Monday, July 27, 2009

We've Arrived and Have Visited with Klaudia!


We arrived in Gliwice, Poland! We got in yesterday and are now pretty much acclimated. We explored Gliwice this morning and just now got back from spending the afternoon visiting Klaudia! A few photos are attached.

Klaudia cried immediately upon seeing us, but that faded after 10-15 minutes. After that she was very tentative for an hour or two, and then began warming up to us. By the end of the afternoon, she cried when she went to the nun who took her away and she reached back for us! Our hearts melted.

She has changed a little bit since we saw her three months ago. The first thing Ryan noticed was a mouthful of teeth! She just generally looks a bit bigger and stronger. Also, her hair looks a little longer and a bit darker.

Klaudia is sitting up really well on her own, and standing comfortably. She wants to take a step or too...it is coming any day. Personality-wise, she is very tentative, in general. She is very scared by the orphanage dog's barking, and it takes awhile to get her attention focused on something to the point of her being ok with being engaged. It literally took an hour to get her to touch a toy. Once she was playing with some plastic shapes, she was picking all kinds of shapes up and chewing on each one and moving on to the next ones.

We learned a lot about her food and sleep schedule today. We have it all written down, along with a list of foods she is eating (milk, juices, baby foods, mashed potatoes, bananas, this fruit cream cheese baby food thing, yogurt, cereal softened in milk, anything soft, etc.), and the size diapers to get. We fed her a couple of spoonfuls of that fruit-cheesy baby food thing - one of the highlights of my day. :-)

It looks like we will be visiting her again tomorrow all day, and then picking her up on Wednesday morning to go to Krakow to an apartment. The plan is 2 weeks of court-ordered bonding period, and then court on August 11.



Thursday, July 23, 2009

Last post from the USA

The car seat is installed, the bags are just about packed, the itinerary is printed out and our ride to the airport is arranged. We leave on Saturday and this is my last Blog post before our voyage. We will arrive in Krakow on Sunday and we hopefully will be with Klaudia on Monday.

We are absolutely amazed that the time is finally here. After an incredibly long journey of deciding how to create our family, researching, paperworking, waiting, hoping, praying, waiting, loving, hurting, laughing, crying, getting matched, falling in love, waiting and traveling, our day has finally come. The preparation phase is done, and our time as a family is beginning. After this, I feel like Ryan and I can accomplish anything together. The three of us will be a great team.

On a sad note, Ryan's great uncle Dick passed away this week. We hope for comfort and peace for the family. We saw him a week or so ago and he smiled as he asked us about Klaudia. We showed him pictures and he commented on a photograph of Ryan and Klaudia and said Ryan looked like he was under a spell. Dick said he wanted to meet her. We are sorry we could not make that happen. But she will know about Dick and the strong, bright, and warm person that he was.

We will keep you posted. Next stop . . . Poland!

Monday, July 6, 2009

Packing

Just a quick update - we are finalizing our packing list, finishing up Klaudia's room and doing things around the house (to prepare it for a little change). It has been fun going through her clothes and pulling out ones to bring. (It will be much less fun to pack our own clothes). It is tough to know what will fit her exactly - but we'll see! I'm trying to bring a combo of 18 mos to 2T clothes. We also got her a cute dress to wear for our court date when we will be "official"!

Hope everyone had a nice 4th!