Tag Archives: Gus

More Adventures

I took photos of Gus sleeping last night. I just thought he was so cute, with his feet up on the pillows. I may have sat and watched him for a bit, looking so cute and content.

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Anyways, this morning, the only thing that I needed to do was to pick up Gus’s passport. Gus stayed back at the apartment with my mom. Alla and I had an interesting conversation on the way. About how Americans are spoiled because so many people in the world speak English, and she told me how the baby house and the judge both said I look Russian. I often have people talk to me in Russian– tonight, I got a rewards card for the local children’s store. I don’t think she had any clue that I had no clue what I was saying, as she went on and on, handing me my new rewards card and the little application to fill out and return.

Anyways, his passport is at the Embassy now. Yay.

After the embassy errand, we napped. Then, we wanted to walk to Gorky Park.

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That was a long walk! We only had about a half hour to walk around, as we were meeting up with another adoptive mom and her son. We saw the carousel, space shuttle, a fountain with music, ping pong tables, volleyball courts, among other things. Then, we grabbed a quick bottle of water and made the walk back. It is nearly 3 miles, longer than we realized!

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Then, we met up with our new friend. I am not sure how public she is, as she does not blog. But, we had a great time together. Her son was adorable and so well behaved through our souvenir shopping and dinner. We went down to Arbat Street and walked around and eventually stopped for dinner. We went to the Hard Rock Cafe. I objected at the name of it, but when I looked at their menu and realized how well all of the waiters spoke English, I was wooed. We have officially reached the point in the trip when I am wooed by English speakers and American food.

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Meet Niko, our waiter.

Anyways, we had a nice dinner. Gus had what was very likely his first, real vegetables, not pureed. I had some grilled zucchini on my veggie burger, which he got to try. And he loved.

After dinner, we headed back, parted ways with our new friends and headed down to the grocery store. I had to stop and check out the toy store, which was really quite interesting. One thing that I really wanted for my kids was blocks with the Cyrillic alphabet. We have 2 Cyrillic alphabet books, including one that talks, so I thought some blocks would be a fun addition. I found some very cheap. Then our grocery shopping. Wow. We needed water and some smaller things, and my sister requested a bottle of vodka. So, we had one baby, one stroller, lots of souvenirs, some small toys, water, vodka, and some other groceries to lug up and across the street. It would have been pretty simple, if we didn’t have to navigate the underground tunnel to cross the street. But, we made it home. Phew.
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This sweet boy was a rock star. He sat in that stroller for 7 hours, and didn’t seem to mind at all. He had a pretty cute moment, as he figured out how to get food out of his snack trap cup by himself. But, then the problem is that he thought he is not allowed to feed himself, so he held it up to me to feed him. I guided his hand to his mouth… and he was off. He woofed down every last bite that was in his cup.

Changing Direction

As I laid down with Gus for a nap, I thought about how his future has changed in the past few months. As an orphan, at 16, he would have been turned out onto the streets of Moscow. Many orphans commit suicide, because they see no other option for their future. Others turn to crime to get by. Life looks pretty bleak for an orphan, like this sweet boy was a few months ago.

People often make the parallel that adopting a child is like being adopted into God’s family. I never quite saw the entirety of it before.

At our church, “repentance” is often defined as “changing direction”. When we said our “yes” to Gus, his life changed direction.

Yes, we will love you forever. Yes, all of your needs will be met. Yes, you will always have enough. One “yes” can mean so much. An orphan no more, loved and treasured.

God used us to change his life forever, and him to change ours.

Isn’t it interesting that when we say “yes” to Jesus, our lives change direction, too? We are no longer wandering the streets of life, alone, trying to figure life out and struggling to get by. Our eternal needs are met.

Unlike Gus and other orphans, we don’t need someone to say “yes” to us… we must willingly change our own direction, to meet the One who already loves us.

Just my tiny glimpse of the bigger picture.

Adventures in Moscow

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The view from our window at night, New Arbat St. lit up.

