@ Home in the World

The Ends of Things

 

School is almost over. The countdown is two weeks now. Pumpkin's end of year performance and open house were both last week. I watched my youngest child get up on stage and with 30+ peers and sing at least part of the songs. He knew his lines and his cue to step up to the microphone. His fidgeting and enchroaching into his neighbors' space was unchanged from last year, when the fact that he was the only child exhibiting constant movement prompted me to finally agree to ADD meds. That was most unexpected, but I'm still glad I did it because the medicine has helped him ward off the sillies and exhibit much greater self-control.  Another mom with an austistic son pointed out Pumpkin's shirt-twisting behavior and said that she recognized it. It's always a relief to hear from people who understand what's going on with him.

This year has been a surprisingly sucessful year for Pumpkin. And it's really been this past week that i've noticed things like how much he is talking about other kids in his class and how he speaks of playing with them and exchanging ideas. I can remember celebrating in earlier years being able to have the simplest of conversations with him, and having him ask questions of me. Now he's able to tell me more about how he's feeling and what makes him upset. He's starting to take an interest in sports, which always surprises me and reminds me not to pigeonhole him.

I was a little worried about his teacher assignment for this year and I think he did take her some getting used to, but overall, I would say this was a far more successful year than the last one. They were able to push/coax him farther than I ever would have imagined.

This past weekend we marked another ending of sorts. The social worker who guided us through the adoption process (twice) is retiring at the end of June, and with that, the agency will close its doors. A few years ago another employee was arrested for embezzling from the agency. Though she was ordered to make restitution, adoptions were getting tougher, the recession would soon follow and the agency never really recovered. 

This weekend a small group of local families brought together by our agency came together to celebrate the social worker who made it all happen. The cake you see up there represents several of the countries our agency worked in and of course there's the U. S. flag that all our children came home to. I knew only one of the families at this particular gathering, but it was interesting that the experience of having traveled to a foreign country to start a family, and then come home and handle the challenges our children presented produced a near instant bond with many of the others.

It felt so good to be able to tell another parent that her child, with behavioral quirks I also recognized, was able to come up to my older son, introduce himself and ask Tigger to play. I recognized her happiness at this news, that her son was reaching out, that all the time spent in therapies had manifested itself in a friendly, if young for his age, little boy. Hurray for them! There is hope. Our work and our belief in our kids is paying off. We have been able to give them something worthwhile - a home, a family, a chance!

It's interesting that this was the first year that I did not feel that pull to be headed to Russia. I don't know if the weather and the calendar didn't match, or we had a different trip (to Washington DC) to plan but usually, every April and May, Piper and I start talking about how it really feels like we should be packing and putting together paperwork. It wasn't like that this year.

Tigger has been with us 8 years and Pumpkin 6. We are rapidly closing in on the number of years we were married without children. It is getting harder and harder to remember what it was like before. I am certainly no longer longing for those childless days as I once did. We still have significant challenges, but with each passing year, we are more and more a team.

Our newly constructed house isn't so new anymore, and could frankly use a paint job in some places. I'm coming to realize that many of the office clothes I had before children are almost 10 years old and need to be weeded out. And, even though I did not birth these two children, at nearly 45, my body type is different than it once was.

I'm not exactly sure how to put this, and I'm sure that I'll be exploring this in the weeks to come, but I have come to a point in my life where I fell like I need to get a better handle on things. Of course, sitting here trying to work this out at nearly midnight when I have to be at work the next morning is a perfect example of the sort of thing I shouldn't be doing anymore. I'm getting a little too old to be just keeping my head above water, rushing to prepare for the next meeting, always slightly behind and trying to hide my panic about it.

A friend of mine once taught me to eliminate distractions. I was getting better at it before I had kids. Then I sought distractions, desperately needed them, was gratful for them keeping me sane. Now I simply have too much on my plate.  I either need to give stuff up or manage it all better. I don't really want to give up on the blog. I still have the stories, but it is really about making the time.

How many times have I written a sentence like this?

Too many.

I haven't mentioned this yet because I am still quite surprised about it. It doesn't feel real to me. I'm going to BlogHer in August. I applied as a volunteer and was accepted. I am travelling, by myself, to San Diego for several days, and I will meet, or at least cross paths with, many of the bloggers I have admired who have long since established themselves and done something with the opportunity that I have allowed to pass me by. I am wondering what I will get out of it at this juncture, because I have been so disconnected from the blogging community lately, because I have been disconnected from my writing.

