Day 16- Birthday Girl

Today was our precious little girl's 2nd birthday and venturing out in the cold yesterday was completely worth it. She was more excited today to see us than she has ever been, and they dressed her in an outfit that we dropped off yesterday. All of the children sat down in their chairs at the little bitty tables and patiently waited for their chocolate. All of the kids were so cute, the chocolate started melting, of course, so they had it all over their hands and faces by the time they were all done.

We then took A to the bonding room and gave her birthday present. She again loved the stringy stuff that we put in the bag and thoroughly enjoyed her Russian speaking toy. At one point while she was playing something started banging in another room. She looked around and, in Russian, said "Who is That?" and started making a hammering motion with her hands. She is saying so much more now than when we first met her two weeks ago. A was a bit of a daddy's girl today, and she was so affectionate and ticklish. She just didn't stop laughing and smiling for about the first 45 minutes.

For the last half of our visit A showed us that she believes in the song lyrics, "It's my birthday and I can cry if I want to". I cannot complain about this because I remember many birthday parties that I ran to my room (on a sugar high) crying. Today it was because we had to take things away from her. I know that we have to do this at some point, but it sure would be nice to have been able to wait until we got home. She was not okay with it, but again she allowed us to hold her and calm her as she screamed. She did calm down before we brought her back to her room but yet again she started crying when we had to leave her.

The neatest thing that we got to do for her birthday was petition for court. We finished a bunch of paperwork with her new name, requesting the change of birth certificate and passport. Normally this stuff has been annoying but we were just beeming with joy. The best thing that we could do for A's birthday is request for the courts to allow us to adopt her (of course it would be better to be able to bring her home, but we do what we can). We will know on the 6th when our court date will be. It still makes me sick to think of leaving her but the quicker all of this goes through, the sooner she will be home.