Today we went to explore. We walked down to Red Square, and we ended up in the underground mall right next to it, trying to get there. Underground malls seem to be very popular in Ukraine and Russia. We went into two in Kiev. Anyways, we cut through the mall and came up on the Red Square. There was some kind of event going on, not sure what, but there was a big banner saying Russian and German. Russian and German, what? That is left to be determined.

The first place we slowed down was GUM. GUM is another mall on Red Square. I knew it was pretty interesting inside, so we went in to check it out, and enjoy the air-conditioning. By this point, Gus fell asleep.

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I really wanted to get a photo of Gus and me in front of St. Basil’s, which is right outside of GUM, but Gus was asleep. Don’t wake the sleeping baby, right? So, we decided to grab a drink inside GUM. At which point, he woke up. So, we grabbed some food and sat down.

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Can you find us? We’re sitting on orange chairs.

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Outside of GUM.

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St. Basil’s. Now, talented photoshop friends, who can remove those two ladies from the left side of this photo?

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Smiling in Alexander Gardens. Ha, I’m smiling. He’s ready to sleep again.

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The roof of the underground mall. Love it.

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Cathedral of Christ the Savior.

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Peter the Great.

Walking back, down New Arbat, dancing.

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We got back, and I unbuckled him, and he was slightly annoyed at me for doing that, so I let him sit there and this is what I got.

He took his first real bath tonight. Well, I’m sure he’s been bathed before, but I think it must have been the first one where he was encouraged to play. At first, he was a bit scared, but within a minute or so, he was splashing and laughing like crazy. It was so cute!

And, we got to bed in record time tonight. He had been rocking every night and nap time. Tonight, he did his typical protest, which ended when I handed him his drink. And he had a drink, passed it back to me, started sucking his thumb and grabbed my hand with his other hand and fell asleep.

For the most part, he seems comfortable. He is obviously happy and enjoying our company. But, he also is comfortable protesting and getting upset with us. 4 days and we will be HOME. I cannot wait to see how he does with the rest of our family.

Love

Tonight, we walked to Arbat St. I have no photos of the actual events on Arbat… I was busy baby wrangling, but maybe I’ll post some of my mom’s photos later. But, we stopped for dinner.

Gus is great when it comes to sitting down. He just needs some food to nibble on and a bottle full of juice/water and he’s good to go.
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Cuddling and other PDA are welcome when you are on a dinner date with Gus.

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Yes, we’re in love.

Maybe we’re just in the honeymoon phase, or maybe this kid is just amazing, but things really have been that simple so far.

Day 2

Actually, I’ll finish with Day 1 first… we all napped and when we got up, we tried to decide what to do for dinner. We decided to be very adventurous and go to… Chili’s. It was right across the street, we knew the prices and that it was kid-friendly.

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Gus was great. He ate some more fruit snacks while we waited… he tried everything he was offered once the food arrived. He doesn’t seem to be too fond of food which is hot or cold.

Like naptime, bed time was not so fun.
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My mom wanted to take a photo of him in his pajamas, and this is what she got.

But, he took his bottle pretty quickly, and I put on some Russian lullabies and the iTunes visualizer. He drank every last drop that was in his bottle, then he just watched the computer and let me cuddle with him as he fell asleep.

He is pretty funny when he wakes up. He just wants to play on the bed for awhile, not too ready to get up. He loves to be cuddled and kissed and tickled.  But, we had to get up sometime. He had his medical for the embassy today.

Again, we were awesome in the car. But the medical… yuck. It was very short and easy, but we both weren’t fans of the doctor. Gus called it first, he started screaming as soon as the doctor touched him. My annoyance began when the doctor started telling me how he is a drama queen, a little actor, and how I shouldn’t pick him up when he cries or I’ll be carrying him until he’s 25. Thanks, he has barely cried until you came near him!

That appointment set us up for being done with the morning. We got back and we were ready to nap. Well, not ready, but needed to nap. But, that was not fun. It took awhile, but eventually, he laid down. It turns out he is a thumb-sucker as he falls asleep.

We napped for about 3.5 hours! And we felt so much better.
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We played on the bed for awhile again. He wanted to play with this book, but insisted on sitting on it to play with it.

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Now, we are just relaxing. Apparently, it may storm, so we are waiting that out.