Visiting Day #5

Monday, September 26, 2011
Visiting Day #5

On Sunday our facilitator/lawyer emailed us and asked us how things were going. I responded and in my response I mentioned that Alexei’s driving was unsafe and scared us. So our facilitator/lawyer called our driver and told him to drive “more quietly.” (LOL) Well, it worked! We only feared for our life once today (and that wasn’t his fault – the other person didn’t use a turn signal.) His driving was MUCH slower, he didn’t pass nearly as many people and when he did he passed safely. Thank you Tatyana! I now feel like we will leave this region alive.

Brian and I arrived early to the institution  (despite much slower driving) and passed Sterling’s groupa on the way in. Monday must be yard work day because ALL of the boys were outside helping to rake leaves, bag leaves, pull weeds, etc. Even Sterling helped, by eating dirt. His nanny took him upstairs and washed him up and brought him back down to us.  The nurse came out of the nurses’ station (a new nurse) and told us he had a runny nose (like we didn’t notice the snot pouring out of his nose on our own…)

Sterling's nanny had given us the blanket so we took the blanket outside (it was fairly chilly this morning -under 60 when we arrived) and spread it out in the sun. But then, that same nurse came out and asked us to not let him sit on the ground because his nose is runny and she told us he needed to be on a bench. I don’t know this nurse and she isn’t my favorite person. Sterling HATES sitting on the benches. It is all they let him do – when his groupa is outside playing he sits on the benches. So aside from him not feeling well and being cranky about that, he was cranky because he had to stay on the bench too. Joy. Not the best of our visits for sure. And to top that off I wasn’t feeling so great either.

We had a snack (we took a cookie today!) and played with the slinky some. At the store yesterday I bought bubbles so we played with those too. He really loved that. He got super excited and that amounts to lots of screaming. J We got up and took a few walks but got dirty looks from a nanny with a group of older boys because the nurse had talked to her before she went inside.  It was a low key day and we didn’t stay for very long (about an hour). He was cranky and I didn’t feel great either and having been confined to the bench didn’t help. However we did manage to get some smiley pictures!

I like this one!

He loved the bubbles. But another boy was not being watched and came over and spilled them all. So we will have to get more because he spilled the whole bottle...

Sterling cried today. Twice. :( The first was when he got his leg stuck in the bench (he was facing backwards with his feet dangling out). He tried to get his legs out and he couldn't. He wasn't "stuck" but he couldn't figure out how to maneuver his legs free. So that caused some crying. Then when we took him in as we went to leave - we couldn't find the director or his nanny so we stuck our head in the nurses' station. His nose was running so she told me to come in with him and sit down. The minute I walked in that room he started crying and suquirming. Obviously not a fan of whatever goes down in there. We sat on the bed in the "clinic" and she popped saline drops in his nose. That led to crying bout number 2. :( I'm ready to spring him. It's getting hard to have to leave him there. They are very good to him and I don't have any complaints about the institution at all. I'm just ready to bring him home.

He couldn't figure out how to turn himself around. We let him try to figure it out but don't worry I saved him!

On a side note, as we were going inside for the day we walked around the outside of building looking for his groupa.  At one point we approached our car and our driver got out (just to see him) and apparently everyone thought we were going to take off with him. LOL. One of the OLDER boys (in his 20s maybe) asked what we were doing but we couldn't answer so we just waved. In hind sight I'm sure he thought we were waving goodbye (it's all pretty funny actually.) We kept walking until we got to the back door and still no groupa so we walked in that way towards the nurses' station. As we were walking down the hallway, one of the nannies (unsure if if was a nanny or someone else) followed behind us with angry clacking of her heels. Once she realized we were turning down the main hallway she left but I find this amusing. Especially since we've seen 3 boys walk out of the front gate and no one has done anything. Anyway, they realized we weren't taking off with him. No one ever said anything to us about it and it wasn't a big deal, but it was interesting to say the least.

We did manage to get a few decent pictures and we are now “home” where I plan on resting.  I meant to post yesterday but Brian and I were kicked out of the apartment for 3 hours while the landlady cleaned it. She did a great job and it’s nice to come home to a clean apartment – but it Is hard to stay out for 3 hours. LOL. I’ve included some of the “interesting” pictures I was going to write about yesterday!

Our toilet paper is hot pink. LOL.

These are our apartment keys...

Sorry this blog is boring and short – but not every day is exciting!