Officially a family of 12

This morning all 13 families boarded the bus and headed to the registry office to receive our children. The 14 children were coming from 10 different orphanages and so they came in as they arrived. H. arrived in the first half of the morning, brought by her orphanage representative. (We have all participated in the polite fiction that this is where H. has been living.) She came in and we smiled and handed her the new knapsack filled with things that we had brought for her. The first thing she did was to sit down and proceed to empty the knapsack she had brought and put her things in the new one.

I had brought a small new Lego set for TM, because I had a feeling that the emotional turmoil evidenced by all the children around him would trigger his own anxiety. I thought a new toy would help. I was right on both counts. The good news is that he has become much, much better about verbalizing his worries which means I can help him remain calm. This is a huge breakthrough for him. H. saw the Lego he was playing with and wanted to see what he was doing.

A. has proven to be invaluable. She has been so patient and kind to H. and H. has responded in turn. Here A.. is showing the felt doll book I made for H.

The laminated cards have also been a hit. H. has gone through them more than once and we were able to have her escort translate them.

Here we are looking at the cards together.

 

We also knew that she loved to color and came appropriately equipped. One of the first things out of the knapsack was one of the new coloring books and pencils.

 With A.

Here we all are together. Not bad for the first few hours, huh? We did do some advance preparation for this moment over the past couple of days. But since discretion is the better part of valor, I think I will leave those couple of stories for once we are home. 

H. seems more comfortable with me than with J. at the moment. A. is the favorite and TM seems to be some loud person who we have around, but whom she doesn't pay much attention to.

We are currently relaxing in the room and J. is going to go meet our guides to prepare some more paperwork for tomorrow in a little bit. That is when we register the adoption and it becomes official. I think we'll take it easy the rest of the day and if TM has his way that will involve the pool which is down the hall. He showed H. the pool and she didn't seem quite as taken with it as he is. We do know that aside from a wading pool, H. has never been swimming.

There has been no grieving yet, but it is still very early days. We have now officially exited one roller coaster and boarded another. Thanks for joining us on the ride.