Pick up trip: Day 3

Today marked three days in Bulgaria - two days with Maia.  

While today was pretty lazy, it seems to have been harder on Maia than yesterday.  

We gave her a little mini bath this morning and she did NOT like it.  Pretty common for institutionalized kids, but she really needed one so we made it as quick as possible.  As soon as the water was gone she was her happy self again. 

We hung around the apartment this morning and just relaxed.  Maia stommed a lot more than yesterday, but nothing that would hurt her.  So we let her stim and just talked to her and played with her when she would let us.  She makes great eye contact when we call her name so we are able to distract her momentarily with that.  Her stimming right now consists of rocking and moaning.  With the occasional grinding of teeth.  Eek!  

Everything goes in her mouth. :) 

We went to her medical appointment at 1:30 (the one immigration needs) and totally wiped her out with that.  They just checked her length (3ft 2in) and weight (30lbs), and listened to her heart and lungs.  The poor girl was terrified and fought the whole time.  She reached for me and Craig multiple times which shows she is starting to see us as safe people.  I was so glad to be able to calm her down after it all was over. 

We came back to the hotel and took a nice nap.  Even Maia napped in her crib beside us!  

After nap Craig fed Maia dinner (baby food and cereal mixed with pediasure), and we got her ready to go out.  We went to a little pizza place a block away from the hotel.  They have English menus and speak a bit of English.  SO NICE!!  It's strange in Bulgaria though - they won't bring you a check unless you ask for it.  It's seen as rude on their part to just bring the check.  Whereas on our end we kept thinking the were ignoring us by not bringing it, lol.  

After dinner we fed Maia another snack and gave her her medicines.  (She gets vitamins once a day and an iron supplement twice a day.). Then we started our new bedtime routine, that will hopefully in time make bedtime more relaxing and easier on her.  I attempted to brush her teeth (she wanted nothing to do with it), and gave her a short massage with lotion.  Then we got dressed and said leka nosht to Daddy and went to the crib.

She's currently laying in her crib playing, rocking, and making silly noises.  We are in the sitting room where she can see us, but still has her own space.  She looks up at us every few minutes and grins and then goes back to her playing/stimming.  She makes the CUTEST noises.  I'll try to get it on video tomorrow to share with you. :)

All in all day 3 went well.  It's hard starting new with her and not knowing what to do to care for her.  Almost like having a newborn all over again trying to figure them out.  Thankfully we know what she will eat so that's a great start.  ;)

There's nothing on the agenda tomorrow, so we are hoping to take her for a walk and get some laundry done.  I'll update again soon!