We joke about bucket lists and 40 x 40 lists. I am too old for the latter and hopefully not old enough for the former.

But one thing that has been on my life list since I was ten years old  (Tigger's age!) is that I wanted to be a writer. It is the one thing that has been consistent in my life, and one of the few things I have managed not to do.

I don't have to look too deeply to understand it. I have not honored the need to keep writing, because I did not want to fail. All the writing I have been doing lately has been for someone other than myself. I don't even mean my audience here, I mean my job, my volunteer work, my ghostwriting for others. None of it is helping me be a writer, or at least not a successful one.

I will be 45 in the fall. Back when I was 35 I felt that everything I did from there must count. I haven't always honored that. Certainly, I have done a lot with the last 10 years, including some things, like parenting, that I way undervalue. But time's awasting  and I must find a way to end the self-sabotage on this one, last thing.

 

Pastiche

pas·tiche

[pa-steesh]  noun 1. a literary, musical, or artistic piece consisting wholly or chiefly of motifs or techniques borrowed from one or more sources.

2. an incongruous combination of materials, forms, motifs, etc., taken from different sources; hodgepodge.

I've taken advantage of having the week off to do some much needed housekeeping on the blog.

Although I haven't had much time for writing, I have really been thinking a lot about what I wanted to do with @ Home in the World.  I started writing as a way to capture some of the stories from our adventures adopting two Russian boys. Overly optimistic that we'd be able to do more than just armchair traveling even after we became parents, I gave it the subtitle "International Adoption and Other Travels."

For various reasons, we haven't been able to do much travelling and the boys are getting to be the age when many blogging parents start to talk about their stories becoming their own. They have been with us nearly 8 and 6 years and most of the Russia stories have been told. Certainly there's more to tell about our experiences as a special needs family, something we're really just starting to get a handle on, but in a lot of ways this blog has been more about my (long) adjustment to parenthood.

Personally, and professionally, I'm in a pretty good place. As a parent, I'm in that respite place before adolescence. There's still quite a bit of road ahead, but this might be the section that is better paved, and less hilly.

Writing is the only thing that is really suffering right now. I've wanted to be a writer since I was in the fifth grade, but it has always been last on the list. With so much going on right now, it's really a matter of finding a topic that I'm excited enough to spend the time and energy on.

Looking back, I really feel like I did some of my better writing when taking on social perceptions of motherhood and parenting, politics, and in other venues, education. I'm going to try to get back to that, as time allows. I have certainly written about adoption, but it as been mostly about our experiences and only occasionally on the politics surrounding the topic, as I find myself too often at odds with people's notions of what should be offensive to me.

During the vacation week, I spent some time going through my blog rolls, updating sites that have changed names or addresses, and (sadly) dropping those who have stopped publishing altogether. There were a lot of changes to make.

For a time, I saw blogging as a way to move from well-received posts on a local message board, to some venue with a broader audience. That didn't happen, largely because I never really struck while the blogging iron was hot. From the looks of things, it has not only cooled considerably, but formed into a gate that's rather hard to get open -- just like traditional publishing.

The fact that the Photo Challenge went nowhere really told me something. It was something I pretty much already knew given that sites with much greater popularity have ceased publishing recently.

Still, I wouldn't have put so much work into this page over the break if I didn't want to continue to do something with it. The trick now is to make the time to write.

Here to stay

In the last several days, I seem to have become the local spokesperson for adoption, Russian adoption, and special needs adoption. Everyone who has heard the story of Artyem Savelyev and also knows our story, wants to know what I think. An event as stunningly awful as the actions of Torry Ann Hansen has raised the profile of Russian adoption in some unfortunate ways.

Piper has a co-worker who adopted a little girl from the same agency we used. Said co-worker showed up in Piper's office last week, asking "Why can't they show adoption in a positive light?" An NPR commentator posed much the same question. PunditMom is upset about the coverage for a slightly different reason.

There's not much more I can say about Torry Hanson that hasn't already been said. I'm horrified by her method of handling the situation, and by the impact her actions have had on the delicate diplomacy of Russian adoptions.

