Court Date Tomorrow!

On our next post, we will be the parents of Maksim Jason Woods, formerly known as Maksim Viktorovich Ignatov. We cannot wait. Of course. We didn't get any new pics today - so below are some from our 20 days of precourt visits.

Maksim was a fun and loving boy today. We had a great time. We ate yogurt, practiced English, learned to count to 5. He is even singing part of the alphabet song. It is really cute.

After our great morning visit, Lena told us that one of the caregivers had a serious talk with Maksim about being kind to his parents. We were happy that he listened but wished we could have explained it to Maksim. I guess the first thing we have to do is practice learning more English. He is really smart and picks things up so quickly.

We had lunch and practiced our court speeches. We talked about violence and crimes in our respective countries. People are the same everywhere. Criminals in the United States have it much better in jails and prisons that criminals in Kazakhstan. That is for sure.

Our afternoon visit was a great bonding experience. Maksim was excited to see us and took out his blanket as usual. He is learning to help Momma. We ate cucumbers. Yumm!! Momma tried to eat too many of them and Maksim was getting anxious. We should bring the whole cucumber next time so that there is enough to share.

We went on an afternoon walk and met up with Lena, Anya, a new translator (we don't know her name yet) and the drivers. Maksim thinks Anya is very pretty. Especially because she always pulls candy out of her pocket. She gave him a 1 inch diameter hard candy. Through the crowd, Maksim called to and came to his Momma to help him. Aaahhhh. He made me feel like I really am his Momma. Now, we had to do something about the choke hazard. Papa tried to break it in half. That didn't work, so Momma bit it into pieces and gave him part. He happily bit into it, too. Then we went for a walk.

Near the end of our visit, we sent Maksim into the toilet. We try to send him every half hour or so because we are giving him "extra" fluids. Well, we didn't hear the bathroom noises or see Maksim for a few minutes. We started to wonder. Papa went into the room and there was Maksim with big crocodile tears. He was rythmically rocking himself and sitting on the floor. We think that he thought Momma and Papa had sent him away. Papa picked him up and brought him back to the visiting room. He tried to play it off and pretend to Momma that his wasn't crying. I am pretty sure that he did this so that I would think he was a "good boy". I told him that it is okay to cry and held him close and then I rocked him. He sobbed and sobbed. It was really sad. Why do have to keep leaving him? When he was done crying, he climbed onto his blanket and told us that he was going to go to sleep right there with us. "Pora Spot Maksim E Momma E Papa". Can you say heartbreaking??

It was time to leave and Maksim started to cry again. Papa soothed him a little. Then he wanted back into Momma's arms. I picked him up and sang him a sad Logan song (heehee) and he cried for a while then laid (I am terrible at grammar) quietly in my arms. Lena came in while he was crying and got to see first hand what we had been talking about. She helped to stop Maksim from being upset and we told him about our court visit tomorrow.

We left. We cried some more. We wait.