A blessing each day

We met our little angel again today.  There are so many blessings occurring each day, I struggle with where to start, and what to share.  For those of you not familiar with the region we are in or where Jenny lives today, the orphanage looks something like this.

The visit started with a walk outside with the abominable snow baby dressed as follows.

If you view that picture in closeup you will see that Jenny (and probably several other children before her) like to eat the rubber padding on the safety bar.  Since we couldn't get her to stop, we lost the stroller and carried her little chunkiness ourselves.

After our time outside we went inside to a room known by adoptive families as the “turtle room”.  It is called this because the perimeter of the room is lined with a collection of orphanage “pets” including bunnies, many parakeets and yes, a turtle.  There is also a large vinyl turtle on the floor kids can sit or climb on.  This menagerie of animals leads to some interesting smells, but we won’t go there.

Once inside we unbundled our little princess.  She was dressed in the cutest little pink velour sweat suit.  We found out she is wearing about 18 month clothing sizes.  Let the wardrobe buying frenzy begin!

We spent the time playing with her with some of the toys we had brought, and a set of stacking rings she seemed to be very familiar with and loved pulling apart and putting together.

We also wanted to share a little snack with her to understand her eating capabilities.  They had warned us that she really likes to eat and that we would need to give her things in small quantities.  We tried a tiny bit of apple juice (which they had recommended) in a plastic disposable cup.  Her little hands, mouth and teeth latched onto that thing like it was pure gold and she slurped away with all her might.  It was all I could do to pry the crumpled cup out of her hands.  Then we thought we would try a child’s biscuit we had brought.  Patty said we should break it into small bite sized pieces and feed it to her.  I said “just let her hold the biscuit and feed herself”.  We gave her the biscuit and guess where the whole thing went in one piece?  You got it.  Luckily her little teeth made short work of it, and there was no choking involved.  Next time we listen to Mom’s instincts.

It was another wonderful visit that ended too soon.  They whisked her away for lunch 15 minutes earlier then we thought they would, and we were left missing her once again.

The driver brought us back to the city, to a children's store so that we could get her some sippy cups and more mouth safe toys as that seems to be where most stuff ends up.  We found exactly what we were looking for, and can’t wait to share them with Jenny tomorrow.

Another wonderful visit all in all.

Stay tuned for more total cuteness tomorrow!