Back online - now with kids to distract me

OK, a long time has passed since last posting, but it was due to not being able to get online. Here's what's been happening:

Since we left our heroes (ha ha), we were waiting for court -- in the end, everything went according to plan. It is an interesting, albeit somewhat repetitive process. The proceedings take place over two days, and are conducted in Russian, of course, with a simultaneous translator tell us what is being said and translating our responses. The first day is a hearing between the judge, ourselves, our interpreter, lawyer, and representatives of the Ministry of Education and the two orphanages. For most of this session, the judge asks each of us questions, which we then answer. They are pretty standard ones, and we are briefed with the "proper" answers. But still, like any test, not knowing all the questions, and standing in a formal court setting can unnerve anyone - and we were unnerved. Several of the questions we were asked in the 1 1/2 hour session were:
Why are you choosing to adopt kids? Why not adopt from the US? Why Russia - what's with that?
What rights will the children have once adopted?
Do you get paid by your government to adopt the kids?
Are you adopting them to harvest their organs (just kidding... )
Your kids will certainly misbehave. How do you intend to discipline them? Do you believe in physical punishment?
What religion will you raise them (if any)? What if they want to go to the Russian Orthodox church? (I got to field this one...)
What is your understanding of the physical and mental condition of these kids?
How will you school them? What is the plan?
Does the school have special classes for kids who don't speak Russian?
Does the school provide psychologist and speech therapy?
The second day was just like the first, except this time the judge wore formal black robes, and a "prosecutor" and several other representatives were added behind us. Vika come to the courthouse because she was given the option to see us, but was not allowed in the courtroom. We started with the same question session (many of the same questions, plus some new ones), cross examinations, and then reports and cross examinations from each of the representatives. Each told their own story about their impressions of our qualifications, interactions with the kids, and recommendations. Luckily for us, everyone recommended the granting of the adoption as being in the kids best interest. Finally, there was a long summary by the judge of each of the 162 pages of our court dossier (painfully compiled by myself in the last three months) - complete with interpretation. This was then followed by a short dismissal, a nervous 10 minute wait, and then the ruling by the judge to sustain the adoption. YaY!

This is followed by a mandatory 10 day waiting period. At first we thought this was a period during which others could protest the adoption, but we were misinformed. Instead, it is a period during which we were allowed to change our minds. Since we didn't go through all this for nothing, we did not intend to do so (although we joked about it a dozen or so times). No, for us the 10 day period was a great chance to visit the rest of our family, i.e. our students, in Novgorod. So, we flew from Stavropol to Moscow, then took an overnight train from there to Novgorod. Here we visited Masha and Nina for four days, and then took the bus to Okulovka (an area rather like the Adirondacks, without the high mountains), where Natasha's family was vacationing in a rented cottage. There we stayed for four more days of good relaxation and visiting. After a Saturday midnight train departure, we slept until the train arrived in Moscow at 4:20 am on Sunday morning.

What a pain - tonce the train arrives in the wee hours of the morning (although the sun was rising in this high-latitude location), you can't sleep "extra" on the train, and the Metro doesn't open until 6 am. So you wander around dazed and confused. Eventually the metro opened, and we we went to Lera's - Lera and Alexander have been very kind and lent us their apartment! There we slept, stocked the 'fridge (although Lera had already left it stocked, as it happens) then got on a plane back to Stavropol.

Monday was gotcha day. It started out like any of the other 6 days when we visited. Our driver arrived at 9:30 am, and we started the hour-long drive to Konstantinofskya, where Vika's orphanage was. We had a standard visit, but this time there was a difference - when we got in the van to leave, Vika got to follow us! Happy Vika! From there we drove back to Stavropol where we picked up Diana. Then, a delivery to our hotel and there we were - instant parents! So we started our life, and the next day did paperwork in Stavropol - getting birth certificates and passports for the kids. (we already had airline tickets).

The next morning we left early to fly to Moscow - the kids first airplane flight, very exciting. We then moved into Lera's apartment, and began our temporary life for the following week. I won't waste words on a day-to-day chronology. In general there are four paperwork steps to accomplish - first, a medical exam for the kids (their third since admission to the orphanage) , second, submission of documents to the US embassy, third, an "interview" the following day at same embassy (which gets us formal kid citizenship on US landing permission and a travel visa) and a final step where the kids are registered in the Russian consulate (since they are also Russian citizens, and will be for life).

When we were in the US embassy awaiting our interview, there were probably 10 other adoptive families waiting the same day. And sure enough, it is true - most everyone adopts 18 month old infants (and of those mostly boys) - we were the only parents with older kids.

Sure, there are some very good reasons to adopt infants. But with older adoptive kids, you get some interesting fun which is really enjoyable. Since most of the life experiences we take for granted are totally new to both Diana and Vika, we sort of get our first 5 years of parenthood (so far without the diapers - FEATURE), in concentrated form in a week. Let's see, here is a very partial list of new "first" things, in approximate order: Elevator, air conditioning, pedestrian underpass, grocery store, airplane, loft beds, computers, escalator, trains, metro, zoo, shopping malls, tall buildings with windows (looking out over Moscow), etc. The moments of such discovery are priceless, as I'm sure any parent of small children can attest.