sit on the floor and rock back and forth trying to hold it in, or she would walk around in circles holding her bottom with her hand and whining. But, if we put her on the toilet she’d scream and cry. This went on from 10am until we had to leave at 1pm, so we put a pull up on her and left. We knew she’d be uncomfortable until she went and so going to the zoo would not be a good idea. We almost missed our 2pm US Embassy interview. The driver was there right at one, but Mia was not. She came shortly after one from the airport with a family who just arrived for their first trip. She got in the van with us and we headed to another hotel to pick up a CHI mom and daughter going for their US Embassy appointment at the same time. About 5 minutes into the drive from our hotel to theirs we hit some construction traffic! We sat or inched along and finally got to the other hotel. Luckily there wasn’t much traffic getting from there to the embassy and we made it; 2:00 right on the dot! In the embassy were at least 10 other adoptive families! We met up with the New York, California and Texas families we met yesterday and met some new families from Michigan, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and another family from Texas. We got all of the paperwork squared away and got Jill’s passport back with her visa in it! We were driven back to the hotel and after about an hour of whining, rocking back and forth and walking in circles holding her bottom-she went! YAY! We were really hoping she’d do this before the flight. Now she’s a lot less cranky and has happily been playing with her doll that has the snap on clothes, her stacking cups and the cardboard cut outs that came with her meal on the Aeroflot flight. She’s pretending that the long rectangular piece is a brush for her hair, the littlest one that looks like a sailboat she’s pretending to be a hairclip and the big one must be make-up and the medium one a make-up brush because she swipes the medium one along the big one, then brushes it on her cheeks. She has watched me put on make-up everyday since last Saturday; it’s very cute to watch her imitate. We haven’t decided what’s in store for dinner, possibly McDonald’s again since we still have some packing to do and don’t want to be out too late. The driver is picking us up at 9am tomorrow for our 1pm flight. Wade thinks this is crazy, but I think it might be right on with about a 1 hour drive to the airport standing in line for them to rummage through all of our luggage, time to eat something, then time to go through security and board. My biggest fear is that the in flight video system won’t work again. On the way here they only worked for about the first two hours of the flight and then they went out. The family we met up with our first night in Moscow sent us an e-mail that they arrived home safely, but that the in flight video system didn’t work for their entire flight! We have her doll with the snap on clothes, stacking cups, cardboard pieces, two dolls, all of her board books, Play-Doh, Crayola Magic fingerpaints/paper, 2 coloring books, crayons and stickers packed for the flight, but we were hoping she’d spend some time quietly watching TV! I guess there’s always the laptop which will last about two hours. Well, thanks to all who have kept up reading my ramblings about our big adoption adventure! And another big thanks to all who have left comments or sent e-mails! My next post will be from HOME!