Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Bonding Day #7
Zdrastvuytye!!!!!
Over the past three days we have gotten to talk with all of our parents. What a great way to start each morning. Thanks for all the calls, its wonderful to hear familiar voices.

Today marks the half-way point of our bonding period!!!! Only 7 more bonding days to go and then we can get a court date which could take a week or more to get. Keep up all the thoughts and prayers that everything stays on schedule.

Sergei picked us up this morning and Kevin, Trinia (the couple from Switzerland), and their two children were in the van. They are on the final stage of the process and are on their way to Almaty. It is good to see a positive ending for a great family. It helps us keep our eyes on the prize.

As we approached the door to Az’s room this morning we could her a child crying. We were standing in the foyer listening to all this and he comes around the corner and he sees Amy and he goes right for her. As soon as he is in her arms everything is better again. His caretaker said the he had been crying for at least 5 minutes because we had not come to get him. We went directly to the play room and sat down and just held him and told him everything was alright. I guess we are now part of his daily routine.

After all the drama was over he wanted to get down and play. Today we decided on a new strategy. Instead of getting the trucks out immediately we got out the teething ring, bubbles, coloring book and crayons. We were hoping to see if he would pick up the color and work with us on the coloring book. That was not in his plan. He went straight for the teething ring. His back teeth must be coming in because he has been slobbering quite a bit. So the teething ring was perfect.

After that he got into the blocks and was stacking them and throwing them or chucking them off the table. Amy got the bubbles out to see what he would do. He was very confused by the bubbles. He did not understand that all the little balls were disappearing and he could not hold them. He also wanted to be in everything. He went from one corner to the next searching for anything and everything. Nothing could really keep his attention today. The exploring started around the couch and we were just rolling in the floor. After all that it was time to take him back to his group. We were trying to clean up and get him ready and he got a hold of the See and Say Elmo toy that we brought. He did not want to let it go. So we let him carry it back to his group. Once there we were working with the caretaker to trade off the Elmo for something they had. He did not want any of that. He started crying and crawling up and down the hall. We asked if he could keep it to help the caregivers and they said it was alright. Amy picked him up and gave him the toy again everything was alright. After he was with the caregiver she put him on the floor to take him to eat or whatever and we were trying to leave. He kept following us to the door. They were trying to get his attention and take him on and he kept pulling towards us. Finally we had to close the door and we heard him begin to cry. We hated to leave him, but we know that there will come a time when he can go with us.

As for the rest of the day, we decided to take a walk by the river and spend a bit of time at the internet café. After posting on the blog we went back to the apartment for the same old routine (dinner and movies).

We can’t wait to get back home to see everyone and to enjoy the comforts of home.

Paka!
Love David and Amy