Stacking cups - the next generation

Our assigned visiting time at the orphanage is normally 10am-Noon.  And we are almost always late because of the never ending "DOC-u-mehnts" that have to be delivered here there and everywhere and signed, which our driver usually does on the way to the orphanage because the courthouse is nearby.  So when get there, sometimes we have to wait for them to "prepare" Jenny.  Sometimes she is sitting waiting in our usual meeting place for us.  Today we were close to on time, and she was all ready sitting there waiting for us.

We walk in the door and start greeting her with her birth name and nicknames as we usually do, and she starts laughing, babbling and reaching up to us as if to say "where have you been - welcome back".  We actually had just been there at 6pm last night.  The shouts of welcome were not momentary.  It went on for about five minutes.  All the nurses were coming in to see what she was making the fuss about, and giggling about the way she had latched onto her Mama.  If you want to see what she looks like going on at a great rate, here is a new video from today after she proudly climbed up into a nearby office chair and sat herself down.

Sitting and Rocking from Tom Lococo on Vimeo.

Today was sort of an early Christmas for Jenny.  We were pretty sick of the toys we had brought for her and played with for the last eleven visits, so Tom hiked across town after our visit last night and picked up a couple little surprises.  The main one, is a combination ball, stacking bowls thing that you can play all kinds of games with.  This video doesn't quite do it justice, but she loved it and played with it for quite a while on her own.  The whole set nests inside itself with a little yellow ball with a jingle bell inside in the center.  It reminds us of the Russian nesting dolls so popular in this part of the world.

Nested Balls from Tom Lococo on Vimeo.

The other gift was a Little People farm set with a tractor, cow and cute little farm girl in a pink dress.  That was not good for much except gnawing on the girl and cows feet, so we mostly stuck with the stacking bowls.

Snacktime was the usual frenzy of hunting for Cheerios and clawing onto the juice cup for dear life.  In this video, you can catch a few glimpses of her happy smiles when we managed to pry the cup off of her face.

Drinking Juice 2 from Tom Lococo on Vimeo.

Our final accomplishment of the day was trying to take a mommy/daddy/daughter shot of the three of us since we don't have any yet.  There was no one in the room to help, and we didn't have a tripod, so we improvised using a nearby desk, and continuous shooting mode on the camera to take 10 shots in 10 seconds and hope one would come out good.  Jenny proceeded to be a wriggling worm the whole time resulting in some comical shots.  Here is the closest we got.  See the album link for some other interesting iterations.

From Adoption Trip 1

In other news, our travel is all booked and confirmed for returning home next week, and for Trip 2 that will commence with 4 days of being home.  Can't wait to see our family and home.  Feels like we have been away forever.  Can't wait to get our little Christmas gift and baby New Year all wrapped in one home to the family.