Hansen indicated in her letter to the Ministry of Education that she had been misled by the Orphanage Director about the child's mental health; but it is widely known in the United States that the health problems of Russian orphans are often exaggerated with bogus diagnoses so that the courts will release them for international adoption. Since our own adoptions, I've heard that it is more difficult to get advanced information on your assigned referral, but even the smallest amount of reading could have told Hansen about developmental difficulties these children often experience, and the behavioral challenges they can present. It's also very possible that, given the rigid structure of orphanage life, the behavior the Hansen's described never happened there. Remember, Artyem* may have gained a family back in September, but he lost everything else he depended on.

The public facts of the case are slim, but it's clear to me that the mother did not do enough research into the likely struggles of an older child living in an institution for most of his life. It's also evident that, when faced with the almost predictable behavior the child displayed, the Hansens did not reach out for help. Artyem had been with them for six months; long enough for the novelty to wear off and the testing to begin. Let's face it, Torrey Hansen didn't even realize that, by law, her adopted child became an American citizen the moment he stepped off the plane in the States.

Too often, I think, society views adoptions the way it does getting married. Marriage, or more precisely, a wedding, is looked at as some long-chased dream; a goal, rather than the beginning of a journey. Almost all of those adoption stories we read, or see on TV, end with the child coming home. The focus of the adoptive family is on the challenges that went before; struggles with infertility maybe, or a miscarriage, disappointing cycles of IVF, or just trying to navigate international bureaucracy. There is no discussion of the struggles of adjustment, the boundary testing, learning to live together. No one speaks of Reactive Attachment Disorder; or the unfillable emptiness in the adopted child. It's all supposed to be better now. Now they are a family.

A story in the New York Times this weekend, presented the challenges of adoption in what I thought was a sensitive manner. The reporter interviewed some families who struggled with the transition and worked through it. The article discussed the need for adoption agencies to be more forthcoming about the challenges of institutionalized children, and the need for more support. It talked about the reality of disruption.

None of us ever really knows what we are getting into before we become parents. That goes for all parents, not just adoptive ones. There are days and weeks and years where we are completely overwhelmed by what we have taken on. We are horrified when we have to ask for help; guilt-ridden at not living up to society's expectation that we manage everything all by ourselves. We are afraid to admit when we can take no more. One good thing about blogging mothers is that we are all starting to admit that things aren't perfect. Perhaps this kind of openness will one day lead to a discussion of the need for more support.

For me, the struggles of dealing with the boys' adjustment issues were wrapped up indistinguishably with the adjustment issues of my own late motherhood. There were difficult and very dark days; particularly in our first year as a family of four. But as difficult as things got, and as much as I might have wished for my old life back, I couldn't imagine giving the boys up.

This May, we will mark 7 and 5 years of having the boys with us. The first six months, heck, the first few years, were extremely challenging for us. But part of our jobs as parents is to observe our children, learn their reactions, compare with other people's experiences, and research when something doesn't feel right. Hansen is reportedly a nurse, and probably had better access to information than most people do. It's not always easy, but one thing we probably do better than most countries, is make services available to children with special needs. It's the law.  What kind of services will be available to Artyem now?

Russians are already unhappy with the phenomenon or foreign adoption. No matter how many children die in the custody of Russian orphanages, it is the death of an adoptee in the States that makes the news across Russia. Our Russian facilitator has been asked by his neighbors if Russian children were sold to Americans for organ harvesting. They want to believe the worst.

Every time something like this happens, I wish that I could find a way to say to the Russians; "Our boys are alive and well, they are here to stay. When they come back to Russia, it will most likely be with us, to learn about where they came from, to see their history come to life. They are in good hands, really."

I will also say that Torry Ann Hansen has not helped us adoptive parents with our American neighbors either. The people who live around us already speculate how hard we have it, how they couldn't do what we do, and how our kids must be damaged. They wonder if their kids should be playing with ours. My boys are good kids, but now their sometimes odd behavior will forever be connected to this story. Read any of the comments on the news posts about this incident. The terrible, prejudicial, opinions people have about Russian adoptees have been bolstered by this woman's actions.

We'll probably never know what will happen to Artyem or to Torry Hansen, and that's really too bad. The media is great for plastering bad news everywhere - not so good on depth or follow-up. We need to know that she gets prosecuted, and we need to know that he finds a home and the support he needs. We also need to see many more postive stories about adoption, struggles and all, well after the kids come home.

