The train lulled Mr. Na to sleep but some time before midnight, our compartment became oppressively hot with the four of us (Koko shared our compartment) sharing the small space. Mr. Na began to stir and Pa and I were merely dozing the entire time, worried that he would wake up and be frightened by his new surroundings. I got out of my bunk and reached for Mr. Na’s glow in the dark binky and offered it to him. Even though he didn’t use a binky in the hospital, we thought it might aid in comforting him while we finished our journey. He seemed pretty content with it until he realized there wasn’t any food on the other end of it, so he began to whine. I gave him some juice, which he sucked down pretty fast, but still acted dissatisfied and fussy. So I opened a jar of baby food and fed it to him, which seemed to calm him down for a bit. The more awake he became, though, the more frightened he became. Even though he was hungry, he still squirmed and whined until he finished his strained carrots and began to escalate his cries. Koko woke up and hopped down from her bunk, putting her hand on his tummy and speaking to him softly in Russian. She sang a lullabye in Russian that did the trick, and he was out cold within minutes.

Pa and I, on the other hand, remained on alert–as if something horrible would happen to Mr. Na if we fell asleep. And so we cuddled together in Pa’s bunk so we could speak softly without disturbing Koko or Mr. Na. Klas met us at the train platform the next morning and we climbed into our first drivers’ car. Our first stop was a new apartment, where we could deposit our luggage, wash up and get ready for our appointment at the medical center. Mr. Na had to be cleared by an American Embassy-approved doctor in Kiev before we could receive his travel visa, and so, despite our weariness, we went to the hospital where a physician gave Mr. Na a thorough examination. The doctor wrote a few notes in his visa application, primarily that he had been in the hospital for bronchitis and chicken pox, but other than that, he seemed relatively healthy.

Our appointment at the embassy was the next day, so Klas and Koko took us back to the apartment where we made up a little bed for Mr. Na in the living room and Pa and I crashed in the bedroom. We slept for a few hours until we heard the llittle guy stirring, and we figured he was hungry since it was approaching dinnertime. Pa said he’d find a convenience store outside, where he would look for spaghetti, since we had a full kitchen and it was something we figured Mr. Na would enjoy.

While he was gone, I decided to give Mr. Na a bath. I ran the water in the bathtub and checked to make sure the water wasn’t too hot. Then I went in to the living room to play with Mr. Na. After five minutes, I came back to the bathroom and shut off the tap, calling him into the bathroom. As soon as he got there, I showed him the tub and told him I was going to give him a bath. Keep in mind, I know very little Russian, and Na knew no English–but I had a feeling with all of my hand gestures, he’d get the idea.

As soon as I helped him off with my clothes, I plunked him in the tub–and a split second later, he howled and writhed in a desperate attempt to get out of the tub. Once I reached in to try and keep him from squirming, I felt the icy water and realized my mistake. I had put the kid in a freezing cold bath. Strike one for my parenting skills. Here I was trying to gain trust from the little guy, I anything I had built up in the ten precious days of knowing him had vanished within seconds. I pulled the plug from the drain and lifted him out, wrapping him up in a huge towel and hugging him close for warmth. Once the water had gone down, I started again, although at that point, the little guy wanted nothing to do with me or the tub. I gave up trying, put a pair of warm pajamas on his still cold body and promised him I’d never do that again.

Pa was greatly amused when I recounted the story during our spaghetti dinner. The spaghetti itself was fine but the sauce was loaded with sugar, almost giving it a ketchup taste. We skipped the sauce and loaded a big plate up for Mr. Na, who took the bowl and proceeded to bury his face in it. By the end of dinner, whatever spaghetti didn’t make it into his tummy was in his hair and on his pajamas. Still, there was no way I was going to try the bath again.

After dinner, we washed up, giving Mr. Na a wipe-down with a washcloth. We put him back on the futon in the living room, surrounded it with our luggage so that he wouldn’t fall out, and dragged ourselves to bed, knowing that the next day would be as chaotic as the last few. We would have our embassy interview, lunch with Klas, and then board a train to Warsaw, Poland, where we would pick up Mr. Na’s visa to enter the United States.

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