day 5: still louder screams and out and about

at the baby home

OK, well, if we thought yesterday's screams were shrill and darkness-shattering, welcome to today. ;-p only this time it was a little harder for me because he really only started shrieking once rob and i tried to take him from the caregiver. then, oh my goodness did he ever get mad. another day of this and i may lose my eardrums. 

sigh...i guess this is my blog so i can be honest; today was a little discouraging. i suppose the newness of things and that immediate infatuation with this adorable unknown child have given way a bit to the reality of hmmm...this could be hard if this goes on and he just doesn't warm up to us. 

now, in all fairness, i will say we actually had a really good visit, and i believe we made great progress. we heard more vocalizing from Little R and he definitely was more imaginative in his play; we saw him forget himself more and smile more, so yay! progress! the top toys were the little finger puppets again, and then an old lion hand puppet i brought. (oddly enough, BOTH of these things are old toys i have kept from my childhood! how cool is if that they are his favorite so far?) he immediately went for the finger puppets, putting them on each finger; once all five are on, he doesn't quite know what to do with them. so cute. there was a big toy dump truck in the play area today, and i began putting the little peanuts puppets inside the cab; then he would do the same till all five were lined up in there. it seems like if we suggest a form of play, he will copy it or try it out for himself.

the best was the lion puppet. i put it on and sat behind Rob and would stick it out and say something in a lion voice and then pull it back behind rob quickly. he was notably intrigued by this. we did that for a while and got big smiles, and then i put the puppet on him. i had to help him get his little finger inside the hole in the puppet's head, and he definitely understood that there was a way to do it so that he could maneuver the head. he's smart, that little guy! i've really had no doubt that he's smart, but he's so cautious and tentative that you don't really see what all he's capable of. 

as i write this i think i probably sound like i expect so much from him at this point. i don't mean to - i'm just aware that he seems to be very...locked up. it may be part personality - but rob and i can't help wonder what other things in his little life have contributed to this. we just long to see him run, giggle, play, jump, hug...but we're going to have to wait. 

in the meantime, we're celebrating that each day  we're making some progress. i think having the translator more involved today was helpful. she said he definitely knew which of us was mommy and daddy and would respond appropriately to her prompts, so he's probably doing OK with his receptive language skills. she says he doesn't seem to respond much at all to Russian, so at least now we know that. have to up the ante on the kazakh! i've been recording all kinds of words and phrases into my mp3 player - but i haven't been making/finding the time to review them. acck! i really need to make it a priority. 

well anyway, to sum up: we had another good visit. i think he enjoys himself more each day, smiles more, makes more sounds, initiates play more.  so cognitively, rob and i are like yeah, this is coming along. but emotionally, we're just dying to see any sign of trust/ease/favor from him towards us; it's so hard not to! gotta be patient, i know. attachment takes time.

even if we don't ever really get to feel that at the baby house, i'm confident things would/will change quickly once we have him in our care...right? :-l still, i'm really, really, really hoping he doesn't scream bloody murder again tomorrow. :-( 

out and about

this afternoon was a little brighter outside (finally!) and we went rummaging around the market back behind Daniel. it's like booterama back there! all sorts of ways to keep ones-self warm around here - and you need it too. we were really cold by the time we got back to Shiny River. time to get out the long johns. :-) 

outside the shiny river hotel. our room is on the 6th floor, the 7th and 8th windows from the left. 

 

booterama. but more interesting are all the liners you can buy for the insides of your boots and shoes. i bought a little pair of fur soles for my shoes/boots.

the arena where the hockey team is playing tonight, just a little ways down the street from the hotel:

and for your dining pleasure: chicken feet? or better yet, cold chicken heads?

 we bought some decaf tea at this booth and then spied this other unidentified mass of brown stuff that you could slice and buy. she said "try it" in Russian, which i understood from my pimsleur studies, but i was skeptical. really? rob was braver than i--that, or he trusted my Russian comprehension more than i did, and he took a bite...any guesses?

 ...tahini. or at least, caked sesame. pretty good actually, but i can't think why you'd buy a slice of it. maybe that is the unidentified ingredient we keep tasting in all of the pastries at breakfast. ;-p

i had time when we got back to have a really, really needed quiet time with God; i guess i've been too distracted all week to do this, and it was badly needed. i needed a little bit of perspective. spent time sitting in the sunny window well in our room, going over all the blessings we've seen so far--both since we've been here, but also in the months leading up to this. i also found a lot of strength and encouragement from some of the psalms. i guess, with things going so well this week, i wasn't feeling the need to lean on His strength as much as i do really need to. then, when i suddenly began feeling a little more discouraged about things, i wondered why. duh.

thank you, Lord, for being so much more faithful than I am.

well, it's time to be off to the hockey game. :-)