Monday, March 29th - 5th TIMES A CHARM!
10AM – Arrive at babyhouse this a.m. via taxi with Zhanat. Slip in the back door, off with our boots and coats, up the stairs to retrieve the key to unlock the bonding room, slip on our crocks, down the hall to Kirill’s room and learn that his class is in the music room for what looks like music and exercise. Kirill smiles a little when he sees us but stays back in his line. We sit at the end of the room and cheer on the children as they race around the cones for exercise. It was a great opportunity for us to get to experience a little bit of what life in the orphange is like for him. The “house” is very clean, very nice. This music class for 8 kids had one teacher and a second woman who played the piano for them. We return to the regular classroom and I give the “teacher” a stuffed bunny and babydoll for the kids in the class to keep and enjoy. All the children run to us for hugs and attention and John notices Kerill push two boys away from John. He follows us down to the bonding room but the next 1 ½ hours are a struggle. He seems more distant today than on Saturday. He is smiling some but not as interested in engaging with us as before. What if this little guy doesn’t want to have us as parents? Actually we left from the babyhouse wondering how 9 ½ more days of this are going to accomplish this trying to make a connection thing. How do you get close to a 5 yo that you cannot talk with or who does not really understand what is about to happen?
12:15 PM John and I eat by ourselves near the university where Zhanat works. We are meeting with Zhanat at 2 to have some documents notarized. Feeling kind of down. Keep thinking of the “how do you eat an elephant?” analogy someone just shared – this whole process is so long and when you feel like you’ve made some progress and reached some big milestones, you look up and see you still have quite a monster to work through.
4PM - Our 5th visit with Kirill. He is waking up from a nap when we enter his room (these 15 children live out of essentially 2 rooms – the bedroom with 15 beds for sleeping and a 2nd room where they play and eat). Kirill seems happier to come with us this afternoon and holds John’s hand down the hall to our bonding room. The two workers who were in the bonding room doing paperwork this morning (we think they were checking us out!) were not there for our second visit so we are more relaxed having him to ourselves. We play with cars and blocks and bubbles…. And then we discover THE BIG BEACH BALL. Kirill steps up on a small ledge and leaps onto this ball that is as tall as he is. John grabs him at his waiste and dips the ball in all directions while Kirill squeals with laughter and excitement. He rolls off and leaps again. And he does this over and over and over again. (We’re thinking that this would be a great time to have Brady and Cooper along to let these old people sit a spell and rest!) Anyway, he is ALL boy and he is absolutely eating up the physical affection and all this attention. It is such a beautiful sound to hear him squeal and laugh. He and John both work up a sweat and then Kirill crawls in my lap while we look at some books. (One book is in Spanish and one in German, left behind by other adoptive parents is my guess). He is talking all kinds of Russian naming animals and toys, ect. as I ask him “Shto-eta?” (how do you say that in Russian?) One of the books had a mirror inside and when I saw Kirill look at himself, I said Scott –Kirill. It was like introducing himself to his new self as Scott with his new mother looking over his shoulder. We said our goodbyes with hugs and with Zhanat’s prompting, Scott said “Bye” for the first time. I watched him run down the long hall to his classroom door and he stopped before entering and turned and waved. It was really sweet and it was the turning point for us with him as a family.
As we look back on the morning, John and I think that being in the music room, the same room we were in when we first met Kirill and the other little girl when we were trying to choose our chld, was making him feel as if he was still in the running for being “chosen” all over again. We had just given stuffed animals to other kids in his class and cheered them all on as he stood by and watched. It hit us that our little guy was not feeling so secure in his place as our son. Until this afternoon. Now we think he knows and I think that he likes the idea a lot! We’ve still got a hunk of elephant to eat to get through 10 more days of bonding, up to a week (or longer) before going to court (which we’ve been told has no guarantees in the judges decision), then deciding if John and I will both return home and have an escort bring him home (if that will even be a possible option) or If I will stay and bring him home or go home with John and fly back several weeks later to bring him home. We’ll just take one day at a time and today was a great one!
