Day 5 - The OTHER one you've all been waiting for! :)

We had another awesome day!  This week is moving right along, and it's going to be over before we know it!  So glad we get to spend these precious moments with these amazing girls.  It's SO encouraging reading your blog comments and facebook comments - it keeps us going on the other side of the world!! 

Our morning started earlier today, we were picked up at 8:30 and headed over to Emily's baby house.  Like I mentioned yesterday, this is a branch of a very large baby house in the city.  We were taken upstairs to a play/therapy room that had a piano, a puppet theater and lots of toys that they invited us to use.  We were able to meet the psychologist (who is more like a therapist) and head doctor, and they answered some questions for us, and told us about her.  Developmentally she's doing amazing and they were pleased to tell us about how well she's doing.  Then they brought her in! :)  Oh my goodness, she's SO precious!  She was shy and reserved at first, trying to figure out who the strange lady walking toward her was. 

We sat down with her, and busted out the magic toy...the light up ball!  We bought two, one for each girl - and it's already been requested we try to buy some for each of the children in their groups or something if we can find enough - because the girls just LOVE them!

She started warming up to us more, and we started getting some great smiles!  I pulled out a few other toys for her to play with and she was a happy camper! :)   She's 18 months old, and is doing gret developmentally.  She is starting to talk, even pointed at Brandon and said the Russian word for man, has 12 teeth, is pulling up on things, and will walk holding on to your hands. Her caregivers say if you put her in a walker, she RUNS!  She's busy, inquisitive, and wants to explore everything!  She's pretty much amazing - and I think the pictures can speak for themselves once again! :)

She waves paka (bye bye) and at one point, I was holding her - and Brandon was standing next to us - and she turned to everyone else in the room, and waved bye bye to them - she was ready to go! :) Oh sweet girl if only it was that easy!!!  When the time came for us to go, they were trying to get her to tell us paka - and her little face fell and she looked SO sad.  She refused to wave, even when they were trying to hold her arm up.  We'll be back tomorrow sweet girl!! :) 

After we were done at her baby house, we came back to the apartment, and had a pretty long break before we were going to be picked up again.  But we were able to meet up with my friend Jessica and her new son Jonas!  They are here on their gotcha trip and we were able to have lunch together, which was really great!!!  We had lunch at a Russian buffet, that was great and she showed us where the big grocery store was!  We'll be going back to explore that store again soon!

Then we were picked up and headed back to Abigail's orphanage.   The weather was nice today, so we were able to see more of the city as we were headed out there.  As were heading out there, I realized I had left my camera in the apartment!!  Thankfully I had my phone in my purse, so I was able to get a few pictures on that.  (thank goodness for airplane mode, so I shouldn't have a crazy high phone bill!!)  Not nearly as many pictures today.  She was wearing the same little plaid dress as yesterday, and was VERY active today!! Wanted to move, and GO GO GO!!!   She had fun kicking and tossing things with papa today. We showed her the photo album with our photos, our house photos, family photos and our cat in it - and she just loved it!  SO proud of her photos, she was telling everyone in the room, showing it off. Pointing to us and to our pictures, then to herself and saying "mama, papa". It was pretty awesome.  She also wanted to kick the small balls from the ball pit - I was seriously impressed with her aim and coordination!  Kidsports soccer here we come! :)

There was a ministry official was was observing our visit with her today, and had a lot of questions for me, about how we will raise her, what type of education she will have, Abigail was trying to get my attention while this person was talking to me, and was kind of acting out - so it was a great opportunity for me to show her how we'll parent her/discipline her.  It was nothing terrible, just attention seeking behaviors - but she is SO smart, and learned so quickly when I showed her/asked her what I wanted her to do.  Our translator told us later that the official LOVED what I did, and thought it was a great way to teach her rather than just discipline/punish her.  Phew! :)  Here's the pictures we have from today! :)

Until tomorrow!  Paka paka!!!