At 10:45, we appeared. When we walked in the door, we were greeted by the Deputy Directors. They told us that Julianna was ready and waiting at 8:00am for us to visit. When we didn’t arrive, she cried and said, “Where are my momma and poppa?” I felt awful…
Within minutes we saw her dressed in green today with a big red bow on her head come out of the door. She ran with her arms open wide down the big hall yelling “Momma.” I knelt down and caught her in my arms, hugging her while the tears filled my eyes. She quickly turned to Kenny and hugged him equally as long. We both hugged her again and told her we were sorry that we were late. She took us by the hand as we walked to the computer lab to get her coat, boots, and hat on. Today, we were playing outside. And she knew that we were her parents!
Julianna doesn’t know how to zip her coat, but she knew how to put her hat on. We had to tie her leather boots for her. Grabbing the small sand pail and shovels, we gathered our things to go outside and play for only 40 minutes since we got stuck in traffic. She took our hands as we walked the steps. Julianna is able to alternate feet going up the steps, but goes only one step at a time coming down.
Outside was interesting. We played in the sandbox. They took down the swings. There were wooden seesaws and two sandboxes. It appeared there was a crude pool that they fill with water in the summer. Julianna loved playing in the sandbox. We played with the red ball. She would tell me to throw it to her or to “Poppa”. We also blew bubbles outside and she really loved this, too. After about 20 minutes, we decided to go in to play in the computer lab for the rest of the time. Mommy felt uncomfortable because the caregivers brought other children outside to play. I will tell you about them in another blog.
Inside, she took off her own shoes and coat. Sveta asked her in Russian to point to her Momma and Poppa. She did! We played hide and seek. Julianna liked the puppet book and started with the shape sorter again. Sveta told us that we only had 2 minutes left. Julianna did not want to leave us. We picked up her things and ours. We walked to her area and gave her big hugs good bye, telling her we would be back tomorrow. I pulled her back to me as she was walking away and kissed the back of her hand, telling her that I loved her. She looked at her daddy and extended the back of her hand to him for Kenny to do the same. Smart girl!
The lunch today was less and only the one Deputy Director met with us. Sveta, Kenny, and I ate all of our food today - fresh cabbage salad, fish, potatoes, peas, candy, tea. Kenny gave the Deputy Director Hershey chocolate bars that we had wrapped with blue curling ribbon. He explained the story of Milton Hershey to her. We also bought the Director, Michael, a nice pen for his use. Finishing our food, we presented Michael his gifts. Sveta gave Michael the official papers to sign for Julianna. Then, Kenny and I had to sign that we “agree to adopt” Julianna. Sveta will take the paper and file it with Tatiana at the MOE.
The Children’s Home No. 56 is preparing a photo album for Julianna. They asked us to supply pictures that the Speech and Language teacher will go over with her every other day in her therapy session. We printed off pictures of us from the last three days and brought some photos from home to give to them tomorrow for the book. We are very sad that we have to leave her here for awhile…I have a good feeling about the caregivers at the Children’s Home. They can see how happy she is and how happy we are. They will help us in any way that they can.
The rest of the day…Mass with Fr. Mario at 6:00pm. We will meet up with our friends, Bill and Crystal. We invited Sveta to go to Mass with us…always evangelizing!
Love to you all… we miss everyone and appreciate the many prayers you have offered for our intentions. But most especially for our new daughter…
More later-
Annie