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Breaking out of his shell

Feb 15th, 2010
by Zendette.
3 comments

Matan at a playground with sand

Now that he’s beginning to feel better, and has become acclimated to our home and immediate surroundings, Matan seems like an amazingly happy little boy. His needs at this point are pretty simple and straightforward. He needs healthy food and lots of one-on-one affection and cuddlies.

Exploring our park

I know I’ve mentioned it in previous posts, but it amazes me how much Karen and Matan seem to love each other. It seems that Karen would rather come home and play with Matan than spend time with girlfriends. She wants to show him off to adults, but gets jealous if her friends pay him too much attention. I’m not sure if she’s jealous of the attention he’s getting, or that other children are taking up his attention span when she would rather he focused only on her. She even seems to want to prove that she’s a better mother than I am. She would be thrilled to take over his feeding and changing and bathing and all the other activities she associates with caring for him.

Matan has lots of toys and books at different levels, gratis Karen. He is calmer than Karen, and I’ve been able to sit with him for up to 5 minutes with a board book. He especially likes one book with animals and fuzzy fur that he can touch. He loves rubbing his face in different textures. When we go for walks, he likes to look at the grass, trees and shrubs. But what he really enjoys is putting his whole face into a leafy bush or directly against the grass so that he can feel the textures. I took him to the playground yesterday. He liked the swings and carousel, but best of all, he loved playing with dried leaves that had accumulated on the ground. He also loves touching sand. Luckily, we have a lot of sand here.

Meeting the grupa and seeing the inside workings of Lugansk Baby Home

Jan 5th, 2010
by Zendette.
5 comments

We are beginning to feel right at home when we visit Matan.  As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, we had the rare opportunity to play with him while his entire grupa was there.  We arrived a bit early, and found that what we thought was a special room for foreigners, actually doubles as a larger playroom for the kids.   

When we arrived he was there with all his buds.  The ratio of caretakers to children was very good, between 2-3 children per adult.  Most of the caretakers were interacting with the children in a positive manner, with play, dance and physical contact.  Overall, very impressive.  The children were a mixture of healthy and some with Downs.  All were playing quite nicely together. 

We were invited to play in  same room since our alternate playroom was not available.   Matan showed immediately that he wasn’t pleased to be sharing his special visit with the rest of the grupa.  He threw himself on the ground and screwed up his face in the closest thing I’ve yet seen to a tantrum from him.  In this photo, he is doing the only rocking I’ve seen yet.  Many of the children came up to us for attention, but once I gently, but firmly pointed them in another direction, and maintained my focus on Matan, he slowly began to relax.  Not so with Karen.  She got really freaked out by all the small children coming up to her and touching her.  She “escaped” by climbing on the furniture and sitting high enough that they couldn’t reach her.  She came back a few times to try and play with Matan, but each time, she ended up whispering that she was scared by all the children touching her.  

This second photo shows one of the caretakers holding two children while “dancing” with a third.  I think it is a really good shot that indicates the overall level of care shown by the staff.  The whole grupa returned to their room after about 45 minutes, and we remained with Matan and Karen.  As posted yesterday (sorry for the repeat), we had a wonderful response from him when we gave him a jar of mashed fruit which he quickly polished off.  He then proceeded to eat the banana we offered.  He even took the bottle, although it is clear that he still isn’t quite sure why we keep giving it to him.  We also saw him put his thumb in his mouth.  We never saw any thumb sucking with Karen.  None of the children use pacifiers.

I didn’t feel comfortable taking photos of the caretakers and children at play since we were unable to ask their permission.  But Karen has become quite the photographer, so I gave her the camera and he took most of these photos.  Pretty good for an almost five year old!

Later in the day we went shopping and bought Karen a new winter coat.  Here she is showing off as the girl in red.  The photo was taken just outside of the building we’re living in.  I promise some more photos, maybe tomorrow, of our neighborhood and apartment to give an idea of what the “better” part of Lugansk looks like.

Visiting Matan

Jan 2nd, 2010
by Zendette.
14 comments

As we continue our visits to the baby home and spend 1-2 hours playing with Matan, we learn more about his likes, dislikes, and overall personality.  He’s not a big eater, we see that already.  On alternate days, I’ve brought mashed fruit, yoghurt and cookies.  One or two bites is usually all he’ll eat before turning his head away. 

Matan’s an easygoing little boy, and doesn’t make whining or complaining noises when he’s not happy, he simply turns away.  As some of you know, baby home children come with their own set of issues.  He rarely makes eye contact and doesn’t know how to suck on a bottle.  Staff feed them with large metal spoons. 

The book, “Attachment in Adoption” recommends giving children a bottle, even if they are as old as 7 years, since they were never nursed and never held closely and fed while making eye contact.  Matan did manage to suck on the bottle, twice, but he still prefers a cup and turns his head away from the bottle.  Karen drank out of her identical bottle in front of him to  show him how she does it.  Slowly, slowly….

The photo below shows him smiling, but  just looking off into the distance.  He’s still overwhelmed by all the attention and all the fun stuff to do in the special playrooms for foreigners.  Inway their own play areas, there isn’t much in the way of toys.