So hard to say Paka Paka (Bye-Bye)

Today’s visit started out the exact same as yesterday. Little Guy cried and cried. He would stop crying if I stood up and held him, but if I sat down at all he would cry. Eventually my back started to hurt so I decided it was time to show him who was boss :o) I sat on a bench by the window and he began to whimper. I let him whimper for awhile and finally he must have decided I wasn’t giving in. He pushed himself out of my lap and grabbed the little bowl of treats we had set out. From that moment on, we had such a great visit. He even showed us his sense of humor. Our visit lasted for about 2.5 hours. About two minutes before we had to leave he really warmed up and started to play with us instead of the toys. He would slide off a chair into my lap and smoosh his little face against mine. Then we discovered he loved to be lifted into the air. It was wonderful to play with him like this, but just as we were really enjoying ourselves we were told it was time for him to eat lunch and time for us to leave. We walked him back to his group and gave him two photobooks of our family and a stuffed bear. We left the other toys for the whole group to play with. I then bent down and said his Russian name and put my arms out. He came to me with the biggest smile and gave me a huge hug. At that moment I felt my heart starting to break. Then Justin did the same thing. He has taken a little longer to warm up to Justin since they never see any men around the baby home. Then he put a smile on his face again and gave Justin a goodbye hug. My heart could barely take it. The tears began to pool in my eyes so we turned to leave so that we didn’t upset him.


On one hand it is even harder to leave him than it was with Blake because we know how excruciating the next few months will be. Plus he is so little that we will miss out on many things that he will hopefully learn in that time. But on another hand because he is younger, we don’t think he fully understands that we will be his parents like Blake did. We felt by leaving Blake we were betraying him, and it is different this time. We can tell Little Guy is one of the favorite in his group and is well taken care of. We will have to take comfort in that as we wait to return on trip two.


God has answered so many prayers on this trip and I almost feel selfish asking for more of Him. I will be praying ever day for Little Guy’s well being and for a court date to come before his second birthday!