Random thoughts...

Mike here.

I wasn't going to write anything more than what I captioned the pictures below with, but I'm waiting for the "Tucker Massage" movie to upload, so I have some time...

In my mind, the past couple of days have seen a big difference in Mia's interactions with us -- me, in particular. Linda says that my "big, booming voice" puts Mia off sometimes, as well as my furry beard and general bigness. They don't see too many men here at the baby house, and having to suddenly be friendly with one of them must be quite a shock to a little girl's system. So I'm trying to no try so hard and let her come to me. Lately, things have taken a turn for the better. She wants me to pick her up, and doesn't shy away or actually lean away in my arms. Makes me feel like a Daddy. She still has trouble answering the question "where's Papa" (in English OR Russian), but we're making progress. No problem with "where's Mama?", by the way.

We also saw a little bit of brother-sister conflict today, which I think is a good sign. They're both very spirited people, and I look forward to them "working it out"... again and again...

Oh... one more thing... We've been bribing Tucker with "finding a Spiderman T-shirt" at the green market, to keep him interested. Today, we stopped at a T-shirt booth, and I looked intently for a while to find something Spiderman-ish. We were about to move on, when I haphazardly mentioned to Tucker what I was doing, and it didn't take him more than three seconds to spot a blue Spiderman T-shirt all folded up, half buried on the top row. He pointed right at it. So, 300 Tenge later (that's about $2.30), we were on our way.

Enjoy that movie. It's a little long, but should make you feel very relaxed...