A visit with Alex, and the orphanage director, and more videos

Today marks the fourth day since we met Alex. Our visit was shorter than the previous two times because we expected to meet with the director of the orphanage today; she’s been gone at a conference all week, which has also held up our paperwork.

When we arrived at the orphanage, all the children were gathered together in the courtyard waiting to watch a play that was being put on by a group from a nearby city. (We were later told by our facilitator that a 15-year-old girl who we’d contemplated adopting was also there, sitting in the front row, but we didn’t recognize her—all of the children wear headscarves outdoors.) The staff encouraged us to watch the play with Alex, but after about ten minutes he began to get visibly sad—he got more and more withdrawn and listless; then the lower lip started sticking out; and finally he began whimpering and crying a little. The staff took him aside to find out what was wrong, and apparently he expected to spend more one-on-one time with us, because when they asked him if he wanted to go with us, his face lit up and he said, “Da, da!” (“Yes” in Russian.) Luda, our facilitator, smiled at us and said, “See? He’s learning how to manipulate his parents already. If he cries here, he gets no attention, but with his parents, it is different.” I am not sure about that—I don’t think that he’s known us long enough for that kind of behavior to develop—but it is possible that he has been a little spoiled by the staff and knows that when he cries, he gets attention. Or…maybe he was just genuinely sad!

In any case, we pushed him on the swing for about forty-five minutes. He LOVES the swing. We count: “One, two, three!” (in Russian) and then swing him real high (holding on to him firmly, of course), and he laughs and laughs and laughs with delight. We also sing songs to him: You Are My Sunshine, This Little Light of Mine, Amazing Grace, the theme song from Green Acres (that’s for you, Shirley K.)…we’re told that he loves music. We also prayed over him for a while.

At around 11, he had his "kasha" break. "Kasha” is the Russian word for porridge; it looks something like Malt-O-Meal, if Malt-O-Meal could possibly be more bland and glue-y. This time his nanny encouraged us to try feeding him. I tried it for a while, then when Susan took over, he clammed up, which prompted his nanny to take over again. When she took over, it was all business: shloop, shloop, shloop—down the hatch it went, quite quickly. We’ve always seen them feed him; we need to ask how often he feeds himself. We’re told that he can, and goodness knows, if he can manipulate a crayon, he should be able to feed himself. If so, that is what he will be doing once we get settled at home.

Then back on the swing. Before long, Luda came with the director, who was followed by a small retinue of staff. She introduced herself very briefly and curtly, and then we were directed to continue playing with Alex while the director and a handful of other adults looked on. We smiled big, fake smiles as we pulled out all the tricks we had learned to make Alex laugh and giggle. I muttered to Susan, “Talk about your public parenting!” which made her laugh. “Smile, you’re on Candid Camera!” (There’s an outdated cultural reference for you.)

After a moment the director asked Alex, in Russian, “You like?” I may have missed the personal pronoun for “them” in there, or not, but in any case she was clearly looking for some sort of positive statement from him. He just said, “Da!” And that was enough for the director, who smiled, nodded, turned around and left.

Honestly, we had come prepared for more of a discussion with her. We’re told by our facilitator that she is very pro-adoption, and excited about this adoption, but also very nervous because it is her first time through a very complicated process, and she doesn’t want to screw anything up. There are many people in this country strongly opposed to international adoption on nationalistic grounds, and they will use any means possible to thwart them. The consequences for the director and the orphanage could be dire.

After the director left, the nanny took Alex off the swing, which always makes him cry and fuss—which is why we hadn’t taken him off before, despite getting tired of it ourselves. We didn’t want a fussy kid when the director showed up!

We settled Alex into the stroller they have for him and walked him through the grounds, accompanied by the nanny who is our personal minder for these visits. The grounds are covered in beautifully maintained gardens, with lots of flowers (including roses) and a huge bed of strawberries. The nanny, whose name is Yanna, waded into the strawberries to find some ripe ones for us, and then climbed a cherry tree to pick a whole bunch of what they call “apple cherries” (they look like regular cherries to me). We tried giving a strawberry to Alex, but he just threw it and laughed; we tried feeding it to him, but he spit it out. Maybe involuntarily, due to the CP, but when we asked if he wanted it, we didn’t really get any response.

We got a big response when we went over to the picnic table and took out a sheet of paper to put the cherries on. His eyes got big and he said a word in Russian—I think it was “die,” which would be a short form of the Russian word for “give me.” He recognized the paper from the previous day, when he had tried drawing with crayons.

So out came the crayons again. He loves the crayons, and he likes handing them back to us in exchange for new ones. His hand coordination isn’t that great, but he is very delighted when we put our hand over his to help him scribble. I think he likes seeing the colors show up.

Unfortunately, not long after the crayons came out, we got a call from Luda saying the director had signed all the necessary papers, and we needed to run them over to Children’s Services, and the nanny would be by shortly to pick Alex up for lunch and a nap.

When we leave Alex we give him a kiss on the forehead and our family blessing for children (“May the Lord bless you and keep you, in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit” while making the sign of the cross on the child’s forehead). Boy, did he cry when we left! We heard him wailing as we walked down the driveway to meet Luda. This is a good thing, of course, in the big picture!

We dropped Luda at Children’s Services with a promise to meet for lunch later. Two hours later, we stopped for lunch at a place that looked like a dive—well, it kind of was—but which served a meal that easily rivaled any we could get in the Winona area. (Yeah, I know the jokes about restaurants in Winona….)

It was a good day on the paperwork front: the director signed her paperwork, the local social services branch signed their paperwork, the local committee signed their paperwork—which means that all of that paperwork will go back to the capital and the national adoption office tomorrow. As Luda put it at lunch, we picked up a couple of days compared to where we thought we’d be at this time. Monday is a holiday, so the national adoption office will look at the paperwork on Tuesday; if it gets approved within a couple days, we’ll be ready to ask for a court date. And that means that the earliest possible court date would be Monday, June 11—if nothing goes wrong. Please continue to pray for a speedy process, because as charming as this Eastern European town is, we want to go home to our other kids as soon as humanly possible, with their new brother in tow.

Here are some more videos and pictures—no Alex pics from today, but some from the previous visits. Just a note that you'll hear us calling him "Sasha" or "Sashka" in the videos--that is a common nickname for Alex in his country, and how he is called here. His legal name is and will be Alex, but we will wait until we get to the States to begin using that name,

Alex on some therapy equipment (first day):


Alex on the swing:

Alex looking through our family book--we don't think he has any concept of what's in it, even though we read it to him:

Alex eating his "second breakfast."

Walking through the grounds of the orphanage:

Alex drawing with a crayon:


That's all for today, folks!