It was a normal day at Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport. Up before the crack of dawn, through ticketing, security, and customs, we presented ourselves at Passport Control.

“Dokumenti,” demanded the bored, matronly guard.

We were adopting our first son’s friend. It took us four years of official red tape, adoption agency scams, governmental denials, and regional shutdowns. In a matter of an hour or two, he would at last be exiting off of Russian soil.

Not so fast.

“Adoption decree and court papers,” the border guard insisted, eyeing our family of four, noting that only the two kids had Russian Passports.

This was a new one. Why not just the passport? I slid the packet under the plate glass window, upon which she settled down to a long morning’s read.

Ten minutes passed. Twenty minutes passed. She, no doubt, enjoyed the more sordid parts of such a horrific history, chronicled for the sake of court testimony, not the prurient interests of a bored border guard.

“Eezvehnite, pazhalista—“ I interrupted her concentration. “Yest problema?” Is there a problem?

“Nyet,” she went back to her reading.

I felt my blood boiling as the preteen boys shifted from foot to foot. Her coworker in the next booth asked her why the slow-mo treatment of the tourists. She shrugged her off, as well.

At forty minutes standing before the little glass booth, I’d had enough.

“Excuse me, please, but why are you reading his court papers?”

She looks up, obviously irritated at my interruption. The sleeping bear awakened.

“Ohn russki grahzdanen,” (He is a Russian citizen) she testily explained. “I must make sure that his documents are in order.”

So I figure if we’re ever going to get out of this holding pattern and make it to the Golden Land of Duty Free, I needed to insert my two rubles.

“Da, and here is his Russian Passport… and it’s in order.”

She goes back to reading.

I go back to talking.

“I mean, let’s think this thing through… Doomahyete,” I encourage, feeling as though I’m instructing Dorothy in her ruby slippers to concentrate. “What’s the likelihood of us finding a child on the street with the same last name, having all of the paperwork to obtain a passport, and making him agree to come to America with us???”

“We have to be sure,” she sneers, not amused, not impressed, not in a hurry.

About an hour later, she comes up for air and asks for our first son’s court papers.

“Nyetoo,” (He has none) I affirm. “He’s been our son for over five years. You already have his Russian Passport and here is his other one.” I considered calling for a supervisor, but that struck me as less than a positive Russian chess move. Might cause us more problems to make too much of a stink. If she had missed the “Service With a Smile” seminar, there was not much I could do about it now.

She glances at the dual passports, while meanwhile, I can picture Petya passing out in a cold sweat as he understands every word spoken. Perhaps one day he would come back to study in Russia, but for the present, he wanted to go home. Pasha had never been home, but even he knew that it was better than this. At last, the stern woman, who was probably younger than me, but appearing and acting much older, slowly slides the stack back to us.

“Horoshoh,” (Alright) she waves us through, an indelibly harsh reminder to our sons that you don’t mess with Mother Russia. Escaping her clutches, we make a mad dash for the plane.

Which reminds me of the time I was heading to Israel, a regular shuttle I traveled for some years. A sting operation was underway for diamond dealers.

I boarded the transatlantic flight in New York, and there on the jetway, leading to the plane, were Federal Agents stopping most every Hassidic man, right next to the stacks of Yediot Aharonot and Ma’ariv newspapers. I put mine back in the pile and reached for the Herald Tribune, instead.

“Do you have any diamonds or large sums of money to declare?” the agents inquired.

The men tried to brush by, mumbling something in Yiddish.

“Yiddish?” the agents pursued them. “No problem. Read this,” they said, presenting a printed card with all of the laws stated in their own language.

I strolled past, pockets bulging with rare stones and stacks of foreign currency.

Alright, maybe in my dreams….

But I should have known the bubble security cameras were in full operation. It wasn’t until exiting the country that they nabbed me.

Once again at Passport Control, this time in Tel Aviv, a guard examined my passport front to back, or I should say, back to front, Hebrew style. Flipping it closed, the young twentysomething female soldier met me eye to eye.

