We ventured out to our little market kind of late last night to pick up some water & cough drops (I think we’ve managed to catch Liam’s cold).   On the way back, we stopped off at the T.G.I. Friday’s just down a block or so from our apartment building.   Luckily, they had English menus and the waitress spoke just enough English to get by, which made things much easier.   Once seated inside, we could almost forgot we’re in Russia — it seems like potato skins are potato skins, no matter where you are in the world!   Yummy!

Pashe picked us up at 9:30 a.m. this morning to drive back out to the baby home but for some reason the traffic was extra horrible today.   It took us almost 2 hours to get there.   The picture below is the road sign (The Russian version of the word "Podolsk" is on the bottom) where Pashe turns off the highway each trip.   This is always our visual clue that Liam is nearby!


It was almost 11:30 a.m. when we arrived at the baby home and we were worried that we were only going to get to see Liam for 15 or 20 minutes but I think Pashe explained the traffic to them and reasoned with the caregivers that it was our last day here so they let us visit with him until 12:30 p.m.

We weren’t required to wear face masks today but they warned us that Liam was in a cranky mood.   We heard him fussing as they brought him upstairs but he settled down once he was with us.   His chest congestion seemed better, like it’s beginning to move up out of his lungs.   He seemed a little tired and worn down but wasn’t fussy at all while he sat with us looking at books & eating his animal crackers.   We were even able to get a few good family photos for our court pictures.   When our time was up, one of the caregivers swiftly carried him off to lunch and that was that.   We never had a chance for a long goodbye — it was sort of like ripping off a Band-Aid quickly.   Even so, it was much harder than either of us had imagined it would be to see him go, knowing that it’ll be several weeks before we can see him again.

We left a couple of cute blankets & his soft photo album behind hoping he might remember some of our visits, although we were warned that we might not get them back.

After we left the baby home, we had to pick up Liam’s social worker to prepare his court papers.   She rode in the back seat with me while Pashe explained to her that we were so sad because we were going home tomorrow.   She told me that she would get his papers filed quickly so we wouldn’t be apart for too long.

We arrived back in Moscow city around 3:00 p.m. and stopped off at the CSS office to say our goodbyes there.   Svetlana was not at the office, she was in a court hearing but Irena (shown below) said they would get the court documents ready and hopefully we’ll have a court date by the end of January.


Once again there was no time for shopping or touristy stuff this evening.   Although we’ve been here a week, this has been a whirlwind trip with so much packed into nearly each day and given how long it takes just to get from one place to another through the Moscow traffic.   So, I guess the souvenir shopping will just have to wait until the next trip.   We’ll be busy tonight packing and Pashe will pick us up first thing in the morning to head to the airport.   So, this will probably be it for the blogging until we get back home.
 

Labels: traveling