09-09-09

We had a nice day with Max today. He slept through the night, getting up around 7am. We had more oatmeal and banana for breakfast and the we just played in the apartment for a while. The highlight of the day was that we got out of the apartment and took a little walk before lunch. It was a beautiful day, sunny and 70. We didn't take a very long walk, just over to the park across the street from the statue of Abul Khair Khan. It has some well-landscaped areas with flowers and grass and a nice little fountain. Max wore shoes for the first time (ever? who knows) and he liked that a lot. He was able to walk better in these shoes much more confidently than without (we think it gives him added stability). We let him out of the stroller for a bit in the park. We wanted to make sure he was good and tired for his nap after lunch. The problem was, WE were the ones who were good and tired since the elevator is STILL out.

Just a cool looking statue in the park (no idea who these people were)

We had grilled cheese for lunch today and Max gobbled it up (I put extra butter on his bread). He also liked the grapes we gave him after the sandwich was all gone. Lucky for Jenny and I, we have found some potato chips that we like. The carry Lay's brand at the market, but their flavors are different. There is one with cheese on the bag, one with green onions on it, one with some sort of mushroom thing on it, and one that we couldn't tell what was on it, but the bag was a reddish-orange color, so we thought it might be BBQ. When we tried them, there was a smoky, almost mesquite flavor to them, but they were not BBQ. Then it dawned on me when I looked closer at the label, which said (in Russian) bekoh. Of course, that taste is bacon! So we've had those and the green onion which are just like our sour cream and onion chips. It is amazing how comforting it is to find food similar to back home.

Nap time was very easy today. He cried a little bit but fell asleep in 5 or 10 minutes and slept for about two hours. We would have gone back out after Max's nap, but with the elevator STILL out, that is just too much work lugging both Max and his stroller up 12 flights. Natasha showed us these beef hot dogs in the market, so we were going to have those for dinner. We cooked up three of them, but once Jenny and I tried them and felt their mushiness, no more for us. Max on the other hand LOVED it. He actually had two hot dogs (and would have eaten the third, too) and some milk (and some Cheerios to keep him occupied while we ate our ramen noodles).

No bath tonight. With the ordeal last night, we're planning on every other night being a bath night (unless he begins to cope with it better). He is doing very well with letting us brush his teeth before going to bed. Tonight's count for bedtime was about an hour and twenty minutes to fall asleep. He cries a lot less than before, but just doesn't want to fall asleep and he cries if we leave the room while he's still awake. You can see how tired he is. His eyes get heavy and he starts to drift off, but then he'll wake himself up and check to see that we're still there. They say that adopted children are afraid to fall asleep because they are worried that their parents won't be there when they wake up. We can definitely see that at work here.

We mentioned how the shoes gave Max more stability and confidence in his walking. Here's a video of him setting a new personal record for distance. He even keeps his balance through a couple of sneezes and picks himself back up after a spill (and handing me one of his rings).