Day 9: Rainy days

The last two days have been rainy.  That means it is chilly and the kids cannot go outside to play.  And that means that our visits consist of 2+ hours being confined in a 25x25 foot room with four small children, seven adults and not enough toys.  We are all a bit stir crazy to say the least.  And the kids are having a hard time containing their frustration and boredom. You can tell that they are about at their emotional limit with so much attention being focused on them, their routines being totally disrupted and these "strangers" expecting things out of them that are not normally expected. 

 

We have been teaching Asa some English words, specifically "please" and "thank you."  (Manners are not a high priority when it is one nanny with 18 kids and survival is the goal.)  He is generally fun and goes along with what we are doing, but today, when Mike told him to say "thank you" and repeated it in English, Asa vented his frustration at the situation by asking, "Why are you always teaching me?!"  And later he said, to everyone in the room, "All of you need to be quiet."  He is done.  Done with the attention and he is emotionally drained.  He is very sensitive to any change in routine and any focused attention on him and the last nine days have been full of those very things.  I will be very glad when all of this is done and we can get him home and settled into life as a family.

 

We spent the morning running errands.  The orphanage psychologist had asked for pictures of us and our children to use to prepare the kids for going home with us and the social worker asked for pictures to submit to court, so we all took our flash drives to a Kodak photo developing shop to get pictures printed. While we waited, we were able to spend time seeing some beautiful monuments and the national museum. 

 

We also went and checked out a hotel that had been recommended by some other adoptive parents.  Most likely it will only be the four moms from our group that travel back for court, so we want somewhere safe and convenient for us to stay in for that trip and we think we found it.  The hotel also offered us a nice discount since we will likely stay there more than one time and need multiple rooms.  Now we just need dates! 

 

Tonight for supper we all agreed that we wanted pizza so our translator suggested that we go to Emperial Pizza.  Oh wow, it was really good!  The restaurant is more like a night club with a live DJ.  The pizza was everything from plain cheese pizza to more exotic pizza.  Our table ordered: cheese pizze, pepperoni and mushroom pizza, chicken pizza, and LAMB pizza!  It was all very very good and we all ate way too much.  The plan was to get four large pizzas for the 8 of us and have enough left over for lunch tomorrow.  Nope, we ate all but about four pieces of the pizzas! 

 

Today was bonding day number nine of the ten required days.  We are both ready to be home.  We are both sad to have to say good bye to Asa.  Again.  It is hell to be torn between your children who are half a world apart.  We are ready to finish this phase so that we can get on to filing for our court date and moving the process along. We both want to just grab him and run.  And we both had tears in our eyes when we got a picture of our boys at home in the email. Very bittersweet feelings right now.

 

We spent time taking turns tickling and playing with him today.  So fun and he has the best laugh.  At one point, Mike was tickling him and he said, "Hug me!"  Over and over again!  Everytime Mike would let go, he would ask Daddy to "Hug me!"  Later on, Mike was on the floor and said to Asa, "come hug me!" and Asa went straight to him and sat in Daddy's lap so that Mike could hug him. 

 

love to all of you,

mike&karla&Asa-Vladik