Happy Tuesday! It's been one week now since court. Was just thinking how glad I am that court is complete and definitely behind me. Also thinking about all those with court dates today and hoping that they all had success. Especially thinking of the family that I met Monday who are adopting the Little Princess's groupa friend and her little brother. Hopefully all went well for them.
Today's visit was just Me, Grandma, and the Little Princess. No other families or even a driver to stay with us. Max drove today and he had to go somewhere else while we visited with the Princess. At least I think he did. He may just have not wanted to hang out, which is okay. We have the routine down pretty well now. Got to visit in the Music room again, which is always a plus. For the most part our time together went rather well. One of Little Princesses caretakers came in after about 15 minutes and bless her heart, she was really trying to communicate with me, but she didn't know any English at all, and my little bit of Russian...well I didn't really get what she was trying to say at all. Darn it! It wasn't anything that we had to do or go anywhere, or that anything was wrong, I could tell that much at least. She was just trying to be nice and friendly.
Today we played with the dolly that they have which is dressed up like the Snow Princess. It is now our favorite doll. We also got out some instruments. Had fun with the xylophone until Mama took it away cause Princess was taking all the metal bars off. (Mama was worried we'd get in trouble with the staff, if I didn't get it back together again.) So this was the bad part of the visit! Lil Princess being 2 1/2 years old, was not happy that I took the toy from her at all. She started having a 2 year old tantrum. This part I was fairly prepared to handle, trying distraction techniques and making her laugh with tickles and stuff. It was sort of starting to work, but then my poor baby got really freaked out about something, still not sure what, and was having a really hard time being consoled. She was talking to me quite a bit with her two year old Russian speak but I felt horrible only being able to understand Mama, Mama and No. She didn't want me to sit down, she didn't want me to put her down. She wanted to be held, but yet still scared of something. I finally got her to calm down by walking way over to the other end of the room holding her, and going into the baby bag of goodies and getting out her sippy cup and rocking her. She was okay after a few minutes, but I felt so awful not knowing what she was afraid of. It wasn't still the xylophone thing, cause I tried to give it back and she didn't want it, until way later after we calmed down. Once she calmed down she also took me by the hand and led me to the door. She definitely wanted me to take her out of the room for some reason. The only thing Mom and I can possibly think of that she might have gotten scared of is this rocking horse that is in the room. It's a big stuffed horse on rockers. The Little Princess always goes way out of her way to avoid it, and will absolutely not even think about riding it or petting it. She may have seen it when she got upset about the xylophone as we were sitting kind of near the thing.
Anyone else experience this situation, or feel so inadequate, and horrible cause they didn't know what was wrong or what their child was saying? I still feel so badly that my Little Princess was so upset and I couldn't figure it out. My only consolation is that I was eventually able to calm her down and rock her. At least she does feel comfortable enough with me to trust me to hold her close and rock. She actually likes me to hold her a lot. I am so blessed that she is such a cuddle bug.
On a lighter note, during the rest of our visit we did start to play again and had fun with the big piano. It was so funny. I taught her how to play quietly and not bang on the keys. I just whispered in her ear, sshhh and showed her how to play with just her little fingers rather than her whole hand banging on the keys, and she did it like that. Unbelievable sometimes how she just understands. Then again 5pm was here and it was time for my little one to go to her groupa. Thank goodness only three more visits where I have to let her go!
As for the mystery Deli foods.....for dinner tonight, Mom got out all her Deli surprises for us to eat. She didn't get Deli meats like lunch meat stuff, she got a salad and two different pastry/ entree items. I really enjoyed the salad which was fresh cucumber strips, tomato, red bell pepper and some kind of meat strips (we think either bologna or ham, or ham flavor bologna-not sure). The dressing to me tasted like green olive juice, but more like olive oil that is a little salty. Who knows, it just tasted good to me. Mom wasn't that excited about it, but I could have eaten just that and been happy. For our little pastry things, the first one was round flaky pastry with chicken, tomato, creamy cheese, pineapple, flaky pastry top and then maybe some sort of hollindase sauce over it. We heated it up so it was warm. Mom really liked this one! I'm not always excited about pineapple on stuff, so it was not my favorite, but still it was good. Our last Deli treat was another pastry, square in shape, where the four corners fold up to make the top. Inside was crab, corn, and rice and some spices. It was nice but a little on the dry side. Our dinner adventure was fun. Will have to try more Deli surprises another day!
Tonight's Movie is RV with Robin Williams (one of our DVD's). Nothing exciting on Russian television.
Nothing else exciting to report from Krasnoyarsk so will end the post for another day.
Love from Russia!
Shannon
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Thanks for all the details. I love to read how the whole day actually plays out while waiting for the day to actually come home.
Yes, you are so fortunate to have such a cuddle bug. Too cute!
Hope you have another great day tomorrow.
Sounds like another good day, minus the small tantrum. I think all parents go through the feeling of inadequacy at some point. The first (and only) time Daniel threw up in the middle of the night I felt horrible watching his body hanging over the toilet. All I could do was rub his back and tell him it would be okay. I felt horrible. It does pass though and you just do the best you can do, which is exactly what you did! She's no worse for the wear and she's lucky to have a Mama now who wants to hold her and rock her and make eberything okay!!
Sorry to hear about the tantrum. It is going to happen unfortunately. A language barrier is hard for both parties involved. At least you know that you can console her when she has one. Our daughter wasn't as cuddly, so it was harder to console. She would let me pick her up, but didn't hug/cuddle so much.
Glad you are enjoying your Russian cuisine. Just wanted you to know thta our little one loved tomatoes and cucumbers. I think they get those in the orphanage. Carrots have been a hit too (raw carrots). Fruit and yogurt went over well too. Just thinking ahead since it won't be long before you have the Princess dining with you. I know my blog listed several of the foods that the kids ate. I also posted helpful suggestions given to us by a family that adopted older children that could tell them about the food. Chicken broth soups and chicken legs were a hit too. Oh, and our daughter loves bologna.
Best wishes!
It is so fun to read of your adventures in Krasnoyarsk. Sounds like the visits are going well--it will be so nice when you can just take her with you.--very soon.
Post a Comment