The Children!

 

  Today was our first day at the hospital. We had a very busy but very good first morning. The children all did pretty well with no major melt downs. I brought two new Elmo books and between Mitchell, Shannon and I we read them to Alina about 100 times. I brought a few new balls but Delia's favorite is still the purple stability ball that I think I brought a few years ago.  Delia is quite obsessed with balls. And she uses the English word even though I keep trying to get her to say the Romanian word for ball which is minge. She also likes to use her little bit of an arm to swipe my my phone to look at pictures and to punch buttons that make noise. 

Luca is still in his own world and loves his see saw but we did our best to distract him from it. He is almost walking by himself; he just holds on to one finger.  I think Luciana is much better than when I was here earlier this year. She can walk holding on with two hands and seems more animated. Of course maybe she also feels better. Last time she was just starting to learn to crawl and now you need to be sure she doesn't head down the hallway.  Sometimes reaching developmental milestones with these children can take a really long time so this kind of progress amazes me. 

We met the new little girl Georgiana who is 5 years old has a heart problem. It looks like she may also have some fetal alcohol  syndrome. She is the first child we have had who is speaking at her age level. Wish I understood what she was saying! She is also toilet trained and I did understand what she was saying when she needed to go to the bathroom. She was with her parents but for some reason is now with us. Most of our children don't have any recollection of being with parents so it must be very hard for her to now be in this new situation. 

Ionuts who has a heart problem is 14 months old and big for his age. I thought he was older. He is so funny; also learning to walk. He is not very happy when his bottle is gone and we tend to give him extra from the children who don't finish.  Georgiana and Alina can eat by themselves with spoons. This is also a major milestone that can't take a very long time for our children to reach. 

It was wonderful to see Coca, the aide. She never changes. We both were sad about losing Cleo. Coca did say that Gaby was in a good home so that was nice to hear. Mind you this is all her speaking Romanian and me trying to figure it out but I'm pretty sure I got that right. 

There is also a new girl named Lavinia. I forget how old she is but she has strabismus, had cleft palate surgery and it looks like she also has cerebral palsy.  We are working with her on neck strength and strengthening her arms and legs. 

Maestra who is 10 who used to be at Tutova is down the hall in the acute part of the hospital but I have no idea why. She had some scratches on her face and she is autistic so maybe she was hurting herself. She came to visit us for awhile. She wanted me to pick her up which I did for all of about 3 minutes. My back is better but it was hurting mid day and I need to be careful. 

I looked in on Dan who is a little boy with a tumor who I think is terminal. He seemed pretty uncomfortable and it was hard to know what to do with him, especially since he is in a room down the hall. 

We went out for dinner at Da Vinci, my favorite restaurant in town. I am pretty tired so will post some pictures and try to write more the next few days.

    Georgiana in the crib with all of the stuffed animals. 

  Lavinia striking a pose. 

   Mitchell and Luciana. He has 3 younger sisters and definitely had a way with children. 

     Luca and Ionuts on the see Saw

    Alina feeding yogurt to Ionuts

 

   Shannon and Luca and Alina feeding Luca

 

   Delia below