We haven't been to the orphanage yet today so I will just tell you about yesterday's visit. We are going there from 4 to 6 today. We are hoping that the bus will be less crowded in the afternoon than it has been in the morning. We've started riding the bus and then walking the rest of the way to the orphanage because it is much cheaper! Hiring a driver is 130 grievnas a day and taking the bus is 6 grievnas a day (for both of us).

Yesterday we spent time with both kids again. We took them outside again. I took a banana to see if John Paul would eat some of it. He will not eat anything that we try to feed him. He smacks our hands away and grunts. And we've tried to feed him right before lunch so he should be hungry. His doctor said that he eats table food, but he is not able to feed himself yet. I just wonder how much he really eats because when I did finally sneak a piece of banana in his mouth he didn't chew it. He didn't appear to know what to do with it. But he did swallow it. It was a small piece. I thought that if he tasted it that he might want more, but he didn't. They brought him a bottle out one day that had some sort of brown juice in it. It smelled like apple juice, but I don't know what else it had in it. The nipple had a big hole cut in it and when he drank it, it just poured all over him. It was ridiculous to see him fed this way. I can see that we are undoubtedly going to have feeding issues with him and I am scared that I am not going to be able to get him to eat. He's been displaying some behavior that is also concerning to me. He's been balling his fist up and punching himself in the face. He's also been whining a lot and grinding his teeth. I'm sure that this is stemming from the environment that he has been in since birth, but it's a little scary and concerning to both of us. We're just praying that maybe he is confused and excited by our visits and going outside, and that he will relax some when he gets home and finds stability and security. I'm just totally confused by it because he did not act this way at all when we saw him in April. He didn't act as much like this the first couple of days that we visited him. It seems as though each day it's geting a little worse and I don't understand it. We did notice that he had red marks around his wrist and also a big bruise on his arm. Of course I wondered how that got there when he doesn't get out of his crib. How does a four year old learn to punch himself in the face? All of the care givers appear to love him so I hate to even wonder such things. But I just can't understand how differently he is acting now. He is starting to walk better each day. He's getting a lot more stability and he is even taking three independent steps now. He's really improving in that area. And he tries to go out the door to his room everyday so that he can go back outside. It's not so much that he wants to go with us. He just wants outside and I don't blame him! He's started to push away from us. To begin with he was bonding with us pretty well, but the last few days he's stopped making eye contact for any more than a couple of seconds. If I try to touch him he pushes me away. He only allows us to hold his hands. Yesterday was a difficult day. I'm praying that today will be better. I wish I knew what was going on inside of his little head. I know he must have a lot of different emotions going through there.

Dasha is doing well with our visits. She actually ate the banana and smiled while she was eating it. It was so sweet. I didn't know if she would eat it or not, but she actually leaned forward and took a bite of it right after I had pinched John Paul a piece off. She only has two teeth on the bottom, but it didn't slow her down at all. She ended up eating almost the entire banana! I couldn't believe that she could hold that much! Her little sleeper was a size 3 to 6 months (12 to 18 pounds). It was Carter's brand so it was an American size 3 to 6 months. She's so tiny to be two years old. The director allowed the doctor to give us Dasha's medical information. I wanted to know why she was so small and they had already told us that she has a lung issue. She was born prematurely at 32 weeks and was very tiny. She stayed in the hospital for the first 5 months of her life. That is part of the reason for the delay in her availability. One of her lungs did not fully form, but they told us that it is not life threatening because it is only a small portion of her lung and the left lung is fine. It was caused by her being born so prematurely. The doctor said that she has done really well in spite of this and continues to thrive. She did not feel that it would cause her any problems in adult hood. So that was a load off of both of our minds! But we will feel better when we get her home and evaluated in the U.S. For now at least we know why she is so tiny. We thought that maybe it was a heart defect. But she is fine there. She was just premature and you know she hasn't received good nutrition since she's been alive. Really it's a miracle that she made it being born two months early over here and abondoned at birth by her mother. I can't wait to get her home. I don't want to leave her here.

Well, I am going to go so I can get some food for our flat. I'm going to find some juice to see if I can get John Paul to drink from a sippy cup. It's the kind that free flows so hopefully it will work. And of course, more bananas! We tried to find some baby crackers and finger foods the other day, but they had nothing. Well, they had some crackers, but they looked hard. Our driver gave John Paul a soft cookie the other day and he grunted and threw it on the ground. I wish he had given me the cookie so that I could have torn a small piece off and tried to put it in his mouth. But so far anything we try to put in his mouth results in a swatting match and fit throwing festival. He acts like he is traumatized that we are trying to feed him. He's happier about getting his nose wiped than trying to be fed. It makes me wonder just what the heck goes on during his meals? Why does he hate eating so much? Poor little guy. Please pray that he will start eating something, anything that we try to feed him.