Contact

We finally decided on our game plan. We’re going to stick it out here in Arkalyk for the duration. No India, no beaches, no skiing in Almaty…. no two additional 15 hour train rides followed by more flights. What this also means is that we can start seeing Tuma every day. We have permission from the Orphanage for a daily visit until our official bonding time which is scheduled to begin on April 12 when we will have two – two hour visits a day. The other part of this plan is that Jaden and I will leave Lynne and Tuma after the initial court date (I am required to be here for the court date) and head home. The court date should be the last week of April, so we will be home pretty much on schedule, the first week of May. For Lynne, it will be another month with 2-3 weeks in Arkalyk (with Tuma living with her in the flat instead of the orphanage) and then 1-2 weeks in Almaty getting final paperwork and documents sorted out.

Yesterday (Sunday 3/25) was the first day we started seeing Tuma. Unfortunately, Lynne is pretty sick, and she can’t go to the orphanage. So Jaden and I went and had a crazy few hours. Tuma won’t stay alone with us (who can blame him) so after about 5 minutes of him crying in my arms, the caregivers allowed us to go downstairs with him to where a group of about 15 other kids between 2-4 are. The caregivers were “reading” to the kids and we were seated nearby like honored guests. The kids were very interested in us. After a few minutes of this, playtime started and all hell broke loose. The kids started running around, throwing things, and I got really engaged with a few of them. Once they saw me playing, a lot of them wanted to play with me…. But not Tuma. Tuma was off on his own, not interested in coming anywhere near me or Jaden, and I chose not to worry about it for that day. Jaden was playing like a madman with some of the bigger kids (probably 4 year olds that he was twice as big as) and they were really getting into it. I had to keep reminding Jaden to mellow out and be gentle as the kids wanted to play rough, but one push from Jaden and they would go flying. We left the orphanage and got at least a Paka (bye bye) from Tuma and knowing we’d be back the next day.

Today we made our first real contact. Lynne is still sick, really a bummer, and Jaden and I went to the orphanage ourselves again. Once again, they tried bringing in Tuma by himself, with one caregiver. I couldn’t believe it, these people deal with these kids every day, haven’t they figured out that they can’t just drop him with us and expect him to be ok with us? Or maybe they just don’t have the time to care. But they do seem to care. So after a few minutes and me pointing “downstairs” (we have no translator with us as we are not “officially here”) they tell us to come downstairs.

This time they put Tuma in a separate play room with Jaden and I, and a little girl, probably about 12 years old, who is likely a volunteer. She’s there to speak Russian to Tuma if I can’t get him to calm down. Amazingly, and for the first time, after about 1-2 minutes he stops crying and let’s me just snuggle him in my lap as we sit together on the floor. I massaged him for about 20 minutes and he just sat there watching Jaden and started to feel comfortable with us. Then we found a great toy for him, one of those ring stackers where he can just put the rings on the post, and he did that for about a half hour uninterrupted as Jaden and I watched and helped and even took a few pictures.

We have finally made a connection. I say finally, even though its only been 4 times that we have been with Tuma, but it seems like we’ve been trying for so long. I know we still have a very long way to go, and each day for awhile we will likely have to start from scratch with him. He seems like a real crier, more than the other kids. But most of the other kids in his group are older than him, so who knows what’s really going on. This might be his current nature, it could have something to do with us, it could be lots of different things. But today, once he calmed down, he was just a little baby boy, innocent and playful, nervous for sure, but obviously ready to become part of our family and we’re ready for him.

Peace,

Out,

Bruce