Shrek, and SpongeBob and Patrick, oh my!

(the internet is all kinds of weird today...and the photos look really distorted to me...hope they come through okay!)

Today there were a lot of quiet things to do…reading, coloring, playing with stickers. Little M’s attention span is usually pretty short but I think some of that has to do with all the ‘stuff’ we have with us. Not being used to that at all, a variety of toys must be incredibly distracting. We are trying to take out one or two things at a time to play with but it seems like his favorite thing is to go into his bag, hunt for new stuff and unload everything! Today we got to hear his first American words…Shrek, SpongeBob and Patrick! Hmmm…..

The songs he was listening to on Matt’s iPod were off one of the Shrek movie soundtracks and Matt was talking about the picture with Shrek on it…that’s all it took. Maybe he’s seen the big green guy before though….who knows. Either way, it was pretty cute. We also put together the little puzzle Matt picked out with his favorite cartoon character….SpongeBob. You guessed it, little M was repeating those names too.

High-fives are universal!

It’s interesting to watch him developmentally - he is very clever and bright, but he just hasn’t had exposure to much. We learned some about his background but, since it’s not our story to share, we won’t go into detail - suffice it to say that he has been in the baby house almost his entire life, and this obviously makes some things really tough for him. We are already thinking a lot about what he's going to do for school once we get home.

Finally, as we were going through the little photo album we brought him and talking about who the people were he repeated our names too - awesome!! So the final count is 6...Shrek, SpongeBob, Patrick, Matt, Mommy, Daddy…whohoo!!

Lunch today was awesome - we went to a place that we were told means Aladdin and the Forty Thieves in Russian...I think. We got to sit outdoors (which is wonderful - the weather is perfect warm and very breezy) in these beautiful Indian-style tables. Lunch was pierogies and plov (Uzbek-style food at this restaurant) and it was delicious. Amazing experience all around.

After lunch we went to visit the kids camp (more like a class) that our translator does for her daughter and a bunch of other kids. She brought us by because she promised them "real live Americans" so we got to go in and speak to them for a few minutes. Kind of funny! They asked Matt what computer games he liked to play and that was about it, but they oohhh'd and aaahhhh'd about us. If only it were always that easy! :)

Thanks again for all the comments - we love them! To answer the question about what else we do when we're not visiting at the baby house...so far we've not had a lot of time. The first few days we slept, but now we have more of a routine down. We usually head out for lunch after the morning visit and then go to Cofeman to use their wi-fi. After that we have time to run errands and do whatever paperwork needs to be done for the adoption. Yesterday (which I'll post about tomorrow) was really the first day we got to do any sight-seeing and we had a great time. We'll be able to do lots of stuff while we're here since we still have at least 2+ weeks!!

As for shoe size Neysa, we have no clue! We are planning on tracing his foot and looking for an American sized shoe chart. As I mentioned, he's tiny. He wears 3T clothes but they look a little short, so he's definitely skinny enough for them but I think 4T is probably a better fit. In most ways he seems about like a young 4 year old to me.

So glad you all liked my butt shot yesterday. Here's my revenge :) haha