Day 11

Back to the orphanage for our Danila today!

Valentin picked us up at 10am and off we went.  I believe this is the start to the "Groundhog Day" type of days that we will get used to soon enough.

Danila was outside with his groupa when we arrived, and as soon as he saw us, he smiled and jumped off his swing (bonking his head a little) and ran over to us.  We both got hugs...so nice to get such a warm greeting from him just days after we announced to him that we are his new Mama and Papa!! :)

He had been playing in a giant pile of sand (he was covered in dust) so we dug around in it for a while more with him and some of his friends.  Bryan and I got tired of the game that one little boy was playing, though, where he continually threw sand in the air and showered us with it.  We, of course, don't know how to say "stop throwing sand, little dude," beyond "nyet, nyet, nyet," to Danila's friend, so we made an exit to a quiet bench in another area.

We brought a book with a whiteboard marker today, with patterns that Danila could trace.  He got a kick out of being able to erase his work, and we settled into a pattern where he would draw a little, then stop and look at me expectantly, and I would wipe it off with a napkin and say, "Clean, clean, clean, clean!"  He's approximating our words pretty frequently, saying, "clean, clean, clean," with me, and "daddy" and "mommy" after Bryan says it. After he got dry erase marker all over himself, his clothes, and the two of us, we redirected him away from that with promise of a snack.

Today I brought a whole banana, some Cheerios, and a couple of animal crackers.  We discovered that he will stuff anything that you give him in his mouth, so after he tried to eat 1/2 the banana at once, I broke it up and gave it to him piece by piece.  Eating is also a great time to teach him the English and ASL for "more", "eat", "please", and "thank you", so we started modeling those for him.  By the end of the Cheerios, Danila was asking for "more" verbally and "more eat" with ASL!  He is incredibly smart, and I think he'll have minimal trouble transitioning from language to language.

I think pictures are more telling than words for the rest of our visit today :)

 This is his whiny face: