Day 7

This morning, I woke up with a horrible stomachache, so I went back to bed after breakfast and didn’t make it to the clinic until about 10:30. Andreea was mad at me when I got there, because I was late, but I gave her lots of cuddles to make up for it.

After spending some time outside (and noticing that Ema-Elena was not out; someone had seen her inside with a couple of the aides), I went inside to visit with the kids in there and to take some pictures of the facility, as requested by my mom. While I took pictures of the different rooms, I found Ema all alone in the big playroom, lying on a Boppy pillow. Now, it’s possible that she had fallen asleep while the aides were with her and they just put her down there, but why not take her across the hall to the other playroom, where Shirley was with Ion and Andrei? That bothered me a little.

So I took Ema outside for some nice Vitamin D from the sun. Her leg looked worse (she had several bug bites on it, and her foot was swollen), and she wouldn’t eat for me at soup-bottle time.

Ionela’s mom visited today. I guess Ionela was due to have her second surgery (for cleft palate) sometime in July, and her mom has been calling the preschool teacher almost every day, asking about the surgery because she wants so badly to bring Ionela home. From what I’ve heard, the surgery has been pushed back to sometime this fall.

We had fruit for breakfast this morning—grapefruit, mandarin oranges, etc—and brought some of it over to see if any of the bigger kids would like to try it for snack. They weren’t big fans of the chunks, so an aide mashed up a bowlful of it. Lea-Celine and Marius liked it, but Alina got a tiny taste of it on her tongue and immediately threw up her bottle. Apparently she threw up another bottle later, as well.

Later in the morning, Cassie was sitting in the preschool room with Alexandra. Cassie found a toy that she could squeeze and blow air onto Alexandra, and it made that sweet little girl giggle up a storm! I caught a little bit of it on video, but not the best of it, unfortunately.

Some “of note” happenings today, as told to me by other volunteers:

*Sami likes to watch the construction men work on the other side of the clinic.

*Marius made eye contact with Amy D.

*Gabriela ALMOST sat up all by herself.

*Cristi went for a stroller ride.

*Daniela was mad because she was hungry at noon and the aides had to go get her special formula out of the big storage area. I guess they’re only allowed to have a single day’s supply in the smaller, closer storage cupboard.

*Oh, and Ionela got a hold of Erin's Blackberry, and instead of putting it up to her ear (like she usually does with anything that does NOT resemble a phone), she held it out in front of her and imitated Erin taking videos and interviews!


Mihaela
Little Andreea
Lila and Alina
Gabriela
Big Andreea
Petre
Maria
Daniela
Susan and Alexandra
Cristi
I distracted Sami from watching the construction workers
Maiastra in the preschool room
Another view of the preschool room
Erin and Ana-Maria
Ionela and her mom. Hopefully someone else got a better picture.
Walkers
One of the bedrooms
Another one of the bedrooms
Strollers
Down the hall
Ion
Shirley and Andrei, who is sleeping
Bedroom
Bedroom (actual beds, obviously, but I don't think this room is currently being used)
Bedroom
Amy J. holding a sleeping Marius
Mobile playroom
Ema-Elena
Non-mobile playroom


Alexandra giggling. I'm not sure how well you can hear it, but you can see it in her mannerisms. :) Also, notice the "finger-flicking" motion she makes with the toy about halfway through the video. She does that a lot.