Happiness
Hi again. Wonderful days with Marie Aigerim. She is so alert and so happy.
Yes it looks like she likes me. You do see the bottle in my hand, don’t you? :) She is such a happy baby, everyone stops and makes her smile and I am so glad.
Yesterday we asked about the babies’ daily routine. Mashed potatoes and two baths and stewed fruit and two naps and I wrote it all down. Dr. Svetlana was glad to tell us.
We’ve seen miracles this week. Too much to process for now. You wouldn’t believe it. Of the children we met on Monday, we knew four by name: Idar, Aigarim, Anastasia and Esen. Anastasia was the first one we met, a beautiful blue eyed girl of three years. Esen is a big strong boy, healthy and dear. Idar has eyes and a mind that captivate, he was one I had the hardest time leaving. But Aigerim it was to be, and I feel I could not be any luckier. Maybe that’s why I’m not writing much. It’s a very happy, special private time.
When we arrived on Monday, we saw one adoptive family in a glimpse down a hallway – we haven’t seen them since, and by Tuesday we had met the other two families at Malutka. Both are American. The “senior” family has been here for almost three weeks, adding the tiny princess Adrianna. She is small and a fighter and they are the perfect parents for her – having already five children, they are veterans! Her skin is so clear it is almost transparent and her eyes are pure blue. The other family arrived the Saturday before we did, and are lighting up the world of their 20 month old daughter, Anya.
On Wednesday, the Spanish families came. Five or six families, a dozen or so people, and the babies went into grateful arms. When we walked into Baby Room 4 to get Aigerim on Thursday morning, Esen looked up at us and GRINNED. The gentle little boy had been comforted when sitting in one’s lap or arms, but had showed no expression. This same little boy looked up and grinned! You could tell something wonderful had happened to him. Sure enough, he had a family. Wow!
Aigerim, by now an old hand at parent-wrangling, also turned in her walker at our voices and grinned. We grinned back: guess which baby had a drawer open and was trying to reach inside. That’s my girl!!
The sight is hilarious in the baby room. When the babies are active, they are placed in the wheeled walkers and they are masters of the device. They crowd themselves up around the feeding table like a school of circular plastic fish or follow the caregivers or come to see what is going on. A sandbag-like pad is laid in the doorway to the anteroom to keep the young drivers inside.
We spend the first part of each visit inside, crawling and playing and making more stupid noises than we ever thought we could make. Pretty much the only way to make Aigerim unhappy is to set her down when she doesn’t want to be set down. Well, ok, I found another way to make her unhappy but we’re not there in the story yet. One of the other families said: have you heard, Idar has a family! You can’t imagine how happy we were, maybe, unless you’d seen the wanting look in his eyes. What a great kid. You can see how many good kids there are, and somehow I got exactly the right one for me. A little bit of yourself goes into each kid you see wanting a family, and so it feels like a little part of you has gone into that new family as well.
The second part of each visit, we try to walk outside. Aigerim, Miss Fussless, found the baby carrier to be just fine. The caregivers load her up with bonnet and another layer of clothing and out we go to do the circuit around the grounds.
Kind of like the old-fashioned promenade, you get to see and be seen. We saw Esen and his family, and then Idar in his new mother’s arms! We saw other families from the new group as well. Happy new parents holding the kids, still stiff and new (the parents) and kissing their heads. We are of course old hands by now :) at least in Malutka days.
On Thursday, I went alone to the orphanage in the afternoon. Aigerim, on only day four of knowing us, doesn’t really know that we are supposed to be there – I think – and so it is a delight for her if we are but perhaps not a disappointment if not. She is also only 7 months old so I suppose words like separation anxiety and not having it yet and stuff could be used. But it’s probably more that she has so many caregivers who come and go and tickle her fancy that we are just two more, albeit clumsier.
And after all, I have the afternoon bottle, so she may have missed Mitch but food was at hand and there you have it.
There are several caregivers in each baby room, but with laundry and food preparation and all, not every one is with the babies all the time. Mealtime, with a dozen babies ready and waiting hungrily for their food, is a speed drill. I fed Aigerim her bottle and there was no doodahing that day. Yet in the time she put her mouth around the nipple and worked it dry, the nanny on the other side of the table had fed two babies - at the same time. She hiked one baby into the crook of her left arm, popped in the bottle, propped it with her left hand; she held her right hand out with a bottle to a baby in a walker and he latched on. They were both done before Aigerim. (I timed Aigerim yesterday. Two minutes flat, start to end on the bottle. There is no goofing around when it comes to food.)
After the bottle, we played indoors. I found out I’d been had. One of the American families kept saying, oh, we saw her (Aigerim, before we arrived) and she was crawling all over the room.
Aigerim? We’d say, oh, no, she’s just learning to crawl, it’s so hard, she rocks and distresses. Maybe, we’d say to ourselves, they meant some other baby.
