December 1

Today Olesya started crawling backwards. She got up on her hands and knees right away when placed on her stomach and tried to reach for her rattles. Unfortunately, the harder she tried, the further away she got. Perhaps in the next few days she will learn how to go forward. Hopefully she won't have the same sort of difficulty in about 16 years when she first gets behind the wheel of Dad's then vintage Mercury Sable. We have started to bring music in to play on the CD player and we enjoyed having Dean, Frank, Rosie and Elvis in the background. Not sure who her favorite is, but she seems to like music or at least sound. She likes to be held in front of the stereo so that it can be studied.
At the end of our visit today, for the first time, we took her upstairs and into the room where the babies are staged and fed. When Kim laid Olesya down, she instantly began to cry. This was probably more difficult for us than for her. Normally, we give her to Aida or one of the caregivers and are out of sight/ear shot before she is laid down. The caregiver came over right away and tried to distract her, perhaps this is the regular routine, hard to know. It was very upsetting, and not a word was said by anyone the rest of our time in the orphanage nor on the drive home. In one sense we are glad that she is attaching to us and does not want us to leave, but still...
...We will NEVER lay her down in her crib (at the baby house) and walk away ever again. From now on, we will just hand her off to someone else. This bonding period is rough on all of us. :)
On a happier note, we are very excited about how quickly she seems to learn new things. All of you parents out there are probably thinking this is normal. But for first time parents like ourselves, we think this is downright spectacular! We are sure she is brilliant!