Today was our first full day as parents — and whew, we’re exhausted!

Bedtime last night was pretty rough.   As soon as we placed Liam in the crib, he did some of that "I’m terrified!" crying that just broke our hearts.   He made fast friends with the fluffy rat backpack that "Aunt" Dinia gave us on Wednesday, hugging that little fellow while he cried himself to sleep and thru the rest of the night too.

But despite the tough time getting to sleep, he awoke and began the day with big smiles & lots of happy chatter.   We played for a little while dad fixed a round of oatmeal for all.   We followed that up with a warm shallow bath that didn’t really go over too well.   Liam seemed a little scared of the water and stood for most of it.

Dede & Liam on Old Arbat Street in Moscow, RussiaYesterday, while we were in the car, we very briefly caught the faint sound of Liam singing some kind of little song.   He chattered for just a few seconds then seemed to get very sad and we thought he might be remembering singing songs at the baby home.   Well, today we were in for a real treat — we got several concerts!   They all sound about the same, and consist of lilting little verses of "Lar, lar, lar..." but they’re just about the sweetest thing you’ve ever heard.   Tanya remarked how dramtic he seems sometimes and this just makes it all the more likely that we may have quite a little performer on our hands.

The weather was pretty decent — no snow or rain today at all — so we decided to go off on a short family outing to Old Arbat Street to grab a couple more items to add to our souvenir/gift pile.   Liam was bundled up well enough to be comfortable, but just venturing outside his new known world (our apartment) seemed to be pretty frightening and we got a few tears.   But after a bit though, he settled down and became kinda chatty with some of the older Russian ladies in the shops.   He charmed his way right into a new toy — at a bargain price, of course.

We got back in and had our first lunch — and man, it was some seriously "good eats" (that was for you, Soph!) as you can tell:

Liam’s first lunch


Naptime brought more "terrified" tears and again we ended up having to just let him cry it out.   All the while, clinging to his dapper little rat pal...   who Rob has decided needs to be named "Simon," although I have no idea why.

We had bumped into Kathy and her daughter Amanda when we left out this afternoon so we invited them up for an after-dinner visit.   Amanda seemed to have a great time playing with some of the toys we have and Liam showed us yet another new talent — he did a couple of unassisted summersaults!   the first one caught us completely off-guard and scared us.   But he was unfazed and really proud of his accomplishment.   While Kathy was available, we got her to take a quick picture — our first official family photo:

Family photo

 

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