Day 4 - Part 1

Her View-

We woke up this morning and met Eva and Marty downstairs for breakfast at 9 am.  We slept well, until the phone alarm went off at 3:30 am.  They gave us a cell phone to use while we are here so that we can call our driver, attorney, or translator anytime we need to.  The previous people must have had an early plane to catch on their last day :)

This morning I changed twice before deciding on what to wear.  In true Lura fashion, I wore jeans and a t-shirt -- picking comfort over cuteness. :)

At 9 am we met Marty and Eva at the hotel restaurant for breakfast. I could go on and on about the delicious food, or I could get to the part you really want to read about... :)

He's chewing on the candy right now :) But he looks comfortable enough :)

I think this is my favorite photo ever! He is so handsome!

Geo took this picture this is his Nanny and Marty (the driver).

walking down the steps to the playground.

Geo took this photo of his doctor.

My first time tickling him...I think he enjoyed it.

At 9:45 we left for the orphanage, our meeting with the director -- or who Eva call's "the head mistress" -- was scheduled for 10am.  The orphanage is only about 5 minutes away.  It is an older building, with peeling paint, weeds, tall grass, that definitely needs some love.  When we pulled up we piled out of the van and followed Marty and Eva up the stairs to the building.  Right in front of the building is a fountain with a dolphin statue in it.

Geo took this picture of Bobby :) This is prior to him holding him -- I can see the jealousy in his eyes!!!

When we walked inside, we walked down a corridor to the directors office.  She invited us in and is a lovely woman.  She was very polite and nice to us.  She then introduced us to the orphanage doctor (I think that is who she was), and the doctor told us a little about him.  He is 6 years old.  He is skinny, but he eats a lot but he likes to run around.  He doesn't speak, but there is no reason for him not to speak -- they are just waiting for him to be ready.  She said he appears to be a little autistic -- but that is not a confirmed diagnosis.  He is going to a doctor soon to be checked up, and they will ask then. All of this was being said in Bulgarian, and Eva was doing her best to translate.  She speaks really good English but I think some of the medical terms were tripping her up, so she just explained to us.

They were talking, and then all of a sudden a door opened, and he walked in.  He looked at us shyly and smiled.  Bobby and I stayed sitting on the sofa (where they pointed and told us to sit), and waited for him to come to us.  He was very interested in us, but was also happy to see the director, and the nanny that was in the room too.  The doctor pulled out a box of candy on the table and he started jumping up and down and clapping.  Then she gave him a piece.  He looked so happy -- I started tearing up.  He was trying to open it, and looked at me, when I smiled at him he handed it to me -- and made sure to point that he wanted it opened.  I think he was a bit worried that I was going to steal it...lol

I opened it and handed it to him and then he took a step closer and I put him on my lap.  He sat their very comfortably (he wasn't stiff or anything) and chewed on the candy and kept staring at me.  Bobby got out the camera (sorry we missed everything up to this moment and snapped a few pictures).

The director and the doctor were talking to Eva and they were hashing out our visiting schedule, but I was oblivious -- my son was in my arms, he was real, and here, and all mine!

I pulled out a ziploc bag with 4 wooden cars in it.  He smiled so big when I handed it to him.  He had me open the bag, and then he took the cars out one by one, then put them back in.  Then he would take them out, hand them to me, then put them back in.  We did this over and over again.  Then he saw the animal crackers we brought. He knew the bag -- or at least recognized that the bag contained food....and so we took a handful out.  He tried to take the entire handful from me and I told him "Ne" put up one finger and he took one.  He ate it calmly and then reached for another one.  When he realized that he could eat all of them, but not at once he became particular about which animal he ate when.  He is adorable!

