Sunshine

We had sunshine outside today but missed our little sunshine Delia at the hospital. As Alina and I went up and down the stairs, if she heard a baby cry she would say, "Delia?" I told her Delia is in Iasi seeing about getting arms and legs.

We had a great walk to the hospital. Seems like it is getting shorter but that is probably because there is less snow and ice. I'm sure everyone thinks we are nuts for walking but it is a good way to start the day and get some fresh air.

Alina greeted me with a request to turn on the new bee toy. The children are actually doing quite well playing "together" or maybe I should say not fighting over toys. At one point today I had both Elena and Alina on my lap and Elena reached out to touch Alina's hair and she actually seemed to like it!

Cleo had a really good day. We had several sessions of stretching her little arms and legs. I read somewhere that moving her arms across midline is good for brain development so we added that to the repertoire. She was moving her arms more on her own and we got quite a few smiles. She especially liked it when I blew raspberries on her stomach. What an angel she is.

We've decided that Luciana is one of the most fidgety children we've ever seen. Makes it hard to feed her. She seems to be liking eating from a spoon more than a bottle. She reminds me of that saying about the little girl with the curl right in the middle of her forehead. But she is never horrid.

Marius is too funny with his little routines. The only thing he doesn't like is going to bed and not getting double helpings at all meals.

Yogurt has proven to be very popular with all of the children. Today Luca ate a whole container and a bottle and a half of milk. And Alina sat at the table and ate her yogurt by herself with a spoon. Well, Beth watched over her mostly to keep Marius from stealing her yogurt.

Luca is doing well learning to walk. He isn't quite ready to hold on to only one finger yet. He is such a sweet boy.

Mircea the boy from down the hall joined us for awhile this afternoon. Luciana loves him and he is quite sweet with all the children. Andrei was crying and Mircea leaned over to talk to him and Andrei stopped! Mind you this doesn't work for us. And he was good with Cleo showing her a stuffed animal. I was really impressed that he wasn't put off by their big heads.

I still haven't figured out how to put captions on pictures with this app. So here are descriptions of the children and their ages.

Elena is the girl with short hair and a beautiful smile who has cerebral palsy. She is 7 and a half years old.

Marius is the little boy with chipmunk cheeks and slightly buck teeth and lighter hair. He is almost 5.

Alina is the little peanut who has dwarfism, speaks Romanian and English and is 5 years old (and 18 pounds.)

Luca is the little boy with darker hair who is 2 and a half.

Luciana is the little blond girl (with the curl in the middle of her forehead) who looks about 8 mos old and is just over a year old.

Delia is the cutie pie with no arms and half a leg. What she is missing in limbs she more than makes up for in charm and personality. She is 19 months.

Cleo is the little girl with hydrocephalus and is 4 and a half years old.

Andrei is the little boy with hydrocephalus and is 15 months.

Dinner at Da Vinci tonight and we had the pleasure of having Dan and Mihaela's daughter Delia with us. She is just beautiful and excited about being in a singing contest on Feb 17th. I was pleased to see that I am still taller than she is as she is pretty tall for a 9 year old.

I keep forgetting what day it is but every day I ask about seeing Gabi.