The First Visit

We left the capital city this morning, to drive to meet Denny in his region.  The windy and chilly morning meant more people were driving to work instead of walking, so we were stuck in traffic until we made it far enough out of the city.

Thanks to traffic, we finally made it to the orphanage at 10:30.  We could see it from the main road leading to the small city, sprawled out on the side of the mountain, beyond all the communist-era block tower housing.

We pulled up to the orphanage, and our translator told us that there were two orphanages in the same building: the baby house for ages 0-3, and the second was for ages 3-7.  I assumed he would be with the older kids, but we entered the baby house, and went to the director's office.

A few minutes later, in came a little boy with a head full of light brown hair, carried by his caretaker.  I cannot describe the moment where the picture becomes a person, but he was just beautiful!  Within a few moments, everyone decided it would be best to move to the playroom. 

We made our way to the large room, and found several other small children playing.  The other caretakers took the children into another room, so we were alone with our translator and one caretaker, who was in and out of the room.  He loves to be held, especially to hold your hands.  Even when I carried him, he kept trying to get me to give him both my hands, without understanding that I was using one hand to keep him on my hip.

After about half an hour, he started to calm down a lot, not that he was hyper or excited before, but you could just watch him melt.  The caretaker said this is what he needs: to be held and worked with and loved all the time, not just the hour that she can give him each day.

When we went back in the afternoon, Denny was carried into the hall and handed to me, and we made our way back to the playroom.  He was excited to see us, and was actually willing to walk with me, whether it was holding his hands and leading him or putting him in the ball pit and calling "I-dee" (phonetic spelling for 'come on'). 

He danced to music, played in the ball pit, climbed the stairs, and walked around, as long as his hands were in mine, or working to get his hands in mine.  He showed off his speech, which was only "I-dee" and his name.  By the end of our afternoon visit, he was babbling quite a bit, which is very good.  Three more visits with my boy... I am so dreading leaving him here, but so looking forward to bringing him home!

(I know you all want to see pictures, but this goes back to January, when we signed a privacy agreement with our agency not to publicly share photos.  So, give me a few months, when the kids are legally ours, and I'll post more pictures than you can count!)