They told us we could take him outside to the garden, so we stood up, grabbed our backpack of toys and went for a walk.  He took my hand (and my heart melted) and we walked.  He wanted to walk in the front of the group so we did.  At every corridor he tried to take me the wrong way and the Nanny would say "Ne" and point lol...he was determined to lead me the wrong way...haha

Then we went outside -- and he took the stairs like a champ.  We went over to a swing and he sat down -- then we pushed him back and forth.  He just kept staring at us.  Then he got off and we walked over to another swing (are you noticing a trend here?) and we pushed him some more.  Bobby pulled out a small (like baseball size) Mickey Mouse foam ball that we picked up for him.  We handed it to him and he threw in then he jumped down and ran after that.  For a minute he didn't need us, he would just pick up the ball, throw it and run after it, and then throw it again.  Then Bobby caught the ball and we passed it back and forth between each other.  He saw what we were doing and started doing it too.  He doesn't have great hand-eye coordination, so we started tossing it to the ground in front of him. He would just laugh.  His laugh is contagious and adorable.


I picked him up, spun him around, played chase with him...and then he started doing the pee-pee dance.  I asked Eva to ask him if he had to go to the bathroom -- since he doesn't talk it's hard to get an answer out of him. ;)  We took him inside (he protested the whole way -- I think he thought his fun was over with).  When we got inside we found a different Nanny who said that he just went before we came, and he doesn't need to go.  So back outside we went.

We pulled out bubbles.  He couldn't figure out how to blow them, but he learned that he could stick the wand in our face and we would blow for him (smart boy!).  He played on a teeter-totter, and a slide. And we found another swing set.  There was another little boy outside playing too that was smitten with Bobby.  He kept trying to get his attention.  The little boy was on the slide, and would not take the final step to the top to slide down, so Bobby went to the end of the slide and the boy looked so happy -- and came flying down the slide.  He was adorable.  He was with a Nanny who told Eva that the little boy really liked him.

Eva said that the Nanny's told her that Geo really likes us, and is open to us (which is awesome).  That little boy loves to be tickled and we created a game.  I would put my hands out palm side up, then he would put his hands on top of mine.  I would kiss each hand twice and then I would tickle him.  When we tickle him he says "NeNeNee" (like no, no no!) and at first I thought he wanted me to stop, so I did.  That is when I started the hand thing with him.  If he puts his hands on mine and knows that I will tickle him, then he must love it.  He laughs and laughs.  Oh how I love this boy!

We've already injured our son :(  He was sitting in the swing (no safety straps, just a wooden board on a metal holder) and we were playing with a blow up beach ball that has a globe on it.  Bobby would hold it and Geo would hit it up and then hit it back to Bobby.  One of the times, he got to excited and slid off the bench and hit his head, knees, and elbows on the cement below.  I felt so bad.  :( He has a big scratch on his forehead that was  bleeding a bit, and on his knee.  Bobby grabbed a wet wipe out of my bag and we cleaned him up.  He only cried for about 30 seconds, when I picked him up he stopped.  I wiped off his hands and looked at his knee and he kept looking at me like I was crazy.  I just wanted to make sure he was okay.  We wiped him up, and then he wanted to wipe himself -- so we handed him the wet wipe and he cleaned his forehead and his arms. Then we sat down on a bench, and pulled the cars back out and he took them out, and put them back, and cleaned them some.  (BTW we got a new -blood free - wet wipe for him to play with).

Marty came over, and we showed him the wounds (Eva wasn't worried), and Marty talked to him, and made him smile.  I have no clue what he said.  Marty is very, very good with the children.  You could see his heart when the children were around.

I have already let my child be injured, oy vey!

Geo's cousin was adopted from the same orphanage by and American family last year, and the director told Eva that the same thing happened to him, he got banged up on the first visit.  Maybe its a family thing!

We only got to see him from about 10:15 to noon, and we get to go back this evening from 4-5:30pm.  We get two 90 minute visits a day!

After our visit we came back to the hotel, dropped off our backpack and walked to the bank and to lunch.  The exchange rate here is 1 euro for 1.95 leva (that is awesome).  That means we have been eating our meals for about 10 euro -- or maybe $14 dollars?

We are back in the hotel, the camera is charging and we leave in 35 minutes for our 2nd visit.  This evening I think it will be a relaxing evening in the hotel.  It is very nice here, just humid and HOT!

I hope you are enjoying our journey so far, we'll keep posting pictures and taking videos!

Tickling him...I love his smile

Pushing him on the swing

Bobby High Fiving him on the swing

playing catch

and soccer

I was swinging him in circles he loved it

still swinging him. :)

Playing catch with Papa!

