Saturday in Moscow

Well, last night went pretty darn well considering her situation!  Like I said, she went down easy, and then we went down about an hour later.  At one point she bumped her head and woke herself up.  We heard her whimper and then she sat upright and we could tell she was startled and she began crying pretty hard.  Even her full on wail is kind of pathetic sounding...bleating goat -like.  We tried to soothe her and tried laying her between us but  this could have been a night terror as she was looking back and forth between us but could seem to find nothing to look at.  Her whole body was tensed up and she just kept crying.  We then flipped her over on her belly and started squeezing the russian dog toy (we found his name to be Boublik, or some spelling that sounds similar) and held it near her head.  She began to o

nly cry in between his talking, like she was finally focusing on somet

hing, and then she settled after about ten minutes of this and we could put her back down.  She slept on solidly for 4 more hours, woke up with little cries because she had pooped, but we changed her and she slept for another 4 hours! 

This is a belated sleeping pic from last night.

This morning she was a happy little camper wandering around then living room playing and  'talking' to us.  We moved her crib so it is beside the wardrobe mirror and she loves that!  Went down for a nap really easily because of that.  Oh!  Breakfast!  She had yogurt(banana flavour) for the first time and her eyebrows shot up and she made a noise of exclamation and devoured it!  Didn't take her eyes off the spoon once!  So fun to see her enjoying flavourful food,  and not just plain porridge!

The rest of the day had her being a happy camper and just wanting to hold Daddy's hand and walk around.  She had half of a grilled cheese sandwhich for lunch and enjoyed it but didnt know how to eat it.  We had to cut it up small and feed it to her.  Things like that make me feel, i don't know how to explain it right, sad/hurt/anxious that she has this learned manner that is totally unnecessary but she cannot understand me to correct it quicker for her own benefit.  She is so used to being spoon fed her entire meal in under five minutes.  They just shovel it in with hardly time to breathe inbetween.  She doesn't know she can pick the food up with her hands and feed herself.  She has only done that with bread or biscuits. They also are not allowed to have anything to drink until it is all finished, so now, when she can assist her swallow with some water, she absolutely guzzles!  For a girl with no roof of her mouth that spells trouble lol!

Sigh.  I know it will take longer to unlearn her habits, just in the same way she has to unlearn her understanding of Russian before she can learn English.  But these customs are just so much more beneficial to her at this point!

We had the Moscow rep, O, visit to pick up all the necessary paperwork for the visas.  I got upset because i honestly thought we left on SATURDAY the 16th, not Friday the 16.  I thought we were worry free because of having five business days.  Now the panic sets in because we only have four!  She just kept saying she "hopes" it will be ok.  What the hell!?  Just when I thought we were only doing time some "more excitement" crops up.  Gah!

Our eve started with some excitement too.  Gas and cramping and painful bowels.  Poor girl!  I hadn't heard her cry in pain yet.  Still kind of goat-like.  She was probably still a bit dehydrated from yesterday, new foods today, stress and it all added up to bowel problems.  Aunt Kitty, you'd have been proud of the grunting strength behind her small frame!  After finally passing some foul gas but nothing more i thought sitting hef in some warm water would help, but was apprehensive because she has never had a bath before... they only get spinged down so she had never heard the thundr of the water filling a tub and then felt enclosed by tall slippery walls while water raised up around her... So, I got in first, stood her in the low level water and just started pooring it on her legs.  She stopped crying and sat down in it.  She loved it!  She settled right down and was playing in the water in about five minutes.  She was playing with the running water when I turned that on for her too.  Well, now I know, Dania loves the tub!  Phew!

She still never pooped though...