Reunion with Nicholas

Today started really early for me. I am usually the "good" sleeper in the family, but today I was up at 6:30am, after a night of fitful sleep. Bill on the other hand slept till about 9:30 or so. I was so jealous!

We were to meet our translator and driver at 12:30 so we had a leisurely morning with instant coffee, toast and granola bars for breakfast. Sounds good, huh. We're really going to have to do something about the instant coffee situation. Maybe I'll switch to tea while we're here. After breakfast we got ready to face the day and then headed across the street to the baby store to buy diapers. How convenient, there is a supermarket and childrens store within 5 minutes of our place. We picked up the diapers to take to the baby home as a donation and were picked up right on time to head over to see Nicholas.

When we arrived we waited in the locker room outside of the playroom of Nick's groupa. After a few minutes, Nick appeared in the doorway, walking (with his caregiver's help), and a big smile. He is just the cutest guy. He was very proud of himself and his abilities and just had a huge grin on his face...until he realized they were going to leave him in the room with, gasp, strangers. He did not like it when his caregiver left the room and cried a bit. Luckily, he settled down pretty quickly.

He is very cautious about us but definitely warmed up to us as the time went by. His favorite toys were the peek-a-boo ball (which occupied him for quite a while) and the toy cell phone that played cow, dog and sheep noises. The books didn't go over too well, nor did the singing of various nursery rhymes by Bill and myself. One thing I have definitely come to realize is that I really wish I had learned more Russian. Our translator is helping us with some basic phrases that we can use to help comfort Nick if he gets upset.

We had an opportunity to meet with one of Nick's caregivers to get his routine and find out what he has been eating, etc. I'd say the most interesting information we were given today is that he apparently has several food allergies that we will need to be aware of. Some of the foods they do not feed him are bananas, citrus, milk and carrots. We'll have to look into this more when we return home. We'll also see what additional information we can get about this over the next 2 weeks. We had a great reunion visit with Nick and we can't wait to see him again tomorrow.

Speaking of tomorrow, its our Court Day. We feel well prepared and are looking forward to having it behind us. We'll be updating the blog tomorrow night with the details!

Bye for now.