We visited Elizabeth again today. We caught her when she was in the music room with all the other kids in her age group. She smiled wide when she saw us, but by the time she reached us, she tried to keep it cool. Like, “Oh, it's you. I thought you were somebody else.” Just kidding about that “quote.” I hope I'm kidding. 🙂 After the crowd of kids left and it was parents' visiting time, there were three kids and their adoptive parents left. The room was too crowded for me to be flying her around the room, if she would have even let me do that. She wasn't terribly comfortable with me today or yesterday. Maybe it's the Ben-Gay smell? She definitely prefers Tara … this week. I'm used to rejection, though, so it's OK. 🙂

We tried fitting her with the new tennis shoes we brought, but they were too small. Still, she wanted to wear those instead of the ones she had on. They have little lights that go on and off. And then we put some new pants on her under her dress, and she didn't want to take those off. She loves new clothes. I can already see that she'll be spending all of my money on her clothes as she grows up. We went to a mall and found a new pair of little kid snow boots for her, since that's what we'll need immediately when we pick her up for good on Monday.

We adjusted our return flight tickets today at the Aeroflot office near the hotel. I hate to say anything definitively around here, but the plan now is that we'll leave Astrakhan for Moscow on the 17th instead of the 20th. That means we'll still be here almost two more weeks, but at least it's three less days than expected. No offfense, we're just bored and homesick. We still don't know if we'll get to leave Moscow for home any sooner than planned, but we'll try.