Day 35

Today is our last day (or should be) having to “visit” the girls. This morning, we went to Kaitlyn’s orphanage and she is getting better at repeating English words. Since it was hot, we played inside the sports room and she decided to play with the tube! Before, she was too scared to even touch it but after getting use to it and watching Alex Reed play in it, she joined him. Soon she was asking her Papa to roll her some more. On the way home, we stopped by the local market and Christine and Julia helped us carry the gifts for the directors, doctors, teachers, and kids for the good-bye parties. We still need to pick up the cakes but we are waiting to hear from Marsha of when we will be having the parties. We need to make sure that the cakes are fresh and have the dates printed on them. For those who don’t know, even US daycares require this.

For the directors and doctors, they will be receiving a bottle of champagne or sparkling wine and a box of chocolates. For the teachers, a cheaper bottle of champagne to share and chocolate bars (nice ones). And for the kids, cake and juice. These can be picked up in almost any market and relatively speaking, they are not very expensive.



We just returned from visiting Sarah and for the most part, the visit went great! She played well with the boys, as a girl does in Russian. She was more polite as well. But towards the end of the visit, she had a tantrum over the cell phone. Once that was dealt with, she had another tantrum about saying in the shelter and out of the rain and simply obeying her father. Unfortunately, the only real means of discipline is to return her to her group. She was told that she needed to listen. She would not and continued her tantrum. In the end we took her back to her group, we explained the situation to the care-giver, and told her that we would see her tomorrow. We were sure to communicate our love for her and that we would return but we needed to be consistent and follow through.

Christine taught us something very important. She explained that since Sarah is being disobedient (at times) and is truly expressing how she feels, this means that our attachment and bonding is going well. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it earlier but that makes sense. Often times, adoptions have a honeymoon that ranges from 1-6 months. During the honeymoon, the child is very complacent and easy to get along with. It’s when the honeymoon is over that the real work of integrating the child into the family begins because it is at that moment that the child feels confident about being honest. That being said, we are doing really well with getting Sarah to bond with us. It's just that I haven't had to deal with tantrums since the boys were little. Tomorrow will be a better though, and we'll leave the orphanage for good and will be on our way home.