Update: 03.16

Today we met with the Department of Education and officially accepted the request to meet Sasha. The meeting lasted only about 10 to 15 minutes and the director of foster care and adoption only asked us a couple of questions. She mainly used the time to explain how “well” their program was doing domestically and that the children being adopted internationally will all have medical problems. Our facilitator did a great job of preparing us for this meeting so it was pretty much like we expected.

Originally we were told that we would go see Sasha today once our appointment was finished. However, play time at the baby home is from 10:00-12:00 in the morning. Because our appointment wasn’t until 11:00 we couldn’t get there in time today. While we were a little disappointed it was probably for the best. Given our travel mess it was nice to have the rest of today to do a little shopping, nap and have an early night. We went to some local shops and began our quest to pick up things that we will give to Sasha over the years to celebrate her gottcha day. One tradition we hope to start is that each year on her gottcha day we will give her a gift that is symbolic to or from Russia. While we aren’t going to push her to know or keep Russian culture or traditions, we still want to honor her birth country in some way.

Another thing we learned today is that in Russia they potty train children at the age of 1. We were so happy to hear that and are really appreciative of the baby home workers that helped in this process. We had good luck house breaking Dudley and Sally but were kind of unsure about how you do it with a child!