Introducing the Lovely Chloe Elizabeth Katerina

Isn't she just adorable? She has a little rash thing happening so there is this crazy colored sav on her face, so just ignore that. She is just a tiny little peanut. She is about 18 pounds and 28 inches, or so I think based on my conversion of kilos to pounds. Our translator carried her into the room and she went right to me. She warmed up right away and wanted to stay in my lap while she played. She was very interested in Justin and he was able to get her to smile and giggle a lot. However, she did not want him to actually hold her. She kept saying what sounded like "daddy." This made Justin completely melt. We found out later that what she what she was saying was the Russian for "man." Justin doesn't care, as far as he's concerned she was calling him Daddy and he is officially wrapped around her finger. She said several other things that sounded like words, but of course we don't speak Russian, so we can't say for sure. As we were leaving the lights were turned off and she said something which our translator said was the word for "sleep." Genius! She was very interested in everything we said or did and made amazing eye contact with us. She is also very ticklish and just giggled and giggled. She had a great belly laugh that we have on video and will try to download later. By far her favorite "toy" was the little photo album we made of our family. She would look through it carefully while we told her who everyone was. Then she would point and wait for us to say the name. When another child walked by she clutched her little picture book to her chest and said something that sounded very affirmative. Too cute! She was entertained by this for the majority of our time and was happy to just sit in my lap. Justin was able to get her to play a little game of catch or more accurately a little game of, "Daddy throws a ball to Mommy and I go get it and bring it back to him." This gave us a chance to get some video of her walking, she's very steady on her feet which is funny because she's so little.

So, back to the beginning of our day. We started by going to the "committee" to get our official referral. After this we were able to spend about 1 1/2 hours with Chloe before going to meet with the social worker and the director of the baby home who is also a pediatrician. Then, we signed all of the papers saying we want to adopt her. After all our business was done we went and ate lunch at a very nice restaurant with traditional Russian food. Between this meal and breakfast I ate blini, pelmini and borsch (not sure if I spelled those right). I think that covers all the Russian food that I had ever heard of. After lunch we went back to the baby home and took Chloe to get her passport picture taken. Sh did not like the looks of the place at all and started to cry. I snuggled and reassured her and she calmed right down. What a wonderful feeling to be able to hold and snuggle her and make her feel better. We got to stay and play with her until about 6:00. So, in this first day we did all of the official business that we needed to do. So, tomorrwo and Saturday we'll just be able to play with her. We already think leaving her here is going to kill us! But, she seems very well cared for and loved. What a blessing!