Day 16--November 10, 2008

Day 16—November 10, 2008

Winter is still here, and the last thing I need (in the U.S.) is another winter coat, so I’m just cold all of the time now. So, we’re moving very quickly in this brisk weather. It’s no colder than a winter day in New England, but need I remind anyone why I moved from New England to North Carolina?

John and I had another great visit with Aidar. His comprehension of the English language is impressive—it is incredible how much he understands of what we’re saying. We’ve been here almost 3 weeks, and all I can say in Russian is “Thank you” and “Have a nice day”. Ooops! John just corrected me and told me that I have NOT been saying “Have a nice day”, but have been saying “Goodbye” instead.

He and John were playing a game of “who can get the Lego piece first”, and John beat him a few times until Aydar held out, watched John’s eyes, and then quickly switched hands on John when he went to grab the piece. Pretty tricky! He liked the mini-Doodle pad that Marianne gave him (much like the kind that Beth gave Karis—you draw on it and then slide a bar to erase). We drew triangles and squares (I helped him), and he drew a lot of scribbles and circles. He tries to speak English—he attempted to say “line” numerous times as he drew the sides to the shapes, and he tries to count in English. And he always says (as he signs) “I love you!”

He loves to have John blow up balloons, but he doesn’t do much with them once they’re inflated. Marianne also gave us a Sesame Street puzzle that had fewer and much larger pieces than the one we bought for him. He was slightly more interested, which is a good sign.

We’re going to meet with the orphanage director again tomorrow to try to get some answers to questions our doctor had re Aidar. I would recommend that people get an evaluation from a Western trained doctor (we went to the international SOS clinic). One nice thing is that the SOS clinic translated the summary from the orphanage in addition to its own report. We were given more information than the orphanage provided, and, after we scanned it and sent it to Karis’s pediatrician, her doctor had some additional questions based on the SOS report. We are sure everything is fine and that he will catch up to other children in the expected timeframe, but it would be nice to have as much history as possible. Sasha (our coordinator’s son who speaks English) is supposed to translate for us, but he is sick today. I’m not sure that I want to be around anyone who is sick when we have only a few days left.

We had one concern today…as we were bringing Aidar back to his playroom for lunch, there was a family in the waiting area with their coordinator. The coordinator asked in English if Aidar were the child with the problem with his mouth. We said “yes” and heard him telling the family about him as we took Aidar to his room. When we returned, they were no longer there. We went to the grocery store, but the whole time wondered how he knew about Aidar. Our minds went off on a tangent, and we wondered, “Were they the parents who want to appeal the adoption?”; “Are they another Kazkah family who will appeal our adoption?” (Kazkah families are given priority); “Were they given the option of adopting Aidar from another agency?”; “Is Aidar off of the adoption roster now that we’ve applied for a new name for him?” John went back to the orphanage to see what he could find out, but the family was gone, and the director told John that everything is OK (not that she would tell him if it weren’t). I guess we have a lot of questions for our adoption agency.

One thing we’ve learned, however, is to not make any assumptions about anything. We can’t assume that he is definitely our’s until the court makes it official, but we’ll make ourselves crazy if we think that he will be given to someone else. We’ve heard the horror stories about adoptions falling through, but we just have to hope that it will all work out in the end.....

(11:00 p.m.) It's snowing again. I'm ready for NC weather. OK, we saw Olga today and she said that she had no idea why those people were asking about Aidar, and that Aidar is off the roster for any agency. So, he is no longer available for adoption. Phew! We just need a court date now (and an apostilled background check along with a couple of marriage certificates).

We had a great visit again with Aidar this afternoon. John threw snow up in the air, and Aidar got a big kick out of that. He liked having it fall on his head. He liked throwing snowballs on the ground, too. And, they had a little snowball fight J We also played with the balloons in the playroom. Aidar loves to let the air out of them and see them fly across the room. He laughs hysterically. Little cutie!

Marianne and we went to the mall tonight. We ate at the food court, where there is also an ice skating rink. The little girls skating were so cute! It was nice to get out and do something. For anyone who will be traveling in the future, bring a flashlight. The entrance to Marianne’s elevator is pitch black (literally), and the alley to our apartment building can get pretty dark, too.

We’re going to try to change our flight reservations to Friday. The orphanage said that the first day did not count toward our 14-day bonding period. We have yet to have an answer as to why, and it will cost us hundreds of dollars to change our flight, but we look forward to coming home. We only wish we could bring Aidar with us.