Day 3 with Andrew

This morning’s visit with Andrew went well. We took him outside and played with him a bit and gave him some juice with his vitamins mixed in. Boy, I tell you, once he latches onto the sippy cup he never lets go. His strength is mighty when it comes to his juice. He drinks it so fast that he starts choking on it. We try to pull the cup away from him but he hangs on for dear life. He is becoming more relaxed and friendly towards us as each day goes by. He is such a sweet little boy. He loves to give Robert a slap on the hand like he is giving him five….and then he laughs. After we were done feeding him this morning and wiped him down, I stood up to pick him up off of Robert’s lap and stretched my arms out to pick him up. To my surprise he immediately outstretched his hands towards me for the first time. I squealed with delight and picked him up and gave him many hugs and kisses. Towards the end of our visit, he outstretched his hands to his daddy for him to pick him up as well. Robert was tickled pink that Andrew has attached to him so quickly.



In between visits with Andrew, Alla had us running around town doing errands to prepare the paperwork for court. We stopped at the police station, for paperwork regarding his birthmother, then we went to the notary to sign a petition to adopt Andrew which will go to the city and the NAC, we stopped by the birth certification building to make a petition that when we adopt Andrew we will change his name to Andrew Lawrence Millilo. We found out that his name isn’t actually Andrew, it’s Andrey (in Russian) but the caretakers at the orphanage call him the affectionate nickname of Andrey which is Andruska. So since that nickname is close to Andrew, that is what we’ve been calling him and decided to change it to Andrew as his first name. We gave him my father’s first name as Andrew’s middle name, Lawrence in honor of my dad. We then went to make some copies of some documents, went to the inspector’s office, Alla spoke with the orphanage doctor regarding his blood tests which came back today all negative!!! Praise God!! There were some other specialist doctors which also checked him out today and said that he is healthy boy. The only delays are in some physical with walking for his age and speech. He said just to work with him regarding talking to him and teach him certain words. He also has a heat type of rash on his back, chest and neck, which, Robert and I have been putting ointment on him, and has helped a bit. We checked to see if his bottom had the same type of rash and it didn’t. So it’s probably from being out in the heat (which it has been quite hot here) and sweat and dirt etc.



During this afternoon’s visit, Robert and I gave him some more juice with some fruit. He doesn’t seem to chew very well so we are sticking to baby food for now with some soft fruit. Andrew has 12 teeth, however, most are in the front and a couple new molars are starting to break through. Andrew has surprised us both by not being the type of baby who chews or sucks on his hands or want to put anything in his mouth (except food or juice of course). I found his ticklish spot today, by his upper portion of his legs and got him smiling big with teeth and all. I’ve been taking photographs day by day and will update with photos when I can. Towards the end of our visit, Robert and I brought him back to his group and gave him hugs and kisses before we put him back with his group. When I put him down, he started to get upset that we were leaving. Then the orphanage doctor came over and spoke to him and diverted his attention from getting upset to blowing us kisses goodbye and smiling. Ohh how precious our Prince Andrew is. He blew us 3 kisses goodbye and gave us such a cute little grin. Be still our hearts, Andrew has captured ours forever.