Saturday June 16, 2007 Heading for Home

The clock said 6:23 when I woke up. I dozed for another 20 minutes but just had too much to think about for the day to go back to sleep. I debated showering, but was afraid Dennis might wake up and cry, waking Nick, so started journaling again. John came through at 7:30, and was back about 20 minutes later with a cheerful little three-year-old who came over to accept a hug. He put up a big, long fuss about showering, but once he got in there with Papa, he seemed fine. Wish we knew what was so objectionable; we might be able to accommodate or explain.

Anya came back again after breakfast and waited with us. Nick told her then that at bedtime you are supposed to take a bath, put on a long shirt and then go to bed. Wonder if that has been his difficulty with bedtime? We have showered him in the morning (no bathtub in this hotel), and we don’t have any “long” shirts for him. On the other hand, bathing ten or eleven children at bedtime seems unlikely, especially since have observed bath-time in the summer: the entire group lined up stark naked outside their room, and then plunged two at a time into a small swimming pool. Sasha came a little before noon to get us all loaded and over to the airport. We even had enough room in the car for Anya to ride along, so Nick’s farewell was delayed a bit. At the airport, however, the tears were streaming down his sad, mad little face when Anya told him good-bye. It was the first sign of any unhappiness we had seen over leaving. It lasted through customs, airline check-in and continued up in the long wait for passport control. There we had to step to the side while something special was checked due to the adoption. During the additional wait Nick needed to use the restroom. The need became more and more urgent, and the woman standing next to us asked what the problem was. When we told her, she checked with the official, and the only restroom was back downstairs. John hurried him downstairs, and when they came back he spotted the apple we had placed in his backpack. I had let him choose a piece of fruit when we were in the grocery store with Anya, and at her insightful suggestion, we told him he could have it at the airport. We indicated he had to wait until we were “tahm” (over there, the other side of passport control). I played a version of peek-a-boo with Dennis using his hat, and joined in the pantomime of almost unbearable anticipation with Nick of eating that marvelous big apple. Finally through passport control and seated with all of our carry-on luggage, he could hardly believe it when we said “see-CHESS” (now). He ate it down to the stem. Anya also called during the wait to board (30 minutes late) to check on us and we saw his gorgeous sunbeam smile emerge when we held the phone to his ear.

After clearing security at the gate, and waiting longer to board, we got settled in to three of the four seats we paid for. Dennis sat on my lap with an extension seatbelt. We had purchased a special harness for children to wear on planes that Nick wore – and hated. He squirmed and cried and told us he didn’t want to and didn’t have to (in Russian) again and again and again. Then they informed us that due to the “atrocious” weather in London, we wouldn’t be taking off for at least another hour. They did allow us to get up, use the restrooms, and they served us beverages as well as handing out some things to amuse the kids. After the hour was up the captain told us it would be another thirty minutes, but it was actually one of the shortest waits for planes trying to get into Heathrow. Take-off was miserable for Nick due to the restraints, and Dennis also cried and cried when the seatbelts went on until take-off, but we all survived. The flight-attendants had found a woman who spoke Russian to come up and explain the necessity to Nick, but it didn’t help as far as I could tell. Writing this down two weeks later, I really don’t remember any other details of the four-hour flight, except it was work to keep them both quietly occupied and restraining Nick for landing was equally difficult.

In London at passport control we ran into problems. We were asked if we had cleared the travel through England with the British Embassy. We hadn’t. We had been told by our travel agent that wasn’t required since we were only spending the night due to connecting flights. The official informed us that was incorrect, and that it was our responsibility to contact the government of each foreign city we would be traveling through to meet the appropriate requirements. We searched for an English translation of the court decree, but couldn’t find one. It seemed the only ones were in the sealed envelops we needed to hand in when we reach the U.S., and we absolutely could not open them. (Several days after we got home we found two English copies of the adoption decree in another folder). We gave him whatever English translations we could find, and he told us to take a seat. Thus another extended wait with tired little boys who couldn’t even understand us. With the paperwork we gave him, and the limited length of our stay, he was able to get an exemption for us, but we won’t make that mistake again. It made us even more unhappy that our agent hadn’t arranged a single-day flight as we had requested, more than once. We tried to get our boarding passes for the next day, then headed to the pick-up area for the shuttle to our hotel. We were supposed to be able to buy tickets from an agent, but none were present, or out of a machine, but it wasn’t taking credit cards. John went inside to exchange money, and then was able to buy them directly from the driver. We checked into the hotel and arranged for a portable bed to be placed in the room. We had a bathtub, so we hoped a bedtime bath would help Nick settle better. It didn’t, but both boys did enjoy the bath. We thought just maybe we could get Nick to sleep in the portable bed, but after three nights of sleeping right with John, that went over like a lead balloon. Nick and John were in the king-sized bed, and Nick complained repeatedly that Dennis wasn’t sleeping while I walked and walked and walked trying to get Dennis to sleep. Finally by 11:05 (believe me, I was looking at all the digital clocks since I couldn’t see anything else) everyone else was asleep and I lay down, too. I think that was 1:05 AM Ukraine time.