Ally Day

Well, we have Ally now, and so far it is going better than we expected. Tuesday evening we flew to Kotlas on this old twin engine plane that vibrated a lot and did not make me relax. The flight luckily was only about 75 minutes so not too bad. We were greeted by a very talkative Adoption Interpreter named Anna. She was great, and just about the happiest Russian, ever. Our first stop about 8:30 PM was to the orphanage to drop off the outfit for Ally. She was still awake and so we got to see her for about 30 minutes and talk to her Doctor about general habits. There were a few tears as she was not still sure about us.

Kotlas was nicer than we remember from February. As there was green growth and we understood a bit more Russian. We go to the hotel and while waiting for the receptionist to copy our passport information; a very drunk Russian started happily talking to us. It was funny trying to communicate and talk thru Anna. We found out that #8 on the Redwings is from Russia, we think. It was pretty funny, but by this time we just wanted to get to our rooms. We had the suite that our friends had last time, and it was so much nicer than ours the first time. I told her than she had no reason to complain. You have to keep in mind that this is still no more than you would expect at a general Inn. We did have one bed instead of two twins; that was strange after so many weeks of having my own. We took a few pictures and will post them eventually.

Anyway, we could not sleep and were awake early. We went from euphoric to panic every so often. By 6:45 am we were on our way to the orphanage to get Ally. She was all dressed and ready for us. Both of the kids were given a juice box and a grocery store bag. They kept those bags like it was all they owned. At the time; I guess it was. I gave Ally the same toys that she got the first time; a My Little Pony and musical seahorse. She kept them either in the bag or her arms for the trip. There were zero tears and she was awesome. We got her on the plane and she even understood a bit of my Russian speaking to her. (come to mama and take my hand, etc.) We boarded the same plane from the night before, but this time it was not full. (8AM) This was not one where seats are assigned, they just check off like 30 numbers when you check in, no boarding passes. Very low tech.

During the flight she played with her musical seahorse and I got out my Ipod to show her. She did not like/understand the headphones at first and her favorite was pressing the buttons. So when she did her songs thru the headphones she would not wear them at first, but kept putting the ipod up to her ear. Eventually. She understood the headphones and played with all of those things for the rest of the flight. She sat quietly and we were so happy. It was better than we had ever imagined as she was so shy and this is such an incredible change for her.

We got back to our hotel and it took a while to get checked in, but we got a suite this time with a living room and we like it a lot. We are both sitting on an actual couch while I type this. We have missed real furniture. Thomas got us some lunch and we played with some of Ally’s new toys. One very cute thing I have to mention is that she has this little wooden puzzle with sea animals of different shapes. She would try and piece and would turn them to try how they fit in the space. Every once in a while instead of turning the piece she turned the whole puzzle board so that the piece fit the way she had it.

There were only a few tears when we tried to put her down for a nap. We did get her to sleep about 30 minutes, which I think was good for a first day. The other little boy was so wound up that he was hyper all day and did not sleep. We went out for dinner and again she was good. She does try to stuff a lot of food in her mouth if you let her. She also will need some dental work done. I am going to make an appointment tomorrow for when we get home. Her bottom teeth are fine, but her top are very rotted. She takes a while to chew. We got thru a bath, but she was pretty scared stiff about it, and brushed her teeth, but did not know about spitting the water out. So I need to research about how to say that tomorrow. She went to sleep pretty easily tonight, just rocked and watched a couple Russian cartoons. She had to be exhausted.

So tomorrow is another day and on Friday we are supposed to get her passport. So we are getting closer and hoping to be home late on the 1^st still.