Woman's Day, March 8

Today was the big holiday! I even received a flower from our translator and from Janet's husband (who is also one of our drivers!) Because of the holiday(s) we went to the Baby House in the morning. We will go in the morning Friday, Saturday, and from what I understand we'll actually get to go to the BH on Sunday, too! When we first got to the BH, our translator went up to get Caleb. I followed her up because I wanted to, but also because we had pictures of him to give to his caregivers. If you'll remember, when we took his passport photos there was a blue background. We had to pay a little more because the background had to be white. Well, we received the ones with blue backgrounds and that's what we gave them. I had Assyra show me how to write Roman (because that's what they know him as) in Russian. I wrote his name and the date the pics were taken on the back of them. (By the way, I realized the other day that I've been calling our translator by the wrong name. So, The Translator Formally Known As Assyra will now be known as Assyl. When some people say her name, Janet for instance, they say it with an "ah" at the end. I don't know...I'm confused, but anyway it has an "l" in it!) Back to the original story, I went up to the baby room. Caleb's caregivers were putting our clothes on top of his other layers. (It did get much colder today. It snowed a little.) When he saw me, he was smiling and talking to me! I think it was probably driving the person who was trying to dress him crazy. In fact, she even put his camo pants on backwards! I stayed up there and carried him downstairs while Assyl took Marina down. Marina and her new parents, Jeannie and Austin, joined us today in the music room. At first Caleb was really clingy and nervous. When he gets nervous, he holds on to the back of our hair. He had a runny nose Tuesday and Wednesday, but seemed better today. Marina, however, was really congested! She's a very happy little girl, so today she was trying to laugh and play but just didn't feel really well.

When we left the BH, our driver had a hard time getting us to our hotel because of all the activities going on in the square for Woman's Day. There was a lot of people. I can only imagine how many people would have been there if we had gorgeous weather like yesterday, rather than really cold weather.

One thing I haven't missed about home is the South Texas allergies! For the first time since being here, I sort of felt like that today. I figure I might be coming down with Caleb and the rest of BH Group #3's cold. Brad is beginning to feel the same way. If we'd only been able to take Caleb out when we'd first wanted to, he wouldn't have caught the cold that the other's had. Assyl had told us last weekend that there were babies in his group that had colds. What? You mean kids can get sick even when there is a doctor there? Okay, that's all my sarcasm for today, I promise!

We were able to call KLM and got booked on the March 16th flight, so pray that we get everything completed before then! (For those of you who have our flight itinerary, it is exactly the same...the date is just the 16th rather than the 9th. So, if all goes well, we would get to the SA airport (ah, home) on Fri. the 16th at 9:17pm.) We'll let you know if anything changes!!