Bundling Up

Once we had Ana out of the orphanage (or "Baby Home" as they called it), we were constantly told to "bundle her up". The day we picked her up, we brought everything she needed- clothes, shoes, coat, diaper. We were told that otherwise we would have a "naked baby". They own nothing. We handed the clothes to the orphanage worker and they brought her out dressed in them. The only remnant we have from her first "home" is a tattered undershirt that they left on her because they did not think what we brought was warm enough. "She need a snowsuit"..."She need a snow boot". But at that point (October 27) it was not THAT cold (at least we didn't think so). Besides the cute, flowered leather shoes we brought for her (a lovely gift from a friend back home) would be just fine. Even though she was walking, indeed running around, easily, we were pretty sure we'd be holding her non-stop. Which was, of course, exactly what we did for the next 8 days before departing the country. That didn't stop the Russian folks from scolding us at every turn. On the bus, in the hotel lobby, in the streets, "she be cold"..."she need a hat". Our "snowsuit" was actually a fleece pajama onesie from Target that I threw in our suitcase at the last minute! The fact was, we learned right away that she was a "hot-pot"...the kind of kid who was just naturally warm and tended to sweat a lot. Like her new Daddy! She was so hot in the car the day we drove to the airport in St Petersburg to catch our flight to Moscow that she barfed all over Matt and the car. At that point, while Matt changed his pants in the back of a small hatch-back type vehicle and stuffed his vomit covered jeans into our carry on (a nice surprise for security agents later), I stripped our poor child down to a shirt and tights and zipped her into the Target fleece pajamas which I assured our Russian escort was an American snowsuit. (She's sporting it in the photo above riding in her back pack in Moscow)