Logan's First Steps, July, 7th 2006

It was 4:30 am when Jeff and I woke up with so much excitement we were not able to go back to sleep so we just talked about our first meeting with Logan. We both felt that it went great and couldn't have gone any better. Logan is just beautiful and healthy. He is a little shy but at 16 months he should be Leary of us, after all we are complete strangers and I am sure we sounded funny talking to him in English :). I learned a few Russian words but boy is that a hard language to learn.

Our hotel was great we upgraded to a 3 room suite and all 3 rooms had air (we were definitely spoiling ourselves after that very rough 2 days of travel). Our other option was a shoe box with 2 single beds, we didn't want to go there. Our hotel was nice, it had everything that we needed right in it, 2 different restaurants, internet, a casino, a hair salon and a place to purchase air line tickets. I would stay there again if we needed to, Hotel Novokuznetska.

Alyona told us that her and Alex would be there to pick us up at 9:00 am so we got ready went and had some breakfast then we went downstairs to wait for them and of course they were right on time. Our ride took about an hour to get to the baby-house so we talked with our translator and took some pictures and video along the way. The driving in Novokuznetsk is something I would never want to try and I consider myself a good driver. To say the least passing someone at 90 MPH with barely enough room is a common practice there, SCARY!

We got to the baby-house at 10:00 and they told us they had to wake Logan up so it would be a minute, it was actually about 15 but who's counting. They brought him in and he looked so tired, his beautiful blue eyes were a little puffy. I went to take him and he got a little upset, it took a whole 5 seconds for him to be OK. He really did not want to do anything, no playing, babbling or smiling so after about 45 minutes of that I decided I would get him up and see how his walking skills where.

Logan can stand up perfectly straight and has great balance but he did not even know his little legs could move. I started putting my feet under his and lifting them up, one foot in front of the other, he was so cute he kept looking down and looking in the mirror it was like he just couldn't believe that they moved. It took only about 5 minutes and he was holding on with only one hand. Jeff decided it was his turn to try and after about 2 times around the room our little guy was ready to let go and that he did, he let go of Jeff's finger and took his first 3 steps into my arms, AHHHHHH MOTHERHOOD, that is a moment in time I will never forget. He wanted to keep going so we let him he was up to about 30 steps by himself, this really broke him out of his shell.

Logan was getting very tired so Jeff picked him up and we started to play
peek-a-boo, he loved it, the video is wonderful. We have him laughing, smiling looking for me and loving every minute of it. He is such a love, he wants to cuddle and be held, something of course they really do not have the time to do with these babies. I guess the baby-house he is in there are 400 children looking for families from age 9 months to 4 years, I am thankful we found each other. Logan started to babble a lot, we have him saying DA-DA, Jeff thinks he said DADA I think he said Da-Da, DA means yes in Russian and I was saying MA-MA to him so I think he was just agreeing with me ;). He started to tap on me when I was saying MA-MA and tap on himself when I said Logan, I was really working with him on that. The video we have is great and I think I could watch it everyday.

Of course we finally got him to open up to us and our visit was over, it was very hard to say good-bye to him but that means we are that much closer to court and bringing our baby home. We gave his care taker some disposable cameras to take pictures of him for us while we are gone, a photo album we made for him so hopefully he will recognize us when we return for him and we also asked them to please start calling him Logan instead of V, all of which they were happy to do. We gave our baby a lot of kisses and then they whisked him away.

The rest of the day we spent eating, checking out the city a little bit and getting some rest. I packed all of our stuff so we were ready to go in the morning. Our flight left Novokuznetsk at 7:00 am so Alyona and Alex were going to be there at 6:20 to pick us up. Of course we sent more pictures home and let everyone know how it had went. What an exciting day it was, my gosh our baby's first steps :). We just couldn't believe we had such a wonderful experience this time. All of translators and drivers were fantastic, the director of the baby-house and the lady from the MOE really care about these kids, what a difference from last time we traveled to meet a baby. Thank you Baylee for watching out for your Mom and Dad.