Day 7 A Great Visit!

We weren't sure what to expect when we arrived at the orphanage this morning.  We didn't know whether Dasha would be happy to see us or burst out crying again.  Her groupa was in music class when we arrived, so we waited for about 15 minutes until the nannies brought her to us.  As soon as she saw us, she smiled.  She came right over and we gave her hugs and kisses and started playing.  She still loved the bubbles today.  She also really liked the princess cell phone.  We colored a little bit and put stickers all over paper (thanks, Emily!) and blew up a few more balloons.  We also looked at a book that had animals and she was telling us their names in Russian.  I only knew cat (kot) and dog (sabaka).  We gave her a little snack of a few small cookies and a sippy cup of water.  She had no idea how to drink out of the straw on the cup, so I took the lid off.  She downed the entire (full) sippy cup in less than a minute; she was so thirsty.  Tomorrow I'm going to bring her 2 cups of water.  We took her outside and the Bergmans were there with Polina.  Dasha started yelling, "Polina!" as soon as she saw her.  The girls sat together at a little table and played with bubbles and play-doh.  The groupa came outside at one point and Dasha went over to show them her bubbles and then told them, "You go your way, we stay here."  I know that's what she said because our facilitator was with us and she translated.  We had given Dasha a candy bracelet before we went outside and she was sharing 1/2 pieces of candy with Polina and was fine until Polina wanted to eat a whole piece.  She wasn't too happy about that!  She took Norm and I to another playground that didn't really look like it was used much.  We thought that maybe she didn't usually get to go in this area and she wanted to try it out.  Norm pushed her on the swing and made her laugh.  She kept checking behind her to make sure we were following her.  When it was time to say good-bye, she didn't want to let go of the bubbles.  She had a bottle in each hand and I had to pry them away from her.  We gave her more hugs and kisses and told her "paka paka", which means bye-bye.  She started to go with her groupa and then ran back to us.  She gave me a hug and then wanted Norm to pick her up.  He did and she looked him square in the eyes and said something that sounded important, but we don't know what it was.  :(  We were in a hurry to leave because the judge was waiting on us to get to the courthouse to file some papers before he left for lunch, so we had to leave quickly and Dasha watched us get into our car.  We are super excited for tomorrow's visit because we have been invited to a special musical perfomance that her groupa is putting on at 10:00 am for the orphanage staff.

We are still waiting on the mayor of Makiivka to sign something that will allow us to proceed with the adoption.  Until he does this, we can't get a court date or send our paperwork back to the SDA in Kiev.  Apparently he is taking is sweet time because we don't think we'll have it today.  Please pray this comes through tomorrow.