Blast from the past...

I'll give the Russian adoption system credit, they are consistently behind the curve. There is a website for Russian adoption targetted for Russian citizens. It is a list of children in the Russian orphanage system available for adoption.

If you are REALLY savvy with the links on my webpage, you can get to it and look through the databank of children. It's really pretty sad. Pages and pages of kids all needing homes. Some are in obvious need of medical care. Enough said about that.

Over the past 18+ months, we would occaisionally look at the children available in the three regions we were registered in. For those keeping score it was Ivanovo when we worked with World Child International and Kemerova and Moscow Region with Catholic Social Services. Jason is from the Moscow Region. When we finally got the referral for Jason, I checked the site to see if he was there. He was not. They only had boys from January/February 2005, none from March or later like him.

You know where this story is going. Nearly four months after we met him, and more than 6 weeks after we brought him home, I checked the website again a little over a week or two ago. Instead of only three pages of boys born in 2005 in Moscow Region, there are now 10 pages. Guess who is on page three?? Also, this kid is "available for adoption" to quote the website. Yup. Our Jason Alexei. Here's the mug shot the Russians finally got around to posting...

There was no doubt when I saw him -- there's our guy. It's kinda creepy to see him there, but all I have to do is look for him in our house and I know he's ours and he's not going anywhere. It is a nice picture to have. We had never seen it before. The quality it is better than 95% of the pictures on the website. The Russians don't place a lot of stock in those types of pictures. Many are horrible quality to the point where the child is unrecognizable.

It is definitely a recent shot, probably taken in February just before we met him and when he officially was available for foreign citizens to adopt him. Notice the fine zebra print on the stroller and the horrible sweater. Typical orphanage mismatch fashion! Oh well. That is a classic look for him and you can tell he has "big hands" as people often say about him.

One other adoption related story. I tried to get a flag flown at the United States Capitol in Jason's honor on May 17, the day of his homecoming. I was REALLY late getting the request to Senator Sessions and it was not processed in time to be done on the 17th. I almost totally forgot about it between the second and third trips and should have sent away the application very soon after the first. Of course our return trip date changed several times so my chances at getting the date correct were low. Oh well. I tried anyway.

However, last week we received a flag that was flown at the US Capitol on June 7 to "commemorate his adoption and obtaining United States citizenship". It wasn't THE day, but still, I think it is cool. It is one of those things he probably will not appreciate until he is older.

Overall Jason continues to do extremely well. His growling is less often, but has taken a more sophisticated tone of GRRRRRR. You'd have to know both ways to understand what I am talking about.

When he wants our attention he calls "DA-DA". Wendy is working feverishly for him to learn "MA-MA". He is a very vocal child, he's gained weight, sleeps easily, crawls everywhere, and his hands are still big. He's also learned to blow and to give real kisses. His favorite toy is the bear our friend Emma gave him at the airport. He loves to hug and kiss it!!!