Clingy Andrew

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Well, today is the day that we’ve been waiting for. Andrew is realizing that as soon as we change his shoes that we bought for him back to his orphanage sandals, like we do every visit right before we turn him back to his groupa, that his parents won’t be around for a while to spend time with him. This morning when changing his sandals, Andrew put up a fuss and when I picked him up to give Papa a kiss goodbye and to say Paka “goodbye” to Papa, he freaked. He pushed me away from him and screamed. Then he reached for Robert and Robert took him in his arms. Robert tried consoling him and then gave him a kiss to say goodbye and then tried to give him back to me to take Andrew back to the groupa (like I do at all of our visits), Andrew freaked and wailed again. We think he is associating our everyday goodbyes with me taking him back to his groupa and us leaving him. Usually, Andrew is fine when we return him back to the group, but today at both visits when we were about to return him he didn’t want us to leave him. I told Robert to take him up to the group for both visits since he acted the same way, and as Robert and Andrew were walking away from me he blew me kisses the whole time they were outside in view of me.



It is good to see that Andrew doesn’t want us to leave him. I was getting concerned that he was going to have some issues with him leaving the orphanage and his caretakers. I’m sure on some level Andrew will understand that he is not at the orphanage anymore once we take him home for good. Please keep him in prayer for a smooth transition and a happy one for him.



Today, during our afternoon visit, Andrew was walking toward the entrance gate to the orphanage. We spent some time at the gate telling him that next week we will be leaving in a taxi and taking him on a train ride to Kiev and then on a plane to go home. As we were at the gate, our taxi driver, Sasha came over to say hello to Andrew. Andrew was quite cordial with Sasha and of course shook his finger to say hello. Andrew was also saying his goodbyes to the caretakers that were leaving the orphanage for the day. As one of Andrew’s caretakers approached him, he wiggled in my arms to let him get down so he could run towards her to hug her. He gave her a hug and she said goodbye and walked out of the gate. He stood there in amazement watching her walk away from him. As she left he blew her kisses over and over again to say goodbye.