Saturday, June 27th

Day 8 of bonding and one more week till we return home! We start off in the playroom; Roman comes in with a banana and gobbles it down. We play for a little bit but we see he is wound up so we head outside. He is distracted by the apple trees and tries to eat an apple. We and Galina and Maigul scold him and tell him no, that they are bad to eat. We try to distract him, but he again, grabbed an apple. It was just us so we tried to tell him ‘nyet’ (Russian) and ‘jocque’ (Kazak) but he is ignoring us. We have to physically take the apple away. It’s a difficult moment because we don’t know the best way to discipline him and he doesn’t understand us. We don’t want the workers see we don’t discipline and we don’t want them to see we would give in, it’s very awkward and frustrating especially for hubby. We know these are issues we will have to work with him at home. There will be issues with food and with sharing things with the girls. Maigul comes out with a big apple just for Roman. He loves fruit, especially apples and he always seems hungry. We were given Roman’s schedule today and what they eat. They really do eat a lot of food throughout the day. The babyhouse is required to feed them every 4 hours and they even give snacks, but it’s all on a very rigid schedule.

We go back in the play room so Roman can eat his apple. We wait for him to eat his apple and then decide to try to show him pictures or video of the girls. He doesn’t understand what a sister is or even what is a family and I am determined to show him he has sisters. We attempt to get the computer out and show pictures but it backfires. He has likely never seen a computer and wants to touch everything. I guess this is a lesson for us, too. At least we show him pictures of him with us and we try to show him pictures of Olivia and Claire, but to him, they are just girls. I just worry about how we will all adjust when he comes home. It’s so hard. Right now we are still getting to know Roman and our love is slowly growing. When we first met him, we felt a kind of love that you feel towards any child you would see that you think is cute. It takes time to get to know him and learn to love him as a son. Like any child, he will have different moods and will have good days and bad days. Right now, he only spends time with his Mama and Papa; he will be in for a shock when we bring him home. Maybe he will think he is trading in his big ‘group’ for a smaller one?

Today at the end of our visit, we got to see where he lives, eats, and sleeps with his ‘group’. They live in 2 rooms, a play room which is also where they eat and a bedroom with small beds lined up in rows. We were allowed to stay and watch them eat lunch. They got a lot of food! At first they are given a bowl of soup with potatoes and meat and a basket of bread, maybe this is their biggest meal of the day. They were then given a drink that is called ‘compote’ which is liquid from boiled fruit, like apples and another plate of food which had vegetables, pasta and ground meat. All the kids eat very quickly. One of the newer younger kids falls asleep at the table, but the caregiver gets her attention and wakes her so she can eat. Roman ate almost everything; he just left most of the pasta. In his group, there are about 11-12 kids from around age 2-4, most of them girls. Galina said she thinks none of these kids are available for adoption because they haven’t been relinquished by their parents. There is one other group of the same age, but they all have some kind of medical issue. I think the infants must live on the 2nd floor of the babyhouse.

Sigh. I'm missing the girls...