A few lines about each of the girls

Twice in the past week we've spent time with the girls in the youngest girl's classroom. The first day I noticed she had the family picture book we gave her out on top of her desk. She has decorated it with stickers. I hadn't gone through it with them since the first day so I grabbed it and started reading it to her. I was surprised how well she could follow along repeating names. She pointed to the picture of the backyard and asked if this was ours and I assured her that it was.

The middle girl is still staying at the infirmary. She told us she had been going to class so it seems like she is improving. She hasn't been coughing as much in the past few days. As far as I can understand, the orphanage doctor will be checking her out on Monday to see if she go back to her regular dorm room. Today I went to get her from the infirmary and the lady in charge brought me back to the room where she was sleeping. She woke up a little groggy so I sat down beside her on the bed where she gave me a hug. Just when I thought she was going to snuggle back down and fall asleep again, she threw the covers back and scurried out to the hall to get her boots and coat on so we could go play in the main building where her sisters were.

The oldest girl has been asking for our telephone number, both for Ukraine and in the U.S. We're not entirely sure, but it seems like they don't fully understand that we'll be staying here and visiting them until we take them with us. Sometimes adoptive parents will travel back to their home country during the adoption process, particularly if the court date is delayed or there are holidays that slow down the process. We've explained to them in a few different ways that we'll be here until we take them home, but every now and then they ask a question that seems to indicate they're not sure if we're staying much longer. Asking for our U.S. phone number was one of those.

Today we gave her our Ukrainian cell phone number. This evening she called on an older girl's phone to "beep" us - she called and hung up to let us know she wanted us to call. In countries where only the caller has to pay for phone time that's how you place a collect call, so to speak. She basically wanted to just say hello to both of us. We're glad to see her reaching out to us in her own special ways as she is the most reserved of the bunch.