“Go to the police, please,” she said, as though this were an everyday exchange.

“Ha’mishtarah?!” (The police?!) “Why? Where? What?” I wanted to know.

“The police. In the corner room.”

And thus I made my way to the Border Police, like one of the old fashioned “Alt!” border gates had just lowered in front of me. Could family dogs visit incarcerated persons? was uppermost in my thoughts.

“Shalom,” I introduced myself to the chainsmoking blond in charge.

“Darkon, b’vahkahshah,” (Passport, please) she smiled.

Hmmm… everyone so interested in the small document stating very little and with a less than ideal photo prominently featured.

“You come and go a lot,” she noted in Hebrew.

“Ken….” (Yes….)

“And do you have an Israeli Passport?”

“No….”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes….”

She checked back in her computer and tried a different tack.

“Think back, maybe a long time ago….. Did you ever declare citizenship here?”

“No….”

“Maybe you forgot…” she tried to help, at which I burst out laughing.

“I think I’d remember something like that…. Is there a problem?”

“No, no problem.”

Gee, I’d heard that before. Maybe this was some joke being played on me by my Israeli lawyer. With my demographic, I couldn’t imagine that they’d want to draft me for the Israeli Army. I mean, they didn’t even offer high-heeled infantry boots, plus, entering the paratroopers would result in too much windblown hair during the jumps. The navy might make me seasick. They would have to make me… a border guard!

No, their interest could not be the draft. The only thing I could think of was tax evasion of some sort. I wondered if they served felafel balls in prison. I could survive.

At last, the policewoman decided to take my sweet face at face value and believe my story that I didn’t play fast and loose with my citizenship, spreading it here, there, and everywhere at will.

“Okay, look, I’ll let you go, and I’ll mark that all is okay,” she reassured me.

I assumed she was entering our Important and Enlightening Conversation into her computer. Again, I was missing out on sampling the fine eau de parfums of Duty Free.

She returned my passport, wishing me a nice trip and I hightailed it to the bank to exchange my remaining shekels.

Taking the currency and my passport, the clerk gave a small gasp and turned to look me up and down.

“What happened?” he inquired. “I’ve never seen such a thing!”

“Mah zeh?” (What is it?) I asked.

“FREE TO DEPART BY ORDER OF THE MINISTRY OF THE INTERIOR,” he read the stamp and handwritten permission penned in Hebrew all around its edges. “Did you do something?” he laughed.

“Not that I know of!”

I took the money and ran for the plane, a recurring theme in my life. The only comfort I received in these inconvenient airport interrogations was that, while being detained, at least I was staying out of any more trouble. I didn’t need additional International Incidents. With all of our international travel, there were bound to be bumps. Yet with a fast-paced lifstyle, the small bumps could develop into major speed bumps, resulting in one big careening crash of a learning curve.

No time for that. We had places to go, things to do, people to see. Best to fly below the radar and leave the big bags of diamonds at home for now.

Sashenka promised me with all the seriousness that an eight-year-old with no life experience outside of a small Russian village can muster, that she would indeed become carsick, airsick, and simply everyday sick at her earliest opportunity. During the hour-long drive from her orphanage to the regional capital, she complained non-stop about the length of the “otchen dolgah” ride, but no sickness surfaced, so I was pleasantly surprised.

Our first night together, she came to sleep with me in the middle of the night with some unspecified complaint, after which she promptly threw up. The cardinal rule that adoptive parents are not to sleep for the first six months had slipped my mind.

I thought the flight to Moscow would be fine. It wasn’t. She took her seat belt off at least twenty times, stood up, sat down, went into moany-groany-whiney mode, saying she needed water, air, food, and a trust fund for life.

It was not until we were banking and descending for Moscow, that she threw up. Over and over again. We filled several airsickness bags, a rather notable accomplishment for such a tiny girl. Each time she would assure me, “Vsyoh, Mama” (that’s all), and then start again, clamping her hand over her mouth as we made the mad scramble for more bags. I finally pulled out a plastic bag from my purse, carried for any emergency emanting from child or dog.

