Progress! and Utter Chaos

The past two days we have tried something new at the recommendation of the orphanage director and manager. Instead of staying there and attempting to interact with Jessica while she ignores and avoids us, we took her and Julius to our room in the guest house. The first time didn't go well. Truthfully, she stood at the door and cried and tried to get out. It is not my way to force a child and I worried it would be traumatic and backfire. But after a sucker, some gummies, and a whole lot of peanuts, she was sitting on the floor playing with toys. When we dropped her off back at the orphanage she gave me a big hug goodbye. This morning when I arrived she ran up and hugged me, and was happy to go with us, but didn't seem to enjoy it so much. There was some crying. We attempted to play outside, where not only was it rather hot, but she saw the stroller and thought we were going home.

This afternoon we picked the kids up again, and she was willing to go with us. We played in the room for a while, then went next door to our friends' room to play with their two daughters, so that she might feel more comfortable with other children from the orphanage. They didn't play together at all--it was parallel play, but it went well, so well that we kept her here for dinner. The other girls ate here last night.

Jessica loved the food, but started out wanting to sit on my lap. Meanwhile Julius was fussy. I had made him a bottle, warmed up some baby food, mixed it with cereal, which he had eaten some of before dinner. Now I was trying to mash up some baked potatoes with the leftover formula with my fork, which is similar to what he eats at the orphanage. They have a highchair but it is giant and was dirty and he was in no mood to sit there. He likes to be held, by mama. So Jasmine ran back to the room and got him some toys. Meanwhile I didn't have any food because I had sat down with Jessica on my lap and she was scarfing the food down which I didn't want to interrupt. We opened a bottle of soda and I tried to show her how to use a straw but she didn't get it so she drank some from the bottle. When I got up to get her seconds she was willing to sit on her own chair and eat, although I had to keep cutting her meat and getting her more. Towards the end of the meal I took Julius to try and get him to eat a few more bites. He did, but he has a cough from his cold, and I think one of the chunks of potato might have been too big, so he coughed and barfed all over me and the floor. At this point Jessica was pretty wide eyed. Basically, Jasmine and I had spent half the meal running around getting things for the kids (I'd forgotten how much work feeding a baby is!) and this was the grand finale.

So, we changed my clothes and Julius' and took them home and the mums bathed them and put them to bed. I can't wait till they can stay with us!