1 week into our 10 day wait...

Hello everyone. I can't get the pictures to load. I'll try again tomorrow.

Since there isn’t really anything new to report, I thought I’d tell you a little more about our times with Emma at the orphanage. We tend to stay at the front of the orphanage with the Greek couple and their newly adopted daughter. Sometimes the Italian couple is close by and the all the kids play together. We kind of take turns entertaining the kids while the parents take a break and chat. The Italian couple doesn’t speak English but their interpreter speaks a little. Yesterday we were told we needed to separate by one of the orphanage workers so each family played alone. It is difficult to find things to occupy our time since there is only limited space and things to do but we find we’re becoming quite imaginative. We spend time throwing a medium size ball to each other, which Emma is able to kick quite nicely. Lucas, on the other hand, hasn’t quite mastered the art of foot to ball contact. He’s improving though. Sometimes we’ll play with the Lucas’s matchbox cars and slide them down the big slide, causing great delight all around. We also like to sit on a big bench swing and sing songs. Emma seems quite musical and she will sing a sweet song that we have no idea what it is. She joins in songs like “Twinkle Twinkle little star”, and “Take me out to the ball game”, but her favorite is “The stars at night, are big and bright…clap, clap, clap, clap…deep in the heart of Texas”. We will sometimes hear her humming it when she is doing other things. She also sometimes walks with a kind of “strut”…similar to John Travolta in “Saturday Night Fever”. It’s as if she’s got some music bee bopping in her brain that only she can hear and she walks along strutting. It is so cute. We also bring water with us and a snack at each visit. Sometimes it is fruit, yogurt, cookies, or crackers…depending on what we have available at the apartment. She LOVES to drink the water! I don’t think they get much water to drink so she gulps it down quickly. We brought sippy cups with us since we didn’t know the age we would adopt and they were difficult to find when we were here last time so we use that for her since she tends to drink so fast, it ends up all over her. When she eats, she tends to go off by herself and concentrates on her food. We’ve had to slow her down a bit since she sometimes eats too fast (puts a whole half banana in her mouth at once). She seems to trust now that there will be something to eat so she has slowed down considerably since the beginning. We brought a blank paper book (with Dora on the cover) for her and she has written/drawn on every page. She still has a long way to go to catch up with her peers but she seems to really want to write her letters. She tries so hard to copy them, and she sees that Lucas can do it so she tries and tries. We also play “Stop & Go” in which one of us (we all take turns) yells “go” and we all run around. Then we yell “stop” and we have to stop…mid step until the person yells “go” again. It sounds a little on the simple side but admittedly we are getting quite desperate to find things to do…and this one passes the time nicely. It’s cute to hear Emma say “yo” for “go” and “stup” for “stop”. I betcha wish you were here with us don’t ya??

Well, I’d better get this posted before we start watching “Monarch of the Glen”. We miss you all and can’t wait to see y’all soon!

L,C,L &E