When we were still in the paperwork stage of our first adoption, my doctor, an adoptive parent himself, had this to say; "Adoption is not just a decision that you make; you have to reaffirm that decision at every step in the process."

That includes after the child comes home.

_____________________________________

*Although Artyem was given an American name, he will probably no longer be using it. Also, before this story broke, whenever I have previously seen this name translated, it has been spelled with an "e" rather than an "o."

Let's see if I can finish this post

Parenthood made me cry last night. This is not a huge surprise as the most memorable moment of the 1989 movie was that moment when Steve Martin and Mary Steenburgen are in school office and officials there are telling them that there is something wrong with their son, and maybe he should stay back.

The heartbreak on their faces went right through me.

I've been in that position now, many more times than I can count; not always in a school office, more often in a doctor's office. You move on, you move past it and deal with reality, but that moment that someone tells you that your child is going to have problems splits your heart in two.

Things are a little different now than they were in 1989 when the movie came out. Special needs children are handled differently now, and more common. Autism diagnoses are approaching 1 in 100 kids. This is the new normal.

Still. When it's your child, the world stops for a moment.

Last night too, the diagnostic forms we sent to Pumpkin's teacher a couple of weeks ago came home in his backpack. The sheer volume of things observed or listed as "often" was so disheartening. On the one hand, I'd been warned before the school year started that she might be challenged by Pumpkin, and I found myself wondering if that affected her view of him. Indeed the second teacher had more frequently chosen "sometimes." On the other hand, as with Tigger's ADHD evaluation, perhaps it's better that there is no room for doubt.

So on the show last night, when little Max's father admitted to his own father and to himself, that there was indeed something wrong with his son, I lost it.  When the show was over I went upstairs to sit on Pumpkin's bed, stroke his hair and squeeze his hand. He slept on, oblivious.

Sometimes I just have to marvel at the forces that brought this child into my life, both of them really. Whatever it was that compelled me to adopt, drove me relentlessly into this role no one in my family thought I could handle. Some days, they're right.

Most days they are not.

"Are you sure he's not autistic?"

This photo of Pumpkin and me was taken in the first few minutes of our first meeting. If you don't know the situation, it might look to you like any mother talking to, or even comforting, her child.

What you may not see, at least until you've read this,  is that I am trying to look into the eyes of this child and will them to tell me the answer to the question "Are you okay?"

Now you might see the fear in my eyes as I know this question essentially can't be answered. Not by him, not by the Russian medical records, not by the doctors at NEMC who specialize in international adoption and the associated medical concerns.

In this photo, Pumpkin is about two weeks shy of his third birthday. He is tiny, except for his head. His eyes are two different sizes, and the bridge of his nose and philtrum seem flatter than normal. These could be signs of fetal alcohol syndrome, or they could be nothing. I've been stressing about the possibilities for months; concerned about his health, concerned about my ability to handle whatever his issues are. I'm terrified of accepting him and I'm terrified of turning him down.

Later that afternoon, when I express my concerns to our facilitator and the orphanage director, the room suddenly fills with people. I've probably offended some of them, but that's not the point. They assure me that I'm wrong, that the mother was not a drinker (the director apparently met her to get her to relinquish rights), he is small, but his development has been consistent (a good sign).

On the ride home, our facilitator is frustrated, not so much with me, but with the FAS stigma, at the drawing he says that has been published in America to represent FAS children, he says that reports of FAS are much greater than the reality. Viktor is characteristically blunt and honest, but I have no way of knowing if what he is saying is only opinion.

That night at the hotel involves a lot of crying. Piper thinks the child will be fine, I am not sure. I go down to the hotel's business center to contact the doctor at NEMC, but I look at the facts of Pumpkin's medical exams and I realize they are not going to be able to tell me much more than I already know. A part of me is worried that they will discourage us from adopting him, and that I wouldn't be able to handle that either.

There is a certain amount of fatalism in the adoption process. You grow to believe, rightly or wrongly, that a child is meant for you; that the long and meddling fingers of the Universe (or God) put you together and you do what you have to. I tell myself that night, that if my plans for the future had to change because this little boy's needs turned out to be greater than we expected, then so be it. I mentally cross my fingers, and we move forward.

We return to the baby home the next morning and tell Viktor that we would like to proceed with accepting the referral. Members of the staff come out and smile at us; indicating approval across the language barrier.