10AM – Arrive at babyhouse this a.m. via taxi with Zhanat. Slip in the back door, off with our boots and coats, up the stairs to retrieve the key to unlock the bonding room, slip on our crocks, down the hall to Kirill’s room and learn that his class is in the music room for what looks like music and exercise. Kirill smiles a little when he sees us but stays back in his line. We sit at the end of the room and cheer on the children as they race around the cones for exercise. It was a great opportunity for us to get to experience a little bit of what life in the orphange is like for him. The “house” is very clean, very nice. This music class for 8 kids had one teacher and a second woman who played the piano for them. We return to the regular classroom and I give the “teacher” a stuffed bunny and babydoll for the kids in the class to keep and enjoy. All the children run to us for hugs and attention and John notices Kerill push two boys away from John. He follows us down to the bonding room but the next 1 ½ hours are a struggle. He seems more distant today than on Saturday. He is smiling some but not as interested in engaging with us as before. What if this little guy doesn’t want to have us as parents? Actually we left from the babyhouse wondering how 9 ½ more days of this are going to accomplish this trying to make a connection thing. How do you get close to a 5 yo that you cannot talk with or who does not really understand what is about to happen?
12:15 PM John and I eat by ourselves near the university where Zhanat works. We are meeting with Zhanat at 2 to have some documents notarized. Feeling kind of down. Keep thinking of the “how do you eat an elephant?” analogy someone just shared – this whole process is so long and when you feel like you’ve made some progress and reached some big milestones, you look up and see you still have quite a monster to work through.
4PM - Our 5th visit with Kirill. He is waking up from a nap when we enter his room (these 15 children live out of essentially 2 rooms – the bedroom with 15 beds for sleeping and a 2nd room where they play and eat). Kirill seems happier to come with us this afternoon and holds John’s hand down the hall to our bonding room. The two workers who were in the bonding room doing paperwork this morning (we think they were checking us out!) were not there for our second visit so we are more relaxed having him to ourselves. We play with cars and blocks and bubbles…. And then we discover THE BIG BEACH BALL. Kirill steps up on a small ledge and leaps onto this ball that is as tall as he is. John grabs him at his waiste and dips the ball in all directions while Kirill squeals with laughter and excitement. He rolls off and leaps again. And he does this over and over and over again. (We’re thinking that this would be a great time to have Brady and Cooper along to let these old people sit a spell and rest!) Anyway, he is ALL boy and he is absolutely eating up the physical affection and all this attention. It is such a beautiful sound to hear him squeal and laugh. He and John both work up a sweat and then Kirill crawls in my lap while we look at some books. (One book is in Spanish and one in German, left behind by other adoptive parents is my guess). He is talking all kinds of Russian naming animals and toys, ect. as I ask him “Shto-eta?” (how do you say that in Russian?) One of the books had a mirror inside and when I saw Kirill look at himself, I said Scott –Kirill. It was like introducing himself to his new self as Scott with his new mother looking over his shoulder. We said our goodbyes with hugs and with Zhanat’s prompting, Scott said “Bye” for the first time. I watched him run down the long hall to his classroom door and he stopped before entering and turned and waved. It was really sweet and it was the turning point for us with him as a family.
As we look back on the morning, John and I think that being in the music room, the same room we were in when we first met Kirill and the other little girl when we were trying to choose our chld, was making him feel as if he was still in the running for being “chosen” all over again. We had just given stuffed animals to other kids in his class and cheered them all on as he stood by and watched. It hit us that our little guy was not feeling so secure in his place as our son. Until this afternoon. Now we think he knows and I think that he likes the idea a lot! We’ve still got a hunk of elephant to eat to get through 10 more days of bonding, up to a week (or longer) before going to court (which we’ve been told has no guarantees in the judges decision), then deciding if John and I will both return home and have an escort bring him home (if that will even be a possible option) or If I will stay and bring him home or go home with John and fly back several weeks later to bring him home. We’ll just take one day at a time and today was a great one!
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