Spending time with Ziva

Hello, everyone! So we are just spending time with Ziva, waiting out our 10-day waiting period! All this waiting is very difficult. January 26th officially marks the end of the wait, but we will probably take her out of the orphanage on the 27th; we have so much paperwork to do after the 10 days are up...and towing Ziva around in the car for hours and hours and going to appointments with her would not be very good- for any of us! (Remember, she has never been out of the orphanage and has never been in a car!)

Today we heard Ziva cry for the first time. Actually, it was more of a whimper, although she had every reason to cry hard (most children from orphanages are "conditioned" not to have "full-out cries"). She was nicely sitting in her chair, drinking from her sippy cup. I opened my "bag of tricks" and told Ziva that I was getting out the books. You would not believe how excited she gets when I get the books out! She quickly got out of the chair, threw down her sippy cup, proceeded to then trip over it, and fell, head first, into the metal table leg! Although we did not enjoy seeing her get hurt, it did give us the opportunity to comfort her and "kiss it better".

We have noticed a slight change in her caregivers since Friday. They no longer ask if we are taking her outside, they don't dress her to go outside for us anymore, and today, I actually put on her diaper! Ziva needs to understand that we are the ones in charge of her care and needs, so these are good things. We have also been told that, if we like, we can put our own clothes on Ziva now. We are afraid that if we do that, the clothes will get "lost" with the rest of the communal clothing. So we will wait.

Scott and I are continuing to "deal" with Ziva's high spiritedness and her determination. We know that most orphanage children are independent and very tough- it is a matter of survival for them. There is the tendency to play rough, hit, be destructive, and be defiant. We started to realize that, hey, in a little over a week, she will be with us. It had to start sometime... so we are beginning to set boundaries and we are saying, "No!" more often. And yes, she does understand "no"!! Today, after we said, "No!", she put her arm up against her head to cover her face, put her head against the wall, and pouted! It was hard not to laugh; but, we are glad to see that she is responding to our discipline...even just a little.

That is all the news for now. I will try and post a few more photos from today as well...