Today was pretty uneventful, unless you consider sleeping past 7:00 an event – we did for sure. We were all pleasantly surprised when we looked at the clock and saw that it was 7:40 and the girls were just waking up. Hope has been waking up around 6:00 every morning and making sure that everyone joins her. We went to the play room several times, checked out the fish in the lobby, I had a foot massage ($8 for 1 ˝ hours), and we ate at the local diner near the hotel. It serves American food and is really pretty good.
Joy has had a pretty emotional day. We are not sure if going to her orphanage might have caused this or if she is just getting more comfortable with us. But also Matthew and Daniel both have colds and so she could be coming down with one and feeling bad and there fore more emotional. Its all a guessing game but at least we are able to guess at this instead of the guesses we had to make before we got her – like is she being well cared for, does she have enough to eat, is there someone wiping her tears, etc. Now we know that she is getting enough to eat, and someone is definitely wiping her tears – lots of someones as a matter of fact. When she starts to cry the entire family sends out the warning call – JOY IS STARTING TO CRY. We had to make a plan of action today to not make such a big deal about it but yet to be there for her. Just in case she could get use to getting attention for crying. But we also don’t want to stop her tears because it is a good sign that she feels comfortable enough with us to cry and to let us hold her and comfort her. I know this will pass eventually but it is hard when you see your child upset and you really can’t do anything to make her pain go away.
On a happier note - yesterday I grabbed her in a playful way picked her up and said I love you – she looked right in my eyes and said I love you. I know she doesn’t know exactly what those words mean but she has to know that it means something special as we say it to her all the time. It was such a wonderful moment. She also will randomly run up to us and give us kisses right on the lips without us asking. Amazing changes in one weeks time for sure.
Love, The Oakes
September 14, 2006
A little beauty
Snuggin with Dad
A queen and her 3 little princesses (this is the life)
