Yesterday and today

*We have internet in our hotel now! It's not good enough to Skype (we tried) but it's internet!*

We've had a couple of great visits with the girls. It's been good to see especially how B tests boundaries and how she responds to discipline (which is pretty limited in our current setting). We've been doing mini-timeouts with her sitting next to me in a little chair. We have her sit quietly for about 60 seconds. This has only been after deliberate disobedience where she has been instructed numerous times not to do something (or to stop) and has understood and has continued (or returned to) the behavior. It's been fun to watch how she tries to "negotiate" so that the discipline is on her terms. She's a smart little girl!

J has continued to pep up as she's beginning to believe we really are her mama and papa. As soon as she saw the photo album today she grabbed it and started pointing at pictures asking "mine? mine?" in reference to all of the family members and rooms in our house. She was wound up today--I think the correct term would be giddy. :)

We won't see the girls tomorrow as they have some visitors to the orphanage and don't want any adoptive parents there. But we were able to communicate to both of the girls' caretakers that we wouldn't be there tomorrow so they could help the girls understand.

Other than that, we've been hanging out at the Amstor a lot. :) They know us by sight now and are so friendly. I think they like the funny Americans (or at least like to laugh at us when we order food). We Skyped with the kids yesterday which was great. They wanted to know when we're coming home, but we won't know until we hear about court.

And we've made friends! There is a French couple and an Italian couple adopting from the same orphanage we are. They are all staying in the same hotel and we are going to ride the bus with them on Tuesday. We've had some fun conversations with them, especially the French couple. I speak about as much French as the wife speaks English, so we have some really fun conversations, and we're both translating for our husbands. And of course, the Italian couple speaks Italian, French, German, AND English! :) Both couples are adopting "older" boys which I am so excited about. Most people don't want older kids and they usually don't want boys, so this is great for those kids. And both of the boys look really sweet.

Tomorrow will most likely be a couple of trips to Amstor if it's not too cold--it's supposed to be super cold here for the next few days!