Not until we are home, awaiting an adoption court date, do I see it. We have video tape that we are playing for Piper's parents, and on it Pumpkin is stacking blocks. They are new blocks for him, nesting cardboard boxes really; but he knows, without hesitation, to stack them biggest to smallest. When his tower is four or five blocks tall, he is left with the biggest block of all. He knows exactly where it goes and picks up the entire tower to place up on its new foundation. In that moment, I realize there is something special going on in his brain, and that it is good.

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Pumpkin has been with us four years this month. In his first year with us, he grew 5.5 inches, and the texture of his hair changed. The shape of his face has changed, and his eyes are no longer markedly different sizes (I've read this sometimes happens to babies who spend too much time lying on their backs - consistent with orphange life). This year gave us a huge growth in his communication skills, though we still struggle to get what's going on in his brain out in the open where he can use it.

He draws produces entire studies on things, designs cars, and car parts, and bridges. He can tell you that 4+4+4+5=17 without thinking much about it; facts are easy, as are things he can see and touch. Concepts are harder, and his social skills and adaptability to new situations are far behind his age group.

I've had more parents than I can count ask me if I was sure he was not autistic, and there are some days I wish I could say yes. At least then there would be more understanding on their part, as if the label was explanation enough. Instead we wade through a world of non-diagnosis and unexplainably quirky behavior, not always sure what he really knows.

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Pumpkin's first drawing for the cover of the church bulletin was printed for the Mother's Day service this year. Although I explained to him that what he drew would be reprinted for everyone to see, he didn't really understand what I meant until he saw it for himself. At the end of the service, our priest held him back from the children's recessional to introduce him to the adults in the congregation as a new artistic contributor. As he stood there waiting, he reached out to trace and retrace the cross carved into the side of the pew with his finger in a perfect illustration of how he interacts with the world.

I lost it then; sat in my own pew and cried for him. It hit me how hard it was going to be for Pumpkin in the coming years. I'm reasonably sure he'll come out okay on the other end, he's incredibly smart, but the road ahead will be rocky and full of potholes.

I've been where he is in my own way - different from the other kids, socially immature but still wiser than my years. It's a lonely place. One thing I know though, that my mother didn't, is how important the emotional support will be - for him, and maybe even for me.

The meaning of that promise I made in a St. Petersburg hotel room four years ago is becoming clearer. It extends, of course, to both boys, and I am relieved to find myself increasingly at peace with it.

I hope this helps

Out of the blue, I stumbled upon the blog of a family who is headed to Russia as I type this meeting their new child.

The process has gotten a bit tougher and more stringent since we went in 2003 and 2005. To make matters even more interesting, their little girl has Downs Syndrome.

The process has also gotten more expensive in recent years, and though some of their fees will be reduced or waived because they are seeking a special needs child, there are still travel expenses and a million little things to pay for along the way.

The Mom Crowd is hosting a raffle for the Balsis family to help defray the costs of bringing their baby home. Tickets are $5, the prizes are numerous and adorable and you'd better hurry because the drawing ends on September 24. Click the beautiful button below to participate.

Seriously, doesn't that photo get to you?  It gets me because my kids were around that age when we went to get them. God, I just want to hug them all!

Do over!

This morning I signed the papers accepting the recommendation that Pumpkin repeat Kindergarten. It wasn't easy to hear, but it wasn't a big surprise, either.

I wish that I could come up with some way to describe how I feel other than "disappointment." Not in Pumpkin, or in his teacher or school; I think everyone involved did the very best they could in the situation. It's more that I'm disappointed things didn't work out on the standard path.

I, of all people, should know better.

I know that Pumpkin's sensory issues and language difficulties are quite common for an internationally adopted kid, but what I know is not just about him or about adoption.

I know enough to understand that the "standard path" is kind of a myth, and that every kid develops and progresses differently. I know that this "grade by age" system is the way it's always been done, but it doesn't really work for a lot of kids. I look around at the kids in our church, and our town and school, and the blogs I read, and I see a lot of kids with "issues." Those issues often mean that they need a little extra help or accommodation or understanding from the school systems which are trying not to be one-size-fits-all in spite of our nation's current standardized testing mania. I know that last year our school asked that an extraordinary number of Kindergartners repeat this year and I think I know why.

