сказать сыр!

That's Russian for "Say Cheese!"

Today we had a delightful surprise when we went for our visit. We got to take Maella away from the orphanage for her passport photos. What fun! When they brought her to us in the entry, ready for her trip, Jeremy took her. This is something different, because usually I take her first from the caregiver. (I ended up quite sick yesterday, we think a touch of the flu. I was trying not to get too close today, for fear of passing it on to her.) What a little sweetie-pie, after a minute in Jeremy's arms she looked to me and reached out... she wanted her mama. But I also want to tell you that Maella loves kissing her daddy! It's so cute, this process that has happened over the past couple weeks. At first she would just intently watch his lips puckering up for a kiss. With each "smack!" she'd just keep watching those lips at close range. And then she started leaning in for the kiss. Now she comes at him, mouth open, smile on her face... ready to plant a kiss!

Getting in a car with her was a bit scary. This child has likely only ridden in a vehicle one time, when she was transfered from the maternity home to the orphanage. She was quite in awe for the first five minutes. I kept trying to face her forward so she'd look out the front window. Being someone who gets car sick I know that helps. The ride probably only lasted 10-15 minutes. At the very end she was getting squirmy. For the ride back to the orphanage she pretty much didn't like it. She moved from my arms to Jeremy's every 20 seconds, she would pull up and cling to me, she had a scared look on her face. So we wonder how she'll do for her other car rides coming up soon, some of them will be much longer than today. How odd it felt holding a child on my lap in the backseat. There isn't a law for car seat use in Russia. We kind of knew this in advance but it still baffles me. The traffic and driving here is way worse than what we're used to. At home we wouldn't think of not buckling up our kids into car seats.

For her actual passport photo, Maella did terrific! They had a little wooden chair for her to sit in, kind of like a highchair. The photographer had a little Goofy squeeker toy. I squeeked it and Maella did such a great job. She didn't give us big smiles but she was happy and gave a great picture. What a dolly. I asked if we could have one photo - always got her scrapbook in the back of my mind!!

I must share with you the emotion that came over me as I held her and carried her into the photo shop. It was the first time I was holding my baby, away from the orphanage. It was this first glimpse into the rest of our lives. Jeremy carried her out of the shop and I asked him the same thing when we were in the car, "how did that feel?". I could tell by the look in his eyes that he felt the same way.

During our visit today we played outside for awhile. It was actually quite cool today, about 55 degrees. But our coordinator had brought along this bike for us to use with Maella and she enjoyed it so much that we spent quite a bit of time pushing her around.

Thanks for the ride, Dad! Here's a kiss... can we go again?