Monday, January 21, 2013

Let's Play Outside!

This morning I brought a little snowsuit to try on Maxim. In December, I measured his arms and lets to see if I could find something at the market here that would fit him.

His problem area, and don't we all have one of those, is his poor bloated tummy. 28 inches. I was worried that the suit would fit him everywhere else but the tummy.

Since we were trying out the snowsuit, why not ask to play outside for a bit? Maxim often looks longingly out the window in our visitation hallway. I bet he would love to go outside!

I put my lovely facilitator, Masha, on the phone with the ladies in charge, to do my asking for me. The answer was "yes, but only for 10-15 minutes. We don't want him to get cold."

I had a feeling he might not want to come back inside so I saved our outing for the end of our time. A sweet young nanny thought I needed help in dressing Max, (as if) so we teamed up to stuff him into the suit and put on some fleece lined boots. Then they rolled his wheelchair into the hall for me to use. I won't go into my feelings about the wheelchair now.

I plopped Maxim into the chair and we headed out the side door and down the ramp. We barely zipped the suit up and he sat like an overstuffed animal, unable to even move his arms.

My plan was to roll him around the building, because I really want to know what's back there! But as we headed to the left he started to whine. This was the path to his former home in the building next door. Was he traumatized by the transfer? Did he think I was taking him back?

I turned him around and headed back to where we had come from and parked him in front of a bench. He wasn't happy there either. I needed photos, so I quickly snapped some. Then I picked him up and took him for a little walk. He wasn't happy like that either. I tried putting him down to walk holding my hands. He attempted to sit down on the ground and that is a HUGE no-no here...and so I picked him up again.

Maxim, is whining loudly now and I'm thinking that the whole facility can hear him. I looked at my clock and ten minutes was up, thank goodness! I plopped his stuffed sausage behind into the chair and wheeled him up the ramp and back into the side door.

That's when it happened.

The whining stopped.

The ugly cry started.

I'm talking huge, authentic, sparkling tears hanging on his cute cheeks! And wail, oh he can wail! I had ladies all over us trying to get him out of the suit and happy again. And then I started to cry, too. I must be the very worst, meanest mom ever, in the history of the whole world. I held Max and snuggled him for a bit. Didn't really help.

One of the older ladies stopped in front of us and he practically leapt into her arms. "Paka!" She told him to tell me bye-bye. I walked out of that place with my tail between my legs today. These are the hardest days. He's mine, but not really, yet. Stink.

I'm still wondering if Maxim just didn't want to come inside so soon, or...

...perhaps

...you knows he's pretty bright, don't you?

...part of me wonders if he thought we were leaving that place forever today. I think he understands that will soon happen. I think that is why he was not happy anywhere we went on the grounds of the home. The more I consider, the more I think that he expected to leave with me today.

Soon, little bubs. Soon, I promise.

1 comments:

Leah Spring said...

Oh poor buddy! And mom! Oh, how I hated when I made Asher mad, and he would scream as if he was being murdered, and the nannies would come running to see what I'd done to him. They'd never made him so mad or heard him scream that way, they said. Hmmm possibly because he either 1) got whatever he wanted or 2) never had anything taken away from him because they didn't want to hear him scream!