The work that Tigger is doing in first grade is astonishing. He's had a small amount of homework four nights a week for the better part of this year. He's had a couple of larger projects including a multi-step autobiographical project that culminated in a grade-wide play, and his first (small-scale) research paper. Tigger's in a multi-age class that combines first and second grades, but a research paper?  Wow!

Smart as he is, there's no way that Pumpkin could handle that kind of pressure. This is the school system's way of ensuring that Pumpkin can handle the work and the social interactions without expensive special education services. This is their way of keeping him from getting lost in the system.  I think I'm okay with that.

In my life, I have encountered an extraordinary number of youngest brothers who have lost their way in life - my brother, my uncle, my husband's uncle, the youngest brothers of several friends. Some found their way back, others did not. I have no idea what sends these guys to the edge, when their older siblings did not have the same struggles, but I've seen it enough to worry about it. I'll never know if this is the thing that helps keep Pumpkin from getting lost, but it's worth a try to me.

My Russia

"Mama, will you draw my Russia?" asks the Pumpkin.

He and his father are the real artists in the family, but he insists and so I take the crayon and do my best attempt at something resembling St. Basil's or St. Petersburg's Church of the Spilled Blood. My attempts are always too asymmetrical, the onion domes too disturbingly phallic. But Pumpkin doesn't really know this, and is pleased.

His teacher told me a story of an international chamber music quartet that came to visit the school and play for the students. The musicians were from everywhere from Wyoming to Japan and they played music of all different cultures. When they announced a piece from Russia, Pumpkin once again said "My Russia!" and sat up with a smile. A boy from another classroom turned and said to him "I'm from Russia too." The two boys listened to the piece with rapt attention, happy to have connected with their heritage, and each other, in some small way.

It's hard to know what he remembers. He will often repeat the phrase "I was a baby in Russia," but the truth is that he didn't come to us until he was three years old. I think he knows more than he can really communicate.

Russia remains important to him, but he has crossed a threshhold. He no longer wants to be addressed by his Russian nickname. "I'm not __________, " he will say. "I'm __________!" The songs he sings now are all in English.

For both boys, Russia is a place of fancy buildings and stories. Most of their memories are wrapped up in the photos they've seen a million times. But a place you have lived in inevitably touches you and lives on inside of you ever after. Russia is a multi-dimensional study in contrasts; opulence and dilapidation; opportunity and struggle;  democracy and dictatorship. It is the coldness of the climate, and the gruffness of the people, broken open by the warm smile the director gives you when you say "Da. Yes, I will take this child, about whom I know so little, and make him my own. He will have a home with us."

Like their birthplace, the boys have struggled with transitions, clinging to the old, while trying to find their places in the new. Their challenges have brought me to the breaking point more than a few times. But more and more these days I can look at their little heads bent over their "work," or talk with their teachers about the difficulty they are having and the support they are getting, or watch the sheer joy they express when visiting with their grandparents, and I can think  --

Thank God they're here.

__________________________________

This week we mark five years with Tigger and three years with Pumpkin as part of our family. We celebrate the growth of both the children and the adults in the family.

All Those Other Children

After a difficult second day visting the Baby Home, Viktor, our facilitator and translator, arranged for us to observe Tigger in his group. We were concerned about his complete lack of eye contact and wanted to see know he got on with the other children and the caretakers of his group. The plan was for us to sit unobtrusively in the back of the room and watch.

As honored as I was by this opportunity,* I was also terrified. What if I fell in love with a different child in his group? Would we try to adopt both of them? Would I have to choose between them? Would the other child even be available for adoption?

Armed with snacks for T (giving your child food is part of the bonding process) in our duffel, we were ushered into the little room that served as their dining room, and classroom. It looked like any preschool classroom, tiny tables and chairs, shelves full of "developmental" toys, primary colors. Unobtrusive wasn't going to work. In preparation for our visit, his caretakers had gotten him off the potty first and he was alone in the classroom when we walked in. He stopped what he was doing and stared at us. At first I thought he recognized us, but then other children came in. One by one, they came zipping into the room, saw us, stopped and stared. Even as they moved into their activities (the caretakers do what they can to help the children develop motor skills and on this day it was sorting blocks and stringing beads), the children would steal glances at us.

