Today is the 2-Year Anniversary of meeting our little monkey. We drove an hour outside of St. Petersburg in a cab with an inside temperature of about 95 degrees, braving their 2 lane roads that drivers treat as 4 lane roads. We headed up the crazy-steep snow-packed gravel road up to the orphanage. We walked through the doors into a beautiful historic sea-captain's mansion-turned orphanage, up the rickety not-up-to-code stairs, through the boiled-cabbage-scented hallways into a cute little playroom. Suddenly the doors opened and in the arms of his care-takers Roman was brought to us for the first time wearing... a little tux.
We were quick to get smiles and giggles out of him. We played with tons of toys, read him books, swung him around like an airplane. He was so unsure of who we were or why these strange-speaking people were there, but he accepted us. We went back the next day and smiled in recognition. We didn't go back to see him again until February 7th.
Today, Roman is a courteous, rambunctious, conversational, independent, athletic, generous, hysterical 3 1/2 year old. As I type this, he is playing "dance party" {as he calls it} behind me by banging the dog's stainless steel dishes together like drums. When I made eye-contact with him, he gave me a cheesy grin and ran over to body-slam hug me and say "Iloveyousomuch" {he links all those words together into one}. The other night he chose to sit with me instead of playing with other kids and when I asked if he wanted to join the others, he told me I was his "best friend." After I leave him at preschool and I'm half-way to the front door, I hear him calling me back because he forgot to give me "knuckles". Every night, he finds his way into our bed, snuggled right between Jason and I.
Yep! I'd say he's adjusted quite nicely!
1 comment:
what a sweet blog post...can't believe i almost missed it. Don't you wish you had the tux?
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