Sophie’s Gotcha Day! 11/2/2007
Today began with a nice, relatively relaxing morning. We weren’t scheduled to drive to Ussuriysk to pick up Sophie until 12:30. Steve needed to be ready by 8:50 to go take care of the adoption decree, the birth certificate, and the application for her passport. We all had a leisurely breakfast of eggs and sausage prepared by Steve just before he left. The rest of us remained behind and worked on readying the hotel room (more like an apartment) for our new arrival. Steve returned just in time and we packed up and headed out.
Before picking up Sophie we had a couple of errands to run. First off, we had to drop off the social worker, who had been brought to town again for another family’s court hearing. Next, we hit the grocery store for more food, especially keeping Sophie in mind, and then the toy store for a couple of items for the kids. Finally, we went to the baby home and collected our special bundle of joy. We got to dress her and such and then ask some final questions. Finally, we presented gifts to the caregivers, then we got in the car and began our new life as a family of four (currently five since Steve’s Mom is with us).
Sophie did quite well on the car ride and Adelina also did well, though it was hard for her to not try to be in charge of Sophie. We arrived at the hotel and settled in by having dinner, which I cooked. I cooked cutlets (which are kind of like giant meatballs), vereniki with potatoes inside, and cucumber and tomato salad. All in all, it should have been foods that are more or less familiar to Sophie. She ate really well, as did everyone else.
Next was bedtime preparations, which went fairly well. The only thing that was strange is that Sophie has this thing about keeping food in her mouth when she thinks a meal is over. She wouldn’t chew it or swallow it. She just kept it there. I had heard of institutionalized children hoarding food, but hadn’t heard of any doing so in their mouths. So she had a piece of dinner food in her mouth and of course this made brushing her teeth impossible. But we let Adelina demonstrate and let Sophie hold the toothbrush and she half-pretended to brush, but it was hard since she wouldn’t open her mouth. Sophie did go potty in the potty seat before bed, which was a nice surprise.
As mentioned by the caregivers, Sophie had a very hard time going to sleep. She fought it for hours - literally. We think she finally went to sleep sometime after midnight…poor girl. Thankfully she slept fairly well into the morning, so at least she did sleep once she got around to it. Oh, and as if all the expected stuff with the adjustment isn’t enough, she seems to be coming down with a cold or some kind of pre-winter illness. Our apartment is equipped with a small room complete with a crib and sitting chair. We felt that Sophie would be more comfortable sleeping near us, though, so we placed the mattress on the floor right next to our bed. We also tried her in the bed with us, but that didn’t seem to work very well. She was too restless and she kept wiggling her way on top of one of us or too close to the edge. Anyhow, it appears she likes to nuzzle up against the edges of her crib and she kept trying to do that but since she wasn’t IN a crib, she just kept wiggling and wiggling and wiggled her way right off of the mattress! Needless to say, we will try something new next time.
Other highlights of her first day at home include lots of good playtime with Adelina. They really do have fun together. They especially love to play fetch and they will take turns throwing things and running to get them. It sounds rather dull, but they both just love it. We also brought them a little doctor kit and they seem to be having fun with that. Adelina will actually “play doctor” while Sophie just collects the pieces and carries them around, but she seems to have some kind of ownership over them, which is cute.
Also, we have all been signing a lot and Sophie has started to pay more attention to us when we do it. She doesn’t yet seem to “get it” but she has tried to mimic a couple of times. Once it was even appropriate as she signed MORE when wanting more of something. But I wouldn’t go so far as to say she knows the sign for MORE, but she will get there. It certainly helps to have a child who understands deafness and knows sign language! Nancy is also doing quite well with her sign language, and it’s a good thing she knows it because she started to lose her voice a couple of days ago and now she can’t talk at all. So we have all kinds of good reasons to sign to each other!
All in all I’d say our first day with Sophie was quite good. She didn’t have any tantrums, she ate well, and she eventually went to sleep. You can’t hope for much more than that.
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