Nope. I’d been had. Someone has been funning us on the difficulties of crawling. Playing the “pick me up” chorus instead. Without Mitch as a potential picker-upper on the other side of the blanket, off went Aigerim. In fact, all my photos of her since then are video. Excuse me?, I said, proud as punch by her, “what are you doing?” Big grin.
She lolls over into movie goddess pose, then back onto hands and knees, then up to hands and toes. Not sure where hands and toes pose leads one, but she does it. I dared take off both sets of socks that day and saw that the baby actually does have toes. Nice ones. Five on each foot. The babies are kept pretty well bundled up, and if bathtime goes anything like mealtime, there is no doodahing around time to explore one’s toes. So she checked out her toes too. No replacement for Mitch, of course :)
Needed Mitch too to get into the baby carrier. One of the other families buckled me in, and out I went. In back I came to get the bonnet and the extra layer, grateful that I hadn’t been busted for child endangerment in the warm autumn weather. Previously, I’d carried Aigerim facing me, and the little thing looks like she’s going to twist her head off trying to look at what’s going on around us. So, brainwave for mom here, maybe I should try to put her into the carrier facing forward?
The carrier is not a Baby Bjorn, for little babies, it is an Ergo for babies from smallish to large. Facing inward works fine, her legs reach toward either side of my body. Facing outward, the back-now-belly pad is too wide and the baby ends up with her hips splayed about 210 degrees. That can’t be good. So, worming her around, I tried to pull her legs to cross in front of her inside the carrier.
And that’s when I learned what Aigerim sounds like when things are not just morally wrong (as in setting her down) but are WRONG (as in getting all mashed up in the baby carrier.)
We will travel facing inward now. She doesn’t mind twisting her head to look at things and is not mashed up in the carrier.
Walking time is very special. Cleverly, the program schedules parent visits to overlap with nap time, so the babies are tired and sweet and calm. I’m not ready to give up one minute of my time with her, so walking is a good way for us to be together and for her to fall asleep when she needs. It is so sweet to feel her against my chest, and listen to her breathing relax and deepen.
Photos would be nice for this story, no? They are on Mitch’s camera. Perhaps I should ask for them :)
Talk to you later, love to all
Bobi
PS to Jacqui The clothing says "Baby Gap size 3-6 months" -- and has firetrucks on it. The "boy" wardrobe you have already provided is going to be put to good use!
Yes it looks like she likes me. You do see the bottle in my hand, don’t you? :) She is such a happy baby, everyone stops and makes her smile and I am so glad.
Yesterday we asked about the babies’ daily routine. Mashed potatoes and two baths and stewed fruit and two naps and I wrote it all down. Dr. Svetlana was glad to tell us.
We’ve seen miracles this week. Too much to process for now. You wouldn’t believe it. Of the children we met on Monday, we knew four by name: Idar, Aigarim, Anastasia and Esen. Anastasia was the first one we met, a beautiful blue eyed girl of three years. Esen is a big strong boy, healthy and dear. Idar has eyes and a mind that captivate, he was one I had the hardest time leaving. But Aigerim it was to be, and I feel I could not be any luckier. Maybe that’s why I’m not writing much. It’s a very happy, special private time.
When we arrived on Monday, we saw one adoptive family in a glimpse down a hallway – we haven’t seen them since, and by Tuesday we had met the other two families at Malutka. Both are American. The “senior” family has been here for almost three weeks, adding the tiny princess Adrianna. She is small and a fighter and they are the perfect parents for her – having already five children, they are veterans! Her skin is so clear it is almost transparent and her eyes are pure blue. The other family arrived the Saturday before we did, and are lighting up the world of their 20 month old daughter, Anya.
On Wednesday, the Spanish families came. Five or six families, a dozen or so people, and the babies went into grateful arms. When we walked into Baby Room 4 to get Aigerim on Thursday morning, Esen looked up at us and GRINNED. The gentle little boy had been comforted when sitting in one’s lap or arms, but had showed no expression. This same little boy looked up and grinned! You could tell something wonderful had happened to him. Sure enough, he had a family. Wow!
Aigerim, by now an old hand at parent-wrangling, also turned in her walker at our voices and grinned. We grinned back: guess which baby had a drawer open and was trying to reach inside. That’s my girl!!
The sight is hilarious in the baby room. When the babies are active, they are placed in the wheeled walkers and they are masters of the device. They crowd themselves up around the feeding table like a school of circular plastic fish or follow the caregivers or come to see what is going on. A sandbag-like pad is laid in the doorway to the anteroom to keep the young drivers inside.
