Moritz Adoption

The girls are growing...

We measured them this morning with our tape measure (so accuracy might
not be exact). Lilia appears to have grown 3 inches since early June.
Regina has grown about 3/4 of an inch. We could see the difference in
Lilia's height. She can reach things she wasn't able to reach before.
I'm a bit concerned about R's lack of growth. She still has some bowel
issues so I am wondering if she might be allergic to something or even
possibly have a parasite. I will probably request some more stool
samples for her soon. They both go in for their 4th round of shots on
Friday so I can check on it then. Only one more round and they're done
with that. I know they'll be glad!

We're falling into the fautumn routine and it feels *really* good. I
have gotten my bearings back now that 2 of the kids are gone during the
day. I'm back to cooking homemade meals most nights, entertaining on
the weekends, and getting things crossed off my to-do list. The boys
seem to be doing okay in school, although Holden thinks kindergarten is
too much work...specifically too much cutting with scissors. ;) Hayden
has had a few issues with some kids teasing him on the playground due to
his height (he's short for his age) and that pulls at our heart strings,
of course. We all enjoy our weekends together very much. This morning
soccer was canceled for Holden so we had a chance to just lounge
around. It's been wonderful. Hayden is taking a 'relaxing bath' right
now. I guess he needed a stress reliever or something.

We finally had a family photo taken last night at the mall. It was
pretty hard to get 6 people in the right pose and smiling at the same
time, but we managed to get one pose we all like. We all wore long
sleeve white shirts and jeans. Regina got a kick out of all of us
looking the same. We ate dinner in the food court after our appt and it
cost us $35 to feed the family there. Yikes! But we very rarely eat
out due to our larger family and the fact that we live so far away from
restaurants now....so it was a huge treat for all of us. We discovered
that Regina loves Chinese food and wants to try some of everything. She
kept wanting to swap plates with me. It was cute. Hayden has entered
the foot-long-sub age at Subway.

Holden has become quite a helper with his sisters lately. He is
starting to enjoy their company and teach them new things (especially
the job chart we just started). It has been so fun to watch. He is
loving his soccer team and will start gymnastics when soccer is over.
Gymnastics is his true love.

Hayden continues to be a big help with the girls (except when Lilia is
poopie, his least favorite thing to deal with in his whole life). He
pretends he doesn't like being touched by the girls, but we know
otherwise. He is a green belt in karate and will be testing soon for
the green with a purple stripe. It's been so good for his confidence.

Regina is loving preschool two mornings a week. The teachers have been
receptive to helping us with the no physical touching rule. Her
favorite thing to do is paint. She seems to be making some friends at
school and feels like such a big girl when she finds out it's a school
day and she gets to go alone. She is pretty fluent in English now...but
there are some things she still does not understand. She can not always
answer questions and she isn't able to communicate any of her previous
memories to us yet (from Russia), but that should come with time. She
still has moments where you can tell she doesn't trust that we won't
abandon her. Lilia accidentally locked her in the garage a few days ago
and Regina went into a panic out there.

Lilia has started to talk a bit more. She loves to mimic everyone and
we are starting to be able to decipher what she is saying. Baby signs
(sign language) still work the best for her though. She continues to
cry quite a bit out of frustration. It is hard to handle at times. She
wants everything everyone else has and gets so angry when the big kids
abandon her and go do their own thing. She is up several times a night
2-4x a week. That is exhausting but we're hoping it will get better.
She has obviously been very affected by her early years and we will have
some work cut out for us with her attachment.

We had our second post placement visit for Russia yesterday with our
social worker. It was at the adoption agency. We enjoy going
there...lots of good memories from trainings and friends we have met
along the way. We know so many of the staff members and they all love
seeing the girls. It was rather bittersweet though. It was our last
meeting with our social worker. She only does the first two post
placement reports. After that we will have them yearly in
June....2007-2009. There is a different person in charge of those
reports. Only 3 more postplacements to go! It felt really strange for
Dan and me to walk in somewhere with only 2 children (and little ones at
that)!

Tonight my friend Debra and her family are coming over for dinner. I
can't wait! She is the one who adopted 2 girls a few months before we
did from the same region. She has been such a wonderful encourager to
me since last November. I am looking forward to seeing if the girls
remember each other from the orphanage. Their girls are the same ages
as ours. We certainly have much to talk about. We understand each
other perfectly since we're experiencing the same issues.

posted by Dan @ 3:35 PM