Friday Eve

Believe it or not I did try to post about a week ago, but it won't save my post and I lost every thing. It has been such a busy time for me both at work and at home. I love working outside, but my yard is such a huge undertaking. Two times a year I trim all the bushes. The original owners planted tons of stuff and even though it all looks great, it still takes me about a week to two to get it all done. This year is a lot slower as I have just finished all the landscaping for my mom' s addition and am now just beginning my yard. Having Natalie here slows down what I am able to accomplish in a day. At one point she was helping pick up all the leaves but that lasted about 10 minutes:) Seriously, I continue to learn lessons and one of the big ones I have learned this past week is that I really need to just limit the time I spend on trying to "get it all done" and to focus that time on Natalie. The result has been even more bonding. I continue to see her language skills just take off. When I pick her up at Day Care, she is always saying good-bye and all the children are telling her good bye. It is really sweet. The teachers have also commented on how much she is talking. This week I believe she is up to about 120 English words and I am also hearing more consistent Russian instead of just the jargon speech that she was using. This weekend I have a good friend who is coming to visit who is fluent in Russian. I plan to ask Natalie a bunch of questions and have my friend translate. I want to videotape these for her when she is older. I am also working on about 5 photo albums. One is from my first trip, pictures of Natalie with other children in the orphanage at various activities and pictures that the staff took with my disposable camera between trips. In one of the very first pictures I took of her, she looks really scared. I asked her the other day if she was afraid when she met me and she very seriously nodded yes. Oh, it broke my heart to hear that. Of course now if you ask her if she is happy that I am her mama, she always yells yes!!! She is more spontaneous with her affection with me and has really been playing with her dolls this week since I brought down a toy double stroller out of the attic that was given to me. Today she asked me to hold her one doll. Since I needed to use my hands, I stuffed the doll's head in my shirt so she was upside down with her head in the shirt and the rest of her hanging out against the back of my head. She asked for her and so I gave her back the doll. I heard Natalie say to the doll, "it's okay" just like I do when I am comforting her.

We have several Cd's that we listen to "all the time" and now when we are in the car, I hear her singing along with them.

I continue to be humbled by the fact that God has entrusted this child to me. She is really such a sweet child and I am just amazed at her ability to adapt and press on. I can tell that she is maturing by the fact that she has grown an inch and a half since coming home and her coordination also seems so much better. Today marks 2 months since I picked her up at the orphanage. In some ways it still seems surreal that she is here and that I don't have to give her back. She has brought such joy to my life!!

This weekend I plan to pump up her pool and I can't wait to see her "go swimming." :)