A Morning With Otis

This post will be short, because it will shortly be followed by a very long one with tons of pictures. We spent a great morning with Otis; boy, what a huge difference a shift in schedule makes. Milena and Louise were back in town from their whirlwind tour of Kazakhstan and the orphanages to which they may send Spence-Chapin clients. Today, they wanted to tour BH#3 and meet the OD, so, to accommodate their schedule, we got to visit Otis in the morning. A completely different baby. A non-stop smile machine. Who rolled over twice on his own for us – to massive cheering from about-to-be Mom and Dad. Further, because coming in the morning meant that we had to share the bonding parlor with three other families, which Zoya found ridiculous and complained, we were given permission to go outside.

Milena and Louise were being escorted by Maxim and his father, Vladimir, a former mining engineer who spent much of his career in Algeria and Mongolia. In what I gather is his semi-retirement, he drives people like us. (Maxim is associated with Yakov, the lawyer for whom Galina, Sagat and Zoya work.) So after our very nice visit with the O Man, we piled into Vladimir’s SUV to go to the mountains, giving the Nissan-driving Sagat the rest of the day off, along with Zoya and Galina.