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Dan's adoption trip to Russia

Will he -ever- stop eating!?
My Adoption Adventure part 4

The moment we walked out of the drab, dark hallway of the hospital into the bright, warm, sunny afternoon, Vasya began to change.  His expression went from one of utter nothingness to absolute wonder.  As I carried him to the car, his eyes opened wide and he stared... not the blank expressionless stare of the little boy in the hospital, but the stare of a little boy with all the wonders of the world in front of him.  As we climbed into the car, he didn't know what to look at... the car, the hospital building, the trees, me... Little Vasya, in those first few moments, became Kyle.

We left the hospital and went back to our host family's apartment.  We needed a few minutes to get to know each other a bit and also needed to get the rest of our things ready to go back to Rostov.  When we arrived at the apartment, Alla was just finishing a call to the USA and Natasha was putting some food on the table.  Alla sat at the table and asked if she could hold Kyle.  I sat down and passed him over to Alla.  As we sat and talked, Kyle was like a sponge, soaking in everything, our faces and voices, the colors of the kitchen, the smell of the food and the feel of the tablecloth.

I took a bite out of a piece of bread and placed the rest on the table.  Kyle stared at it as if it might come to life.  We noticed Kyle was interested in the bread, so I put it right in front of him.  It took a few minutes, but he finally touched it, then picked it up.  He obviously did not know what to do with a piece of bread, but he felt it and looked it over carefully.  Another couple of minutes and he decided it needed a little closer inspection.  Finally, he put it to his mouth and took a teeny tiny bite off of it.  He smiled... well, not quite a smile, but definitely a grin.  He took another small bite, and gave us another little grin... FOOD!!  Kyle started to eat.  The bread was a bit hard so it took some effort for Kyle to eat it.  Every couple of bites he would stop and take a sip or two of juice, then more bread, more juice.  Half an hour later it is time to load up the car and head back to Rostov.

Lena and Alla loaded the car while I bundled up Kyle.  A couple quick pictures and we were on our way to Rostov, our first step on our way home to America.  As we started our drive, Kyle was tense, but very attentive to what was around him.  He watched intently as the scenery passed by.  Gradually, he relaxed and finally fell asleep in my arms.  He woke up as we pulled into Rostov (UGH! Did that pothole go all the way through to Argentina?!).  We arrived at the apartment to find Sergei starting dinner, so we just relaxed for a while.  Irena arrives home just as Sergei finishes cooking and we all sit down to eat.  By now, Kyle realizes that there is food on the way and he starts getting exited.  As the rest of us eat, Irena feeds Kyle.  It was sort of like watching someone stoke a huge coal furnace, Kyle was eating faster than Irena could shovel it in.  At the hospital, we were told that they had a hard time getting Kyle to eat, however Irena is having no such trouble!  Soon after (a huge) dinner, Kyle and I went to bed, curled up together, and went to sleep.
 
Wednesday morning we got up and Kyle was ready to start exploring his new world.  I got him dressed and Irena fed him.  He ate all of his food plus managed a few bites of both mine and Irina's.  About 9am Lena came to pick us up.  We were to get Kyle's passport photo done so we could get his passport in the afternoon.  The passport photo was done on a very old 4 x 5 format camera in black and white.  The photo's turned out really nice.  After getting his photo done, we had a few minutes before Lena had to run some other errands.  We walked over to a WWII memorial and got there in time to see an honor guard (local high school students) take thier posts.  On the way back to the car, we also checked out a car dealership (talk about low key) and also a couple of small markets.  When we got back to the apartment, Kyle was getting a bit hungry.  I gave him an apple, which kept him busy and amused for nearly two hours.  He rolled it around on the floor and occasionally took a bite out of it.  About 1 o'clock we ate again (Kyle's appetite was getting better at each meal) and Kyle and I went in to take a nap.

A couple hours later we got up and Kyle was hungry again.  A (light?) snack of bread and soup and he was ready to play and explore some more.  Already his strength was improving, tuesday afternoon he could barely roll over and sit up by himself, now he was easily rolling over, sitting up and was trying to pull himself up to stand.  As I packed everything for our flight to Moscow, Sergei played with Kyle.  About 5:30 Sergei brought out more food (Kyle seemed to be pleased) and we had an early dinner before leaving for the airport.

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