Bonding Days 1 & 2

Well, finally the news you’ve all been waiting for…

We found the girls! Yesterday we went to the babyhouse here in Pavlodar and saw three little girls. The third one they showed us was Angela. Yep, Angela. How weird is that? She will be 3 on October 14 (happy birthday Granny!). She has a big sister, who is at a different orphanage, because the children age out of this one at 4. So we had to get more papers, etc. to go to the orphanage in Kachiry, which is an hour away. When we got to Kachiry, we met Yulia (which will be Julia when we get home). She was very sweet and quiet and serious. She and her sister do not look very much alike. We decided that we wanted to proceed with the bonding time and that counts as bonding day one.

So now we’re on bonding day two. It was funny how different the girls were today. Julia was not told yesterday that we were deciding whether or not to adopt her, only that we were visitors who wanted to play with a girl in the orphanage, but I’m guessing that she had it figured out, because she seemed very nervous yesterday. But today they had told her before we got there that Mama and Papa were coming, and she was all smiles and running to meet us and talking a mile a minute even though we couldn’t understand anything she said. Julia will be 6 on July 9. She and Nicholas had a lot of fun together, riding tricycles and sliding and laughing. When we left I asked Nicholas what he thought of his big sister and he said, she’s better than I thought she would be. So we’ll take that as a positive coming from him. Also she’s a lot taller than he is and he wasn’t happy about that. But he did let her take lots of pictures with his camera, which is a pretty big step for him. Sharing with no complaints. This sister thing could be really good for us! J

After we left Kachiry (which is a little bitty village) we drove the hour back home and this afternoon we went to the babyhouse here in Pavlodar to see Angela again. (We are still figuring out what to do with her name—2 Angelas in one family?) She also was different today. Yesterday, she was still and quiet and shy. When we left yesterday, she didn’t want them to take her from me. And today, when they asked her if she knew who I was, she said Mama and came running down the hall to meet me. Obviously she was feeling very at ease with us, because she showed her 2 year oldness, if that’s a word, after we had been there for close to an hour. She went into full test-mama mode. In the adoption world, that’s considered to be a good thing, though, because it means she is already starting to trust me enough to test me. After all, what 2 year old doesn’t test mama?

Julia is perfectly healthy, and other than perhaps a little fine-motor delay, which I admit I’m on the lookout for, she seems completely fine. She has been in the orphanage since just before she turned 4. Angela has been in the orphanage since she was 8 months, and she has a problem with her eyes. She can see, but one of them is crossed and will need surgery after we get home. Other than that, she has no physical problems. She is also potty trained! Oh, yeah! She does that crazy thing that Nicholas did when he was in the orphanage—when you hold her, she doesn’t hold on unless you actually put her legs around you. Even then she’s not really holding on. So we danced and spun a lot today to try to get her the feeling of holding on when I hold her. Both of them seem okay with physical contact, but do not initiate it. They loved the book we made with pictures of people from home and you’ll see the picture of Angela making the silly face that I was making in one of the pictures in the book. She did it over and over. It was hilarious. Okay gotta go! Bye!!!!!