Week 7

Can you believe that is all it has been???  I'm soooo antsy for that permanent resident card!

Well, this is a big week coming up.  We have our social worker 'play date,' (we've been calling it that because we both know that there aren't any issues and this added first report is unwarranted) tomorrow.  We have the eye doctor on Tuesday and the pediatrician on Thursday.  I'm hoping the pediatrician will have a better idea for a timeline for the ENT doctor since my GP said he really doesn't know or have a patient reference.  He just sent the referral to the hospital at the same time he sent the pediatrician and eye doctor. 

We've been putting sunglasses on her to try and get her used to wearing something.  It will be interesting as I'm sure she will need glasses... Oh!  My favourite is when I get her dizzy during our prebedtime dance parties and her one eye goes all wonky from being unable to focus!  WoW!  The first time I saw that I kind of had my heart jump into my throat!  Hilarious now, though!

Ok, so this week we took her to the community pool to try her out and she loved it.  I had a HUGE round of "oh, she's so small," in the women's locker room.  Sigh.  Just the beginning.  I told them the quick version on her story and she pointed out her eyes and they all forgot how small she was.  Beautiful.  I suspect we will get a lot of that now that we are going out more with her.  Just have to say that aunt Candy made her a monkey hat and it was almost too small so she's not THAT small!  (Such a cute hat too!  Dania could pull the ears when asking where her ears were!)

We also had our first round of strangers mentioning genetic looks too!  LOL!  We went to vote and she received a future voter sticker, which she was completely enthralled with, and just sat quietly and played in a chair off to the side with whomever wasn't in the booth, and the lady running our poll was so impressed with Dania's calmness.  Then Dania started 'flirting' a little - her definition of flirting is to show you where her hair is and ask for a fist bump.  The lady kept telling her how pretty she was and made comments about whose side the looks came from... we just smiled and laughed.  As I buckled Dania into the car I conspiratorially stated how we were going to fool a lot of people in the future and it will be our joke to giggle at afterwards!  I think that's the angle I'm going to go with for those situations where we don't bother explaining since it really doesn't matter to a 2-minute stranger.

We also went to our first party with her.  This was a birthday party for our friends' daughter turning 3.  Dania had met 3 of the kids that would be there and we dressed her up in a cute outfit (now that some of the bigger clothes are fitting!) and went over wondering how she would react since it was the first big crowd of little kids since the orphanage.  Well, she spent the night trying to kiss the dogs (3 of them ranging in size from 6 pounds to 85 pounds), slowly circling the whole scene, and playing beside a kid who would sit still for a few minutes.  I was soooo happy and, again, impressed with how well she did!  She honestly did not seem upset in the least and also didn't seem like she was out to please anyone (a coping mechanism I'm on the look out for) and just had fun!  She had no problem going to sleep after and also didn't shy away from people.  She is so amazing.  Yes, I'm biased, but I really have to wonder what's going through her head, and I know others think that too, but she is just so chill!  She also expressed an affinity for the kid-sized foam chairs so we had to go get her one.  I was looking up where to buy them and at one place they happened to be on sale so we just went for it and I am so excited for her to find it in the morning!  She sat and bounced herself in it for a long time.  I'm hoping she will sit with her books in it. 

She is starting to point to thinks in her books now.  She loves flipping pages and is pretty rough with the cardboard books but she will point to something specific and say, "ghka-ghka," and wait for me to say the name of the picture and then turn to another.  Things like that make me antsy to get to the ENT doctor but I have to remember that she was losing her Russian and then gaining her English.  A normal human, on average, wouldn't start the 'ga-ga-ing' at specific thing like she is saying what it is at 7 weeks.  She really could still just be absorbing.  She makes the L, M, K, G, H, sounds so it's just a matter of practice and exposure.

Ok, That's all for tonight... well, it's morning now, but we spent the Sunday night at our friends' playing board games and we put her down there and then do the sleep transfer after a few hours and I just HAD the need to blog right now!  I wanted to get this stuff in before all of the appointments.  This will be a big week for entries, I'm sure.

xoxo

 Her new "uh-oh" face.

 After swimming.

 Daily walks with sunglasses now.

 

Being pulled around by Erik at the party.

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...