WOW!

What a difference 24 hours makes... after a long journey, lost luggage, an interminable afternoon and evening, a 10'x10' hotel room, and a late night trip to the Polish equivalent of Costco for a change of clothes for me (Tom's luggage made it, the bags with my stuff, Hayden's stuff and Paulina's stuff didn't!)... we got a good 10 hours of sleep and finally met Paulina. She is beautiful and so sweet. I'm not exactly sure how to describe seeing her for the first time, and can undoubtedly not even approach conveying it in words... but it was amazing, lots of happy tears and hugs. Hayden gave her a hug and kiss, a couple of times, he was super!

We spent most of the morning with her, playing in their "therapy" room, which was a large room with lots of gym mats and LOTS of toys, including a tricycle which was great for Hayden. We held her most of the time and she took a short nap on Tom's lap. She was super quiet and seemed wary at first, but VERY observant. When she woke up, I think she decided we were ok, she relaxed a lot and started babbling a lot and playing with the toys. She can crawl like a champ and wants to walk everywhere... she can't quite do it alone yet, but with even a few weeks practice she'll give Hayden a run for the money :-)

Nap time at the orphanage is 12-3, so we went back to the hotel to let Hayden sleep also. He has been a champ, by the way. When everyone woke up, we returned to spend the rest of the afternoon with Paulina. We stayed outside this time and she perked up even more. Hayden started running laps around the yard and she wanted to join… she can’t walk on her own yet but is VERY determined when you hold her hands.

We are unfortunately in a hotel right now, and the director at the orphanage will not allow her to go home with us until we’re in an apartment, understandable. So, Magda is working on it – hopefully we’ll be settled by tomorrow afternoon and she will come to stay with us on Wednesday. Fingers are crossed – it was really hard to leave her twice today… she cried, and we cried, it’s just tough to leave…

Going to try and sleep now – more later in the week. This silly blog thing is timing out when I try to upload photos so hopefully I can find a land line and get some on tomorrow...