Day 17--November 11, 2008

Day 17—November 11, 2008

It is FREEZING here. All I have is a long sweater coat, so it is a longer walk to the orphanage now than it was last week. We took Aidar out to play in the snow this a.m., and played for just a short while before we took him inside. Finally—the kid had mittens on his hands. We wish we were as lucky! He loves throwing the snow up in the air and having it fall on him. When it falls in his eyes, he just turns toward us with his eyes closed and a big grin on his face. We wipe the snow away, and it inevitably happens again! John showed Aidar how to taste the snow; he got a big kick out of that. He is so open to anything new. He cleaned the snow off of one of the small horse statues on the grounds, and was astonished that his mittens had snow all over them. When he looked at his jacket and jeans, he was covered with snow. He looked surprised and then just laughed. What an easy-going guy.

We were barely inside the door to go to the playroom when the director of the orphanage told John that we had to bring Aidar to his group, and we had to leave; they had an inspection today. John and I assumed that they were having an inspection soon, since they were doing spring-cleaning in the midst of winter. But, it didn’t make sense to us as to why they asked us to leave. We understand that they probably needed a headcount, but we were the prospective parents of a child; we were fulfilling our fourteen-day bonding period; and, God forbid that we look like we might actually be a happy family in the days to come. Again, more bureaucracy.

We went back this afternoon, and everything was fine. Their inspection went well, and we were able to play with Aidar for our regular time period. We actually saw the same family whose coordinator had asked about Aidar. The dad spoke English, and we chatted a little bit. They are from Italy, and do not yet have a child, yet there they were at the baby house (I’ve learned recently that the younger children are in “baby houses”, and the older children are in orphanages). There are so many different ways to handle an adoption.

We met a family the other day from Belgium. They are incredibly nice, and are adopting a child from another baby house. We were in a restaurant, and, when I said “Thank you” to the server (one of the two Russian words I know), a cute little four-year-old boy at the next table said “She said ‘spaseeblah’!” (that’s how it’s pronounced—I don’t have a clue how it’s spelled). We all laughed and started chatting. We ran into them the next day on the street, exchanged emails and subsequently set up dinner plans. They were told not to bring their son to the orphanage any more. It’s too bad because now they have to alternate days to see their adoptive son, and their son can’t see his new brother. Someone suggested that it could be that healthy children disrupt the flow of how things work in an orphanage/baby house. It’s a very reasonable assumption to me.

We were able to change our flights to Friday. We tried last night, but Lufthansa can’t do any updates to international flights from their website. So, we had to call this a.m. Get this, though: their hours don’t begin until 11:00 a.m.! I need to work there ;-) And, our flight leaves at 4:10 a.m. I have no idea how we’re going to get through the night. At any rate, we’re looking forward to coming home. We wish we could bring Aidar with us. It seems we can have one child or the other, but not both. Time to go…..we’re going to try to pack some stuff tonight.