We traveled to the big kid's orphanage (ages 3-10) on Monday and waited for the OK to meet Kristina. We learned after the fact that the children have been at "camp" since June 10th, so we traveled about 20 minutes out of town to the orphanage camp to finally meet Kristina. Upon arriving we were greeted by a bunch of kids dressed in summer garb, wearing only swim trunks, hats and flip flops while awaiting lunch in the cafeteria.

We knew Kristina right away because she was the child with clothes on, having been quickly decked out by the orphanage staff for our first visit. Although shy at first, she warmed up to us quickly, treating us to sidelong glances and then bursting into smiles. Oddly enough we arrived in Odessa with only one children's book (Clifford Makes a Friend) and not a single toy, having accidentally left our bag of goodies on the airplane weeks before. We quickly improvised with a paper airplane and some digging in the sand. Kristina was quite taken with the airplane, which she and Doug flew a number of times to her great delight.

Throughout our visit, we were learning some of the details about Kristina from her caregivers. One thing we noticed right away is that she appeared small in comparison to the other kids. This is part of the legacy of her early childhood, having crawled out of her apartment and into the street at 18 months to seek respite from the neglect and poor nutrition of her birth home. (My first thought upon hearing this was, 'the girl who lived'.)

The orphanage psychologist had nothing but positive things to report about Kristina, in terms of her development, interactions with children and caregivers, appetite, etc. Meanwhile Kristina was playing happily, all the while appearing to listen to what the psychologist was saying about her.

We had to wait until Tuesday to talk with the orphanage doctor. In the meantime Yana, our facilitator/interpretor, assisted us in contacting a doctor who could conduct an independent health evaluation of Kristina. Dr. Yuri agreed to meet us at the orphanage the next day for a physical and cognitive evaluation. He used a number of games and activities to evaluate Kristina's cognitive skills and then discussed her physical health with the orphanage doctor and performed a physical exam.

Based on the Denver II and other indices, Kristina appears to be doing well in terms of her cognitive development with delays in speech, which is very common for children in orphanages. Otherwise her cognitive skills were generally very good, so this confirmed our initial impressions. Physically she is healthy, according to the doctors, but is very small for her age, no doubt the result of her early development. Based on her growth over the last 18 months, she appears to be catching up having grown 10 cm (4 inches) and gained 7 pounds.

We met with her again later that afternoon, played together and then went home to discuss our thoughts and impressions. Needless to say, this has been a difficult process. We are very taken with Kristina, and have decided to move forward with the adoption. One of our favorite orphanage staff walked with us today as we were leaving and prompted Kristina to wave goodbye to mama and papa!

One last vignette about Kristina: At the end of our play date yesterday afternoon she rejoined her group in the orphanage. As on Monday, she was dressed in a darling outfit for our visit, as opposed to the usual swimsuit, hat and flipflops. We watched her from the distance as she rejoined her group, at which time she realized that one of her buddies was wearing her hat. Immediately Kristina, the smallest child in her group, made it clear that she wanted her hat back. We left prior to the resolution of the skirmish, but peeked over the hedge a few minutes later to see how things had turned out, at which time Kristina was happily playing WITH her hat in its usual position, placed backwards upon her head.

This is our girl . . .