Orenburg MoE

Today we will meet with the Orenburg Minister of Education and then get to meet our potential child, along with the other couple that is here. We're pretty excited and a little nervous. I will give an update after we meet with the child. We are not sure if we will also meet up with Izabella and Shaun who also have an appointment with the Minister of Education today.

[Update]
The meeting went well, and so did the meeting with the social worker. I ended up being able to fumble my way through with Russian although my Russian is a bit rusty.
[Comment from Ange:] Kris was awesome. The Minister's eyes went wide, and he got a big smile when Kris started responding in Russian. Vera had to help Kris with a few words here & there, but overall everyone was really impressed. It was a little weird for me to sit there nodding as I got the gist of what the conversation was about. But Kris was definitely a star, and Vera clearly thought Kris had hung the moon after that! :)
[Ok, back to Kris' account...]

We met with the minister of education at about 0830 and then around 3:30 went on to meet with the social worker who will watch how we interact with the child. Everything seemed to go well. [Ange again. I made a mistake. I had read this but forgot. When I first had him on my lap, I was gently bouncing him on my knee, as I know a lot of kids like that. Vera told me to stop, that was considered "shaking" the baby. I felt really awful, because of course I know the difference and would never shake a child! But now I don't know whether the social worker & orphanage doctor are thinking that I'm a horrible mother or what. Meanwhile, Baby D. was kicking his feet & trying hard to get me to keep bouncing, because clearly he liked it...]

Baby D. seems like everything is fine. He took a little while to warm up to us but seemed to be coming around by the end of the visit. He is a very energetic boy and seems to have a very strong will and wants to do things his way. Everything seems to be good for the health side of things. We got a little over 2 hours to interact with him. After that we went to an internet café where we were unable to download any pictures to email to our adoption doctor because I was not aware that we would be heading there straight after the meeting with the child. Well Ange was able to send off an email to Dr. G (our adoption doctor) and describe the situation to her. Ange had been watching carefully and taking notes of various milestone behaviors that Baby D. exhibited. We did end up seeing Izabella and Shaun at the various stops today, and we were able to chat with them for a bit. We shared the play room with Jim and Jenn and their baby M.

Vera and Alex have been very helpful this trip. Vera complimented me on my Russian. I have to admit that the minister looked very surprised when I started to speak Russian to him. I was able to answer most questions with only a little help from Vera on a few of the translations. The baby home is actually located in the center of what looks to be an apartment complex. The inside was nice but so far we have only got to see a few rooms. Baby D ran all over the room and even picked up a hobby horse and carried it around for a while. He is a strong little boy. He liked it when I spoke Russian to him and would sometimes come to me when I asked. Well time to head off as it seems the jetlag is starting to catch up to me.