We spend the first part of each visit inside, crawling and playing and making more stupid noises than we ever thought we could make. Pretty much the only way to make Aigerim unhappy is to set her down when she doesn’t want to be set down. Well, ok, I found another way to make her unhappy but we’re not there in the story yet. One of the other families said: have you heard, Idar has a family! You can’t imagine how happy we were, maybe, unless you’d seen the wanting look in his eyes. What a great kid. You can see how many good kids there are, and somehow I got exactly the right one for me. A little bit of yourself goes into each kid you see wanting a family, and so it feels like a little part of you has gone into that new family as well.
The second part of each visit, we try to walk outside. Aigerim, Miss Fussless, found the baby carrier to be just fine. The caregivers load her up with bonnet and another layer of clothing and out we go to do the circuit around the grounds.
Kind of like the old-fashioned promenade, you get to see and be seen. We saw Esen and his family, and then Idar in his new mother’s arms! We saw other families from the new group as well. Happy new parents holding the kids, still stiff and new (the parents) and kissing their heads. We are of course old hands by now :) at least in Malutka days.
On Thursday, I went alone to the orphanage in the afternoon. Aigerim, on only day four of knowing us, doesn’t really know that we are supposed to be there – I think – and so it is a delight for her if we are but perhaps not a disappointment if not. She is also only 7 months old so I suppose words like separation anxiety and not having it yet and stuff could be used. But it’s probably more that she has so many caregivers who come and go and tickle her fancy that we are just two more, albeit clumsier.
And after all, I have the afternoon bottle, so she may have missed Mitch but food was at hand and there you have it.
There are several caregivers in each baby room, but with laundry and food preparation and all, not every one is with the babies all the time. Mealtime, with a dozen babies ready and waiting hungrily for their food, is a speed drill. I fed Aigerim her bottle and there was no doodahing that day. Yet in the time she put her mouth around the nipple and worked it dry, the nanny on the other side of the table had fed two babies - at the same time. She hiked one baby into the crook of her left arm, popped in the bottle, propped it with her left hand; she held her right hand out with a bottle to a baby in a walker and he latched on. They were both done before Aigerim. (I timed Aigerim yesterday. Two minutes flat, start to end on the bottle. There is no goofing around when it comes to food.)
After the bottle, we played indoors. I found out I’d been had. One of the American families kept saying, oh, we saw her (Aigerim, before we arrived) and she was crawling all over the room.
Aigerim? We’d say, oh, no, she’s just learning to crawl, it’s so hard, she rocks and distresses. Maybe, we’d say to ourselves, they meant some other baby.
Nope. I’d been had. Someone has been funning us on the difficulties of crawling. Playing the “pick me up” chorus instead. Without Mitch as a potential picker-upper on the other side of the blanket, off went Aigerim. In fact, all my photos of her since then are video. Excuse me?, I said, proud as punch by her, “what are you doing?” Big grin.
She lolls over into movie goddess pose, then back onto hands and knees, then up to hands and toes. Not sure where hands and toes pose leads one, but she does it. I dared take off both sets of socks that day and saw that the baby actually does have toes. Nice ones. Five on each foot. The babies are kept pretty well bundled up, and if bathtime goes anything like mealtime, there is no doodahing around time to explore one’s toes. So she checked out her toes too. No replacement for Mitch, of course :)
Needed Mitch too to get into the baby carrier. One of the other families buckled me in, and out I went. In back I came to get the bonnet and the extra layer, grateful that I hadn’t been busted for child endangerment in the warm autumn weather. Previously, I’d carried Aigerim facing me, and the little thing looks like she’s going to twist her head off trying to look at what’s going on around us. So, brainwave for mom here, maybe I should try to put her into the carrier facing forward?
The carrier is not a Baby Bjorn, for little babies, it is an Ergo for babies from smallish to large. Facing inward works fine, her legs reach toward either side of my body. Facing outward, the back-now-belly pad is too wide and the baby ends up with her hips splayed about 210 degrees. That can’t be good. So, worming her around, I tried to pull her legs to cross in front of her inside the carrier.
And that’s when I learned what Aigerim sounds like when things are not just morally wrong (as in setting her down) but are WRONG (as in getting all mashed up in the baby carrier.)
We will travel facing inward now. She doesn’t mind twisting her head to look at things and is not mashed up in the carrier.
Walking time is very special. Cleverly, the program schedules parent visits to overlap with nap time, so the babies are tired and sweet and calm. I’m not ready to give up one minute of my time with her, so walking is a good way for us to be together and for her to fall asleep when she needs. It is so sweet to feel her against my chest, and listen to her breathing relax and deepen.
Photos would be nice for this story, no? They are on Mitch’s camera. Perhaps I should ask for them :)
Talk to you later, love to all
Bobi
PS to Jacqui The clothing says "Baby Gap size 3-6 months" -- and has firetrucks on it. The "boy" wardrobe you have already provided is going to be put to good use!
posted by Bobi @ 8:14 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home