Bobby's first hug

Bobby was talking to him and he was just listening ;)

the cars and the ziploc bag that entertained him for most of the morning

bag of cars

Walking with Mama :) That is Eva in the background

waiting for someone to let us in to go potty. 

Our first family photo :) He wanted to hold both of our hands

me blowing bubbles at him

the teeter-totter. he loved this especially since he just got bounced up and down and didn't have to do any work...

Love,

Lura


His View--

So this morning started out like any other morning. We got dressed, brushed our teeth, ensured that our bag was packed, one of us put makeup on (I will let you decide who that was), and we went down for breakfast at 9am. Eva and Marty were already up and drinking coffee at the table.

The selection for breakfast was much more generous than the previous hotel so we were able to be a bit more picky about what we ate. We ate rather quickly, as usual, and before we knew it we were in the van on the way to the orphanage. I would like to say that we felt prepared for what was coming, but that was definitely not the case.

For me at least, this whole trip, and everything that has brought us to this point, boiled down to the interactions we would be having with our son in the next few hours. I have been nervous about the adoption since the moment we decided to go for it, but I couldn’t describe how I felt on the ride over. I don’t think I was visibly shaking, but I wouldn’t be surprised if someone told me that I was. Marty pointed out the orphanage just a couple minutes after we left the hotel.

I could feel my heartbeat when we were getting out of the car, walking up the steps, and when they ushered us in to the small office with the doctor. She was speaking to us about his medical conditions and Eva was translating and asking if we had any questions. My mind was blank, and neither I nor Lura could remember any of the questions that we wanted to ask when we got there. I remember asking a few that probably seemed trivial to the doctor, and even though we had planned on writing down her answers, neither one of us remembered to pull out the pen and paper. I think we got the answers to about three questions before he started walking through the door.

They had dressed him up for the occasion and I could tell that his hair was combed just before they brought him in. As you can see in the pictures, he is absolutely adorable.

 Immediately when he walked in, his eyes went to the middle of the room, and he jumped up and down. My heart was still racing and I was wondering what we had gotten ourselves into. My first thought was that he wasn’t responding to us because his delays were worse than they had told us. Then I noticed that the coffee table in the middle of the room had a bowl full of candy, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Who wouldn’t expect a child living in an orphanage to go straight for the candy bowl?

He looked around at everyone before taking one of the candies out of the bowl. He struggled for a few seconds to open it, and then looked around for help. Lura was quick to sit him in her lap and help him with the candy. Once she had opened the wrapper and he was chowing down, I knew we were in for good.

I hadn’t expected to see him so soon so I didn’t have the camera ready when he walked in. Now that he was sitting comfortably on Lura’s lap, I got up to take some long awaited pictures. He doesn’t speak yet, so we had to go with his non-verbal cues to see how he was feeling. He did seem overwhelmed and unsure of what was going on around him. After he was finished with the candy, he wasn’t really sure what to do with himself. We picked the baggy of toy cars out of our backpack, and he knew from that moment on that the bag represented nothing but toys.

He took the baggy of cars and quickly emptied it onto Lura’s lap. Then he started picking the cars up one by one and putting them back into the baggy. Once he completed this task, Lura helped him close it back up. Then he did it over and over again J

Then he noticed that there was a bag of animal crackers in our bag. Man was he excited. Now he realized the bag had toys AND food. Lura held out a handful and only let him have one at a time (he tried to grab them all at first). He was super happy from then on. He patiently ate the crackers one by one. One of the Ladies there said that he always eats and asks for seconds, but he runs around all day and that’s why he is so skinny.

We were told that we could go outside to play, and that’s where we spent the next couple of hours with him. There was lots of blowing bubbles, seesaws, swinging, and tickling (and one or two boo-boos) while we had him. Oh and animal crackers, it was a massacre for those poor creatures. He would constantly run over to the bag and gesture for the crackers. We were pretty successful in distracting him most of the time, but near the end of our time he was a bit tuckered out. We gave in to the animal slaughter on multiple occasions.

The hours past a little too quickly for our tastes, and the first visit with our son was over. They took him inside and we were headed out to lunch. The visit couldn’t have gone better, and we can’t wait to take him home!