Discoveries

These past few days have been days of discovery for us.  I’ll not spend a lot of time on things, but it’s been eye-opening.

• We’ve met a Spanish couple and a single French woman who are adopting from this same orphanage. The Spanish couple met their son for the first time in 2007. We met our son in April. The whole process for us has been long, but these folks have really had a hard time of it.  The woman from France is lovely and is adopting a beautiful little girl, but she’s having a hard time connecting with the girl.  Roman was uneasy with us at first, but now we’re a “normal” part of his life.
• One of his caregivers, Svieta, truly cares for Roman. For his birthday this year she gave him a little golden cross. Today she earnestly asked if we would mind taking the cross with Roman so he would have a memory of her. Of course we said yes. We also got her mailing address so we can send pictures so she can continue to share in his life.
• Today the photo album we made when we were here in April reappeared.  It’s obvious that they have been showing it to him.  He was so excited and flipped through the pages, naming mama & papa, mama & roman, papa & roman, pointing to our house and saying “dom!” (house), pointing to our parents and naming them baba and dyeda (babushka, grandmother, and dyedushka, grandfather). He wouldn’t let go of the album for the better part of an hour. Whenever we moved from one part fo the room to the next, he was clutching the picture book and he really objected when he thought someone was trying to take it from him.
• He’s quite comfortable riding in a stroller and he even got concerned when I began to push the stroller before his seatbelt was fastened. This bodes well for the airport.

Tomorrow’s a busy day trying to get paperwork done as fast as we can.