Day Thirteen (Cindy and Cathy's Last Day)

Today our walk to the clinic was more peaceful than yesterday. The babies were pretty happy this morning, many of them didn’t even take their extra morning nap. We didn’t have any aides with us this morning, so it was just us and all the babies. We played, cuddled, walked, and talked with the babies until bottles. We were able to feed all except one with propped bottles and us holding a few each, and one aide came in to help with the other. Then it was more play time, and naptime for Gabriella, before a meal of pureed bananas and oranges. Ema, Cristi, and Celine liked it, but the rest weren’t sure. Then we had another hour before bottle time; little Andreea slept. Everyone except Celine sucked down their soup bottles fast, even Ema! We didn’t have enough time to burp them unfortunately before leaving for the hotel. After lunch we talked about taking cabs from the train station to hotels (for those leaving tomorrow). The afternoon at the clinic went by really fast. Alexandra was back from the hospital and seemed happy. I visited with the mobiles and got to see Sammy practice walking. In the non-mobile room we had less kids, lots were still sleeping, so it was easier. I got lots of time with Alina to practice talking, making fish faces, and giving kisses. Her kisses are so cute, but so slimy that you need to wash your face afterwards. She now crawls/walks over and climbs up my leg saying “mama” when she wants attention. I weighed her a couple nights ago and she is up to 9.92 pounds so she is gaining weight! I also worked with Gabriela on sitting up, which she did not enjoy. Cristi was a little tired this afternoon, but we still worked on standing and a little bit of walking. At the end I visited Maria in isolation. We had sarmales for dinner and had some of our last conversations with our two-weekers. We will be getting up at seven tomorrow to have breakfast with them though before they leave. Then I plan to get lots of rest over the weekend, and probably visit the clinic a couple times. David has an invitation to a locals house on Sunday, we were all impressed!