Update 2/15

Well it's been a few days since I did a text update. I volunteered at the clinic both mornings over the weekend, then relaxed in the afternoons. On Sunday I was alone with the non-mobiles a while before Rosie arrived, and it was fun, but definitely hard work keeping them all entertained. Luckily Rosie came over just in time for part 2 of yogurt feeding! I took some "group pictures" of the non-mobiles, and they all posed nicely. Next goal: all the children! Saturday when we visited the isolation room Ionut was not too interested in eating, and had a high fever with cold wet diapers all over his body, so we figured he would be leaving again for the hospital soon after only one week back. Sunday morning, sure enough, Ionut had left for the hospital, as had Ema. We were not able to find out about why for Ema until Monday morning, when we found out that she too had a high fever, which was causing seizures. Sunday was Ema's birthday, and we are all sad not to be able to throw her a party this week (and dress her in her special outfit). Luckily I got smiley pictures of her on Saturday while we were there!

Good hospital news: Ion returned today from Barlad hospital! He seems to be breathing a lot better, and was very happy to have all our attention. He can still say "mama", "uh oh", and blow kisses! And he seems pretty close to walking; he creeps along the furniture, and will walk holding your fingers. We were also told that Daria Roxana would be returning this afternoon after her cleft lip surgery, but they must have run into bad weather, as she was still not back when we left at 6 pm. It is very exciting to have these two back, but we still miss Ema and Ionut! We are hoping to figure out a visit to the hospital this week before we leave to see them.

The last three days we have had a mix of ages in the non-mobile playroom. The only isolated kids at this point are Sammy, Marius, Andrei, Victor, and now Ion. Luckily we have been able to put Sammy, Marius, and Andrei in walkers in the hallway a lot, which helps with their boredom. Alina and Celine seem to be sprung from isolation, but have spend most of their time with us. Celine is great with the babies; always giving kisses and hugs. Alina on the other hand seems to enjoy hitting them, which we'd like to think is accidental. We have also spent time in our playroom with big Andreea, Mihaela, and Alex (the only ones in the mobile playroom these days). Yesterday Andreea fell asleep under the jumperoo with a plastic bowling pin in one hand and a cloth diaper in the other. Today I got Alina to eat 6 bites of yogurt off a spoon, AND got Alex to eat her 6 pm bottle! Both big feats these days! Alex is my big baby girl, and always scoots to me smiling (but still never really smiles in pictures), and LOVES to be tickled. Mihaela is as active as ever, climbing everything in sight, but is very smart (she seems to know all the functions of Rosie's camera). Today we brought Maria into the playroom for a good chunk of time. I either held her, or set her up in a flat bouncy seat, and she seemed to really be enjoying the activity going on around her. Petre and Celine were particularly interested in her.

Petre has become a pretty steady stander, but we are still working on his sitting, mostly because he just gets so excited by everything that he flings himself around. Cristi is getting more willing to practice walking with help, and Gabi, while not interested, has been making progress with putting weight on her feet. The twins, Roxana and Andreea, have been smiling and rolling around more. And the little babies, Denisa and Roxana, have been doing tummy time, and while Denisa is the youngest in the clinic she is close to sitting already! Daniela really wants to walk, and will pull her self to standing un-aided, but is not quite walking. She is, however, more than happy to walk assisted in the halls and go in a walker or the jumperoo; she is always on the go! Paula is pretty much the same, but has been spending time occasionally on the floor in the non-mobile room, which seems like an improvement.

The weather here is wild. Yesterday it was in the 40's and really sunny, but today there was heavy snow most of the day, go figure! Luckily yesterday most of the old snow and ice melted, so we have a fresh start. The walk this morning was actually easy as it had not snowed much yet, and the mud was frozen, but it was a bit more slippery at night. As Evan said in her blog, the "path report" is often the real start to our days!