I had to do something. I looked longingly at business travelers, well-groomed, sane in mind, and not smelling of puke. I was none of the above any longer. I prayed, I researched, and I headed to the apteka.

I explained our situation to the pharmacist on duty who suggested a type of motion-sickness pill for children ages 5+. We were to give two tablets at a time, not to exceed six in a 24-hour period.

Our final summer day in Moscow dawned early, the city shrouded in rain showers and chilly. I picked out track suits for the girls, sure to be comfy for a long flight with tennis shoes, t-shirts, and rain coats. Vlad arrived early, but we were fairly ready and packed. Before breakfast, I had given tablets to both of the girls. All we needed to do was zip the suitcases, and head on out.

In the car, I told Vlad stories of other crazy adoptive parents and some of the strange-but-true adventures they reported. The time passed quickly and soon we were seeing signs for Domodedovo Airport. That’s when it all hit. Literally.

Projectiles from the back seat hurled forward at me. Vlad turned around and said to me, “Maybe we pull over.” There, on the side of the road, I opened the back door and found a pink track suit covered in pink yogurt vomit. It ran down her face, into her hair, down her black spring coat, and all over said track suit, also covering half of the car’s interior.

Vlad said it was not the first time for new kids. He had a big jug of water in the back of his trunk, and some rags. He cleaned the car, while I cleaned Sashenka, fighting off the urge to upchuck myself. I barely made a dent in the job before me. The stench, the soaking clothes, the possibility that the papparazzi would be recording our utterly abject appearance led us to desperate measures for desperate times.

There, on the side of the whizzing highway leading to the airport, standing in the cool mist that was making my hair into a blond Afro in three minutes flat, I opened their suitcase and fished out another outfit, a black tunic and jogging pants, sealing the soiled coat and clothes in another plastic bag. I washed the vomit out of her hair, and off of her face, and we had her delicately step out of her aromatic, stinking-to-high heaven apparel.

That’s how we came to airport check-in, security, and Passport Control not looking nor smelling our best. But in Russia, I must admit, we were among good company, where deodorant was an unknown novelty in many sectors. Sashenka and I headed to the bathroom where I washed out her strands of matted hair with liquid soap and water. Our hands, and her face, all had some residual reeking that we tried to exorcise once and for all. It didn’t hurt to dash into Duty Free, a crazed woman needing her free shot of perfume. I should have checked into a full makeover, if not an undereye lift for myself, but having heard that medicinal leeches were all the rage in Russia, I decided to delay any non-essential procedures.

We killed an hour and a half in the terminal, setting up our base of operations at a gate, lest the girls discover too many goodies in the shops. I buy them a magazine that they argue over and I slip little princess another couple of motion sickness tablets. Gone were my days of leisurely lounging, strolling, and shopping through international airport terminals.

At last we walk down the sleeve to the plane. We are the last to board since, for some reason, we have not been assigned seats, and this naturally increases the kids’ anxiety. My own anxiety levels have long since bypassed the Danger-High range, leading me to pre-emptively pick up every puke bag down the path to Seats 597 X, Y, and Z. The girls are excited beyond belief.

“America! America!” they skip and sing down the aisle. “Soon we will see Papa, and the boys, and the dogs!”

The three of us take our seats across the middle. I try to share some safety tips with them, reviewing with the girls about buckling their seatbelts, and the nearest emergency exit.

“See the sign lighted in red? Where would we run in case the plane goes down, in case of an emergency?” I coach.

“The tooalyet!” Sashenka declares.

Out of the mouth of babes.

We enter American airspace and all is well until our snack of a sandwich and chips arrives. Washed down with liberal amounts of juice, our little one announces that she will now upchuck it all. We rush for a bag, but for some reason she decides not to aim. As we make our final descent, vomit streams down the side of the bag and the front of her new clothes.

I have no other outfits, no more patience, and long ago ran out of wet wipes. Our journey is over. Never has home and a hot shower sounded so good.