day 10 - if you'd have told me, i wouldn't have believed...

it's true. if you'd have told me a week ago that we'd be where we're at with Babes on day 10 of bonding, i probably wouldn't have believed you.

a week ago he was still pretty strange with us. he cried, or worse--screamed--when they brought him in. he drew only straight lines. we were lucky if vocalized at all, let alone said a word.

now, Babes smiles a little smile when Aya brings him in and he reaches up for me. he cuddles and wants to first sit on my lap for a while before playing ( i have to remind myself at times not to be a baby hog and let rob have some time with him!). he prefers us over the Director, the translator or the social workers. he's scribbling all over the page. and today, he repeated several words: eye, daddy, ayu (bear)! in fact, towards the end of our visit today, it just seemed like he couldn't get enough of looking at books; he was pointing to everything and really looking at the pictures. it seemed like he just really wanted us to name things, and i wonder if we'd have done this longer, what other words he might have said. it was soooo encouraging, and i can't wait to look at more books with him tomorrow.

i think we're gonna start naming things only in English - we don't want him to become confused by whether the word for something is Kazakh or English, and since he's at this stage of language learning, there's probably no real rationale for teaching him the names of thing in Kazakh and then translating to English, right? i've learned  a lot of words and phrases in Kazakh, and i think this is helpful for him understanding me, but i think we'll just stick with English for objects and pictures.

today was great because it just really felt like we are his mommy and daddy, and he knows that. we did the whole lotion thing again; this time we took off his little pants and lotioned up his dry little legs. he's quite intrigued by lotion; he's great at rubbing his hands together now, and he tries to rub all the lotion off of us and onto him; it's so cute. i put one sock on him and he reached for the other and put it on his foot perfectly - and he's only two!

when the director came by and started asking him all kinds of questions - i guess she does this just to see how he's doing with us - you could see him really kind of shut down and focus only on the pages of the book; he was was strange with her and became much more withdrawn than he's been with us for days. so yay for mommy and daddy! he's used to us!!

it's my temptation is to go on and on about everything little thing we do with him here on the blog, but i will desist. :-) i'll just say that i am SO grateful and so encouraged by the progress we have seen this last week; we can tell that Babes knows and likes us. i think he trusts us. and we are having a fantastic time watching and playing with him everyday. he is just SO GREAT, we really love him, and we are so happy that God chose US for HIM!!!! and i think i now understand the lengths that some adoptive parents go through to get their little ones when obstacles come up. we  just pray that none will,and that in a couple short months he'll be safely home with us.

this afternoon we meandered through the shops above Daniel and the market out behind. bought a few little toys and some groceries, and ate some really good beirocks - and that's even what they are called, as i was pleased to decipher from the cyrillic. we can only imagine how good they would have been if they were HOT. :-)

back here in our room we had tea and both did some reading. i'm reading A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, and i really enjoy Donald Miller's writing style; i think it's gonna be a great read.  rob's reading some Mark Twain thing on his Droid phone. at one point the door rattled and suddenly in burst the maid without any warning with my fresh laundered jacket. boy, i'm glad we weren't right in the middle of anything else! ;-p

not sure what's up for supper tonight, but i'm sure we'll regroup with our groupies and go eat somewhere. another grand day in Ust is almost over. :-)