4-4-16

*written by Ry while in country

Today is the day.

Today is the day the Lord has made.  So it’s a good one, no matter what.

Today is the day I get to meet my new son, N.  So it’s a great one, no matter what!

After a good, meaty breakfast at our hotel in which we made use of Google again to order extra toast and butter, Maggie met us at 9:30 to head off to the orphanage where N would meet me for the first time.  By taxi, the orphanage is about 5 minutes away from our hotel and costs about 4 lev.  We drove across the pothole laden roads, through a narrow, rust white gate, and onto a large, weedy, driveway leading to what looked to be like an elementary school mixed with a hotel.  The orphanage had been built in the 50’s, and you could tell.  But, it could have been worse.  All in all, it was clean and fresh, and the director of the orphanage, as well as the psychologist, was kind.  The director mentioned that I was young-that she had a daughter born in 1990-and I mentioned that now is the best time to adopt.

Within 5 minutes, a deep olive skinned boy with freshly cut black hair swept to the left side came into the room, carried by the orphanage psychologist.  He was wearing corduroy brown pants with a green flannel shirt that said “tractor” on the front and “I want to farm” on the back.  I wanted to snatch him and run, but I settled for waving and poking him, similar to how you would treat a cute 9 month old when the mother doesn’t want you to hold him.  The psychologist mentioned that his heart started beating when I got close, however, so I had to ease into the role of “friend” all the while wanting to be “Dad”.  We were taken to a corridor upstairs with three rooms on the left side, three windows on the right, a bathroom at one end and a slide at the other, and each room had a window to the other side of the wing of the building.  In the last room, there were many toys sitting on a short blue table and a larger carpet in the middle, and the psychologist sat N down.

I can’t describe the meeting in order, or in that great of detail, but here’s the gist.  N loves to test things out with his mouth or by tapping them against something to see what sound it makes.  As he ate a yellow Chevy truck, he spun the wheels with his left fingers.  He made eye contact with me as a friend when I started tapping a hollow box with my finger-he became interested and started to tap the box in turn with me.  We took N to the window as the psychologist left, leaving Maggie and I by ourselves with N.  Outside he was able to see cars and a playground and some people working and playing; I was trying to say and sign everything I saw, just to show N how big of a world there was and how much he could learn, but as he sighed one time, I could see he had an idea of how big the world was, and there was more pressure behind his sigh than anyone his age should have.

N loves to fly.  I got on my back, lifted him up and he flew a few feet above the ground, and he flew straight into my heart as he smiled back at me every time I gave him a “Boink” on the forehead, or when I gave him a “Nosy-Nosy”.  He walked with my help from room to room, not quite enjoying the slide, but loving the sound that a metal door makes when it opens too wide into a plaster wall.  After discovering that he loved that sound so much, every door became a distraction and he wanted to make the big “Boom” sound he heard on the first door.  Once he realized that Maggie and I were trying to get him to be done with the doors, he went back to eating his hollow box that we started with.  But this time, he started rolling the box. He rolled it a little at a time, seemingly innocent, until we realized he was rolling the block towards the door so that he could sneak his way into banging the door!  He liked to stretch (thank you “MyGym” for teaching me how to do stretches with kids) and he liked to lay on his back and bicycle with his feet.  He also liked giving kisses to the sheep puppet-but his favorite thing, by far was flying.

N had to go eat lunch however, so Maggie, Dad, and I met for lunch at Dublin (apparently Irish pubs are in Bulgaria, too).  Lunch was very good-I got very happy when I learned that Bulgaria had an award winning beer named “Zagorka” (which is very good, by the way) and that Bulgarian food is traditionally meaty (which is also very good, by the way).

Back at the orphanage at around 4, Maggie and I were met at the door by a nurse (one of many who works the orphanage while the director and psychologist are gone for the day).  Behind her were the faces of the children who did not get to meet their future dad that day, and looked at me with eyes full of tentative and scared hope.  And in front of them was N, handed to me by the nurse.  It didn’t take too long for him to remember Maggie and I, and he liked to look at the videos we took of him that morning, and he pointed at himself and me on the camera as he remembered.  The 70 deg F sunny weather made it possible to play outside, and after putting on a jacket with a missing button, N, Maggie, and I set off to try each of the decades old slides and swings.  We walked to the edge of the yard where we could see cars on the other side of the fence; N just watched them attentively with his eyes, turning his head as the busses and big trucks sputtered by.  Again, what he seemed to love most and what would always make him smile was flying in my arms, and me being a junkie on his smile already obliged as much as I felt was good for him.  He attempted to explore some of the play-pieces, and he was “meh” about the slide, but apparently I need to buy a bunch of old, dry rotted toy drums.  We found one such drum in the playground, and when I kicked it he made a scoffing sound, almost like he thought he could do better!  So, I swung him down to the drum and his legs drug past, kicking the drum, and he started to cackle.  Bubble burst out of his mouth with slobbery joy as he looked at me and asked with his eyes again and again to kick the drum.  6 o’clock came fast, and as I walked back to the doors of the orphanage, N yawned and laid his head on my shoulders to take a rest.  And finally, when I leaned to give N back to the nurse, he leaned back into me and reached asking me not to let him go. 

So naturally, after 4 more days of this, I will have one problem:  How in the world am I going to let him go for 5 more months!?!?!?