A Day of Bonding

We crashed out early last night again ;)  We keep trying to stay up later so that we will wake up later but it just doesn't ever happen. We ate downstairs in our hotel - spaghetti ;)  The funny thing is that at least one meal every day has been either pasta or pizza :)  We did venture out and do a local chinese restaurant for lunch - it was great!

Poor Brod was so tired - as soon as he made Kaylee's bottle for me he crashed...and as soon as she drank it she was out too! 8:30 PM ;) The big kids had already fallen asleep before I gave Kaylee her bottle and I got ready for bed right after I laid her down and crashed as well! We actually slept a bit later too :) This is where she sleeps - right in the middle of us. She is really still in the night and doesn't really move at all ;)

Kaylee slept great again last night! She took her bottle again first thing this morning and drank it all. At breakfast I tired to give her some congee and a small piece of sticky rice - when I put the sticky rice up to her lips she hit my hand away from her...Keegan was next to me and started laughing and said, "Mom, she's bonding! Now she feels comfortable enough to hit you!" It was really funny that he has paid enough attention to all this bonding/attachment talk that he knew right away that meant that she was feeling a little safer and able to show us what she really wants ;) Before we went to breakfast I needed to get dressed - so I handed her off to Brod. She screamed so loudly and cried so hard but after about 1-2 minutes she calmed down and listened to him talking as he was walking her around the room. Then he brought her in to the bathroom where I was putting my makeup on and she just chilled in his arms.

I needed to go potty so I handed her off to Brodie - she screamed again but calmed down as soon as they sat down by the toys - I heard that she was calm so I just stood in the background and didn't let her see me - she wasn't playing but she had a couple of toys in her hand and watched the big kids play

Just hanging out

She likes to look at her toys

And look what ended up happening - she started to play! She will latch onto just about anything that we put in her hand so I put some play keys in her hand and showed her how they make a noise when they shake by shaking her hand. Soon she had grabbed another toy all on her own and was playing with both of them! She sat there for about 30 minutes doing this :)

This was such HUGE progress! Until this morning all she had done was hold a toy - we know from our agency that the children from Kaylee's orphanage didn't even see a toy until the more recent months-  when our agency went to visit them they encouraged the orphanage to let the children play with toys and get them out of their cribs more. They started letting them out for 1 hour a day to play :(  Makes me so sad that she was left all alone for so many hours a day...all this to say it was SO GREAT to see her let down her fear a bit and PLAY!!! SO SWEET to watch her try and figure each of the toys out.

We went down for our second breakfast and met the family from Little People Big World - they are here at our hotel with their son that they just adopted- the filming crew was here as well and the shows that follow their adoption process will air starting in late April/early May.

Then we came back to the room and this sweet little one seemed to let go of a small little bit of her fear and played even more!

Overall she played pretty well today! She finally had had enough and just froze up again - I could see her start to get overwhelmed and her lip started to quiver and she just lost it. It seems like she tries to be so brave and hold it in and then she just finally lets it go. As soon as I scooped her up she just burried her head into my shoulder and calmed right down. She is starting to learn that we will meet her needs :)

We are headed to the police station for more paperwork and then we are thinking of trying Mexican for dinner ;)

Prayer:
That Kaylee will continue to make progress and learn to feel safe and trust us. That she will start to feel more comfortable with Brodie holding her here and there ...still praying that she will be able to poop ;)  With only eating rice cereal and formula I can see why it isn't happening ;)  We are going to try chinese tea that our guide has told us about - poor thing - I can hear her tummy rumbling and I know it must not feel good. Thank you!