Trip #2 - Court Friday 8/3

Well we (Stacye & Mark) got here for trip #2. Lainey is home with her Shin-Shin (Stacye’s mom). We left at 7:00pm CDST Monday and spent 17 hours on two planes with one 7 hour layover in Amsterdam. With the time difference we landed Wednesday 5:00am after 24 hours of traveling.
We were able to get through customs easier this time and our driver was right there to greet us. Saujar (San-jai) is the best. We had time to get checked in and settled into the hotel room and then walked to the baby house at 10:00am to see Andrew.

We were not sure how he would react to seeing us again. Well he was timid and cautious. His action was not a surprise to us so we began working on gaining his trust again. We took him downstairs and setup the blanket like we do on all visits and sat down with him. Stacye was loving all over him and he was not drawing back so I took this a good sign. We gave him a bite of cookie once we settled down on the blanket for the visit and talked and loved on him some more before we went and walked and swung. After our activity we came back to the blanket where he would request more cookies. After that bite we got him up to go for another walk and this time he steered Stacye and I directly back to the blanket for more cookies. We were interested in gaining his good graces and getting him to smile so we allowed him to eat the second one while we enjoyed just looking at him. The problem is that he ate the two cookies we brought for him, in the first hour (baby house rules – we can only bring 2 cookies with us). These cookie wafers are only slightly bigger than a saltine cracker. After they were gone he continued to point at the green canvas bag wanting/expecting us to produce more food. When we could not I just gave him the green bag with the empty cookie baggie (and all the other Andrew stuff in it), so he could go through it all and discover for himself that we were not hiding any more cookies. Well he went through it one piece at a time (he can be so focused) and seemed to be okay when he did not find what he was looking for, so Stacye and I took him for another walk and he seemed to be warming up to us again. After this activity when we returned to the blanket he once again wanted a bite of cookie (I told you he can be focused) so we started trying to distract him with his toys. He would take the toys and throw them and shake his hand to knock them out of our hand as we were offering to play. I know he was mad but I took this as a good sign. It took him about 14 days with us on trip #1 before he got mad and he finally cried on day 21.
The real part of the visit for us was just to see him again. Stacye and I were so nervous when we turned into the baby house for our visit. When I saw the care giver bringing him to us it was such a happy relief, which is the only way I can describe my emotion. I just took inventory of him and I have to say he looked good. I do not know if he gained weight but he looks like he did and also he looks tan. And oh yeah he got a haircut. He did not have any hair to begin with so now he has less, it is a buzz and it is very cute. We’ll have to wait longer now, to find out what color his hair will be.
We came back to the hotel room very tired so we took a long nap. Even on a hard box spring it was a great rest for both of us.

We go to court Friday morning. I’m glad we will be able to go to morning court instead of waiting until the afternoon. We want this part to be behind us. We have been approved by multiple government agencies (State of MS, US, and Kaz) but we have to the have the judge’s approval before it is settled that we are Andrew’s parents. We hope she can see how much we want him to be part of our family. We will be discussing concerns/questions tomorrow with our coordinator after our visit with Andrew Thursday in order to prepare for court. Mark and I will need to review our home study and just prepare to give our life story (finances, reasons for adoption, etc.). We have been told that the judge will direct most of her questions to Mark so he will do most of the talking.

We will update soon. Thanks for all of the comments. M & S