Developmental work carried on for about 20 minutes until T's caretakers, seeing that he wasn't doing much of anything, moved all the children to the larger playroom where they could run around. They formed a train and danced around the room. We may have wanted to see T in his regular surroundings, but his caretakers wanted him to make a good impression. Piper and I moved to the playroom and several of the children approached us looking for attention. "Can we play with them?" I asked? Yes.

T was very deliberately hanging out on the other side of the room, away from us. The smallest child in the group came up and fussed at me. I picked him up and held him for a while. Every time I tried to put him down, he would cry. So I held him until something else attracted his attention and he wriggled down. At some point I realized that he had extra thumbs.

A truck lumbered by the orphanage and many of the children ran to the window. I helped some of the kids up to the windowsill where they could stand. The baby home's nearest neighbor was some kind of junkyard and the trucks going by all day provided the children with some entertainment. T pushed up a large foam block and stood on it to see out the window on the far side of the room. Eventually one of the children spotted a bird and a caretaker and several of the kids started making bird noises. In an effort to protect them from illness, the children had not been outside for several months so this was literally their window to the world.

The children (except T) were clearly thrilled with the extra adult company and would come over to show us something they were playing with or to play with my rings. One little girl with short, sandy, hair  did make an impression on me, the most outgoing of the group, but I decided it was time to interact with my son.

I walked across the room to get him, sat down with him, and tried the only thing that had gotten him to smile the day before - a couple of rounds of Trot, Trot to Boston. Thankfully, it worked because Viktor came up and told me we were being "observed" by someone from one of the Ministries who would testify for us in court as to how we interacted with our child.

A few moments later I told Viktor that he would have to get someone to explain T's daily routine to us, so we could make him as comfortable as possible when he came home.

The caretakers told the children it was time to clean up. T joined his group in putting away the toys (we'd have to remember those words in Russian). When it was time to eat he was the first to scoot back into the classroom for his bowl of red cabbage soup and cup of tepid tea.

Back in the car Viktor asked us formally if were were ready to accept the referral for the child.

We were.

At the hotel, I realized how utterly exhausted I was after that visit. I had no idea how emotionally draining the whole experience would be. All those other children, what would happen to them?  Most were in very good health in spite of their small size. How many would find homes, and what would become of the ones who didn't?

By many estimates, there are some 600,000 children in orphanages across Russia. It's a number almost impossible to fathom. Many of them are not orphans at all, but have living parents who cannot afford to care for them. And that's just Russia, it's not counting the children in China and India, Africa and Latin America, or the thousands in the foster care system here in the States. Whose children are they?   

Sometimes I think I started this blog less for the two children who came into our home and family and more for the ones who didn't.

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*I don't know how common this is. Our social worker expressed some surprise that we were allowed to do this, but I have also spoken with other parents who have been given tours of their child's living and sleeping quarters.

Orphanage #6

Our second day at the baby home did not go as well as the first.

From the moment we started up the stairs I thought the place felt different. We could hear a child crying in behind a door somewhere and when they brought T. to see us, he was clearly agitated about something. He seemed more frightened of us than the day before and he would not make eye contact. We finally engaged him with one of my silver rings and a few rounds of “Trot, trot to Boston.”

On our second visit we were due to speak with the head doctor of the orphanage. Viktor ushered us into the doctor’s office where we waited, and waited. Viktor returned and sat with us. “On this day you would expect to talk to the doctor to get the medical information for the child. Today there is no doctor here to speak with you… but there is a very good reason…. Today one of the children in the orphanage died. All the doctors are at the hospital….”

Stoic Viktor. I never could tell whether he was actually broken up about it or just hesitant to tell us. I like to think it was the former.

We did eventually get to speak to the doctor, who gave us more in depth information about T.’s medical history - very healthy, only sick twice in his two years there, normal growth patterns. There were comments on his social status - a two-year old “leader” in his group.

I voiced my concern over T.’s lack of eye contact on our second visit. It was as if we had to start all over with him and I wanted to know that he had formed an attachment of sorts with his caretakers or groupmates (of course at that age toddlers don’t really play with other children, so this would be harder to tell). Viktor insisted that T.’s reaction had more to do with the fact that we came to visit just before mealtime and the child was afraid he was going to miss his lunch. “Vova,” Viktor said, using T.’s Russian nickname, “likes to eat.”

To our surprise, Viktor arranged for us to see T. in his group setting. But that is an experience for another post.