Outside Days at the Orphanage #5

Thank God ! Finally two days to take the boys for a walk in the cool air, albeit bundled up like eskimo puppies.  What a great time to bond to them and watch them take in the sights and sounds around them.  A car passes and gets Pasha's attention, a dog barks and Sasha wants to look at him and try to figure out what it is.  Have no fear Sasha, soon enough you will KNOW what dogs are when Tara and Beau get a hold of you two ! 

We arrived into their room #1 to pick them up.  By now we are known and roam the orphanage ourselves and go get them ourselves from their care takers.  We come into their room and their smiles get big and their eyes lighten..WOW, what a rush to see them recognize us and be over joyed to see us. Pasha won't even finish eating because he can't take his eyes off me !  We take them and the care takers allow us to dress them in the 5 layers of clothes to go for a walk outside. Poor kids couldn't move, but we were glad to get them into the fresh air for a bit.  We strolled outside the gates into the play ground and sat with them for a while and pointed out all the sights around us. Little kids laughed and played in the snow covered playground and Sasha and Pasha loved to watch them.
Don't think for a second we weren't trying to figure out how to get across the border with these kids while we had a chance....but then reality set in and knew we weren't the criminal type.  So we continued to walk around the orphanage outdoors and stroll through the snow with snow tires in these strollers that compete with a small Ford.  Turning isn't easy but strolling over the snow piles and through the mud is cake.

So we maximized our time outdoors and exceeded the one hour limit of fresh air they set on boys by about 30 minutes; ok, we aren't criminals but we are rule breakers!
We go inside and peel off the 5 layers of clothing and try to dry the sweat that formed a pool on their backs by now.  A cartaker passes and watches us undressing the boys in the lobby area and she motions to us and says something in Russian.  Through sign language and smiles we interpreted that she was saying that Sasha has the exact same face as us and truly looks like our child.
Yep, he does and yep, he is our child...soon. The similarities in the looks, the eyes and even the tongue sticking out like Joe does, was almost comical.  Could God have picked a better match for us?

So back to the imfamous room to play for the next several hours, where Pasha lit up like a Christmas tree when he saw his binky come out of Joe's backpack.  You never thought an infant could scooch his butt that fast to grab something.   At 14 months old on the 26th of February, these boys were doing everything the so called experts say they should be doing.   They played wonderfully, laughed, smiled, walked assisted, chose toys and ate them accordingly, but the animal crackers and teddy grahams were not a hit..too strange for their tastes right now. 
It was a bitter sweet day on Friday because we knew tomorrow would be our last day with the boys for a while.  We couldn't explain to them why or where we were going and that just killed us.  We would be back and we weren't abandoning them, but there was no way to make them understand that.
So we enjoyed the hand holding, the walking and the laughing as much as we could.

Pasha would love to empty the toy bins onto the floor until he selected just the right toy to bang on the floor or play 'en garde' with mom; and Sasha would hold on shakily with one hand on the bin and the other searching for Joe or my leg for reassurance and wait for his brother to toss him a toy as well.  They want to walk and they loved to move around with the one on one attention they got all week from us.
Joe was just a treasure to watch with the boys, you could see he was definetely a proud Papa; His face glowed like a pregnant woman.

Pasha loved to swing and play 'weeee' and you pretended you were dropping him backwards.  His laugh filled the room and soon Sasha knew that it was safe as well to play this game, although he preferred swinging in circles until Mama got dizzy.
Sasha game of choice was walking with Papa and bending only to grab and drop the occasional toy to put in his mouth with a free hand.  He would play the tree of music that Jeni and Jason had left in the toy room and he loved the tiger and the lion that were attached to it.

So we ended another few days at the orphange and tomorrow will be our last before we begin the ridiculous paper chase the judge in Ekat makes you do and probably redo.  There is no sense to it and it doesn't help to try to make any.  We are just two of thousands that have travelled this road before us for the prize at the end of it.  Several people have told us that these boys are so luck to have us, but we have to set the record straight....we are the blessed and lucky ones, without doubt.