Great visits!

Well I finally got to visit the kids today!  While I did get to see them yesterday when we took them to get their passports done, it wasn't the same as getting to spend some semi-alone time getting to play with them.  So I was very glad to get to visit with them!

I went to the baby house in the morning(Danil and Josslyn's orphanage) and the children's home(Parker's orphanage) in the afternoon.  When I got to the baby house I went and got Josslyn from her groupa room.  Three of her group members were sitting in the front part of her groupa room doing pre-school.  One little girl started yelling, "Lena mama! Lena mama!" when she saw me.  Now that they know that I'm Josslyn's mama, they love to announce my arrival.  She then asked me where Lena's papa was.  I said, "Americana dom".  She nodded her head, throughly satisfied that we had communicated.  The kids in Josslyn's group try to talk to me all the time, but I never know what they are saying.  This little girl was glad that I finally understood what she was asking, and that she understood my reply.  Another little girl at the table got up and showed me her dress.  They love strangers.  Especially mamas.

Josslyn was thrilled to see me, like always.  I love seeing her so happy to see me.  Makes me feel like I must be doing SOMETHING right. 

After I got Josslyn we went to try to get Danil.  His groupa was not in their room, so Josslyn and I went outside to find them.  When I found them, they were having music class outside.(It has been perfect weather since we have been here for this second trip.  My husband would translate me saying "perfect weather" to mean "very hot" to him.  I've been loving the weather this time though.)  Anyway, I didn't want to interrupt the music class and I didn't want to take Danil away from his absolute favorite activity of the day, so we just left him with his group.

Josslyn and I wandered around outside on the orphanage grounds.  Spring has finally arrived here, after a very long winter.  There are many apricot trees in this area and they are in full bloom.  It is a beautiful sight to see all the trees covered in their white blooms.  It was a breezy day, so the wind was blowing some of the petals off of the apricot blooms.  It looked like white rain and Josslyn loved it.  She ran around gathering petals and putting them in my hands one and two at a time.  Then the wind would blow again and she would gasp and starting running around collecting petals again.  It was precious.

Picking up petals.

Watching the white rain.

After Danil's music class ended, we went over to his group to get him to play with us.  As soon as he saw Josslyn and I walking up he smiled big!  Then he turned around and started telling everyone in his group bye!  I was laughing!  He was ready to hit the road with us.  We found a play thing that had a slide and he climbed up the ladder and slid down the slide about 9000 times.  That boy has endless energy.

Climbing the ladder.

Needin' a hair cut. 

That boys got him a Beatles hair do going on there.

My only brown eyed kid. 

I've been hoping for one of those for years now.

Visiting with Danil went really well.  I guess since we were outside, therefore he COULD yell, he no longer felt the need to do so.  Hum.  He is trying to use more and more english words.  He will try to repeat alot of what I ask him to do.  Especially when it is realated to food!  Yesterday, Roman thought the kids might be hungry, so while we were waiting in the car at the passport place, he got out one of his mama's famous sandwiches.  Danil immediately started signing, "more, please" and saying, "MORE!" in english.  It has been a week and a half since I had seen him, yet he remembered without me having to remind him!  I was impressed!  I am constantly amazed at how smart that boy is.

So, my visit with the little ones went really really great.  I had the best time playing with them, and our visit just flew by.

This afternoon I visited Parker.  When they brought him too me he didn't look extremely thrilled to see me, but he wasn't crying, so that was an improvement from the day before.  I took him outside to play.  I tried to interact with him, but he wasn't interested.  He started picking flowers and he showed them to me.  I praised him and said how pretty they were.  He immediately ripped them to shreads and threw them on the ground.  Then he looked up at my for my reaction. 

I bent over.  Picked a flower.  And then ripped it to shreads and dropped in on the ground. Then I picked another one and handed it to Parker. 

His eyes widened a bit.  Then he moved on to a different activity, a bit disappointed that he hadn't flustered me.  I'm a mom of six.  It takes a little more than crushing a flower to fluster me these days.  Plus, if I acted like it bothered me then he just would have made him want to do it more.  So I guess I employed a little bit of reverse psychology.  It worked though.  No more innocent flowers were killed by the wrath of an angry and confussed 5 year old boy.

Picking flowers.

He was intently trying to balance all the see saws in the air.

He did it.  That boy is tenacious.

 A little while later, and older boy that Josh and I made friends with on our last trip saw me and came over.  I just LOVE this kid.  He was so glad to see me and said, "Hello, Jessica!!" in english.  He asked about Josh and was sad that he didn't come too.  He is amazing with the little kids, and Parker is no exception.  Here they are having a little chat.

He knows some english, so we can communicate some.  He also helps me with my Russian.  He also tells Parker things I am trying to say.  He is very very helpful and just an all around pleasent kid.  If he were available for adoption we would head back over here and get Luke an older brother in a heartbeat!  But alas, he is not...... *sigh*

After a while, Parker wanted to head inside....so I followed.

For awhile he sat quietly, eating the cookies and playing with the toys I brought him.  One of the toys he was playing with was a baby Einstein toy that my sister-in-law loaned me to bring on my trip.  She knew that the kids preferred electronic toys, since they don't have any in the orphanage, so she let me borrow a couple of hers.  The toy Parker was playing with said, "Yellow, blue, and red" in english, french and spanish.  I had it set on english.  Parker was kind of absent-mindedly playing with it, and it said, "yellow".  He repeated "yellow" in near perfect english.  I got all excited and started trying to exlain to him what yellow was.  I started pointing out all kinds of things that were yellow.  He started joining in, but he didn't say yellow again.  I think he realized that he let some english slip and was not going to let that happen again.  After a while we changed to red, then finally to blue.  Parker was loving our game!  I was having a great time too, because he was choosing to play with me and talk to me, AND he was laughing and having a great time doing it!  He told me the colors in Russian and I said it.  He liked that.  When he found something that was the color blue while I was looking the other way, he yelled, "Blue, mama!!"(He said blue in Russian, of course.)  We had an great time and I left feeling like we had a major break through.  I know it it going to be slow going with him, but my visit with him today gave me alot of hope for the future.

Pre-color game

During our game.

It is after mid-night here, so I really need to get to bed, but I have one last picture just for Josh.  He will know EXACTLY what Danil is doing in this picture....

Night, ya'll!