ABOUT MINA:

Mina is a precious little girl recently rescued from an orphanage in Eastern Europe who is now finally home with her forever family! She had been without a mother or father to love her & care for her each day. No one to rock her, kiss her gently or tell her she's loved. She is blessed with an extra chromosome known as Down syndrome, which for her that meant a life of being viewed as worthless in the country she was born into & a life without hope. Because of this her parents gave her up at the age of 6 months when they found out the diagnosis & from there her life progressivly went down hill. We are the Gower family residing in OKC who recently adopted this little angel. She was extremely malnourished and unable to do just about anything when we first met her. She will be 2 in January & is the size of a 3-6 month old weighing 14lbs. She continues to amaze us at how quickly she is progressing with love and nutrition. She has learned to sit up, roll over, feed herself finger foods, hold her own bottle and loves to interact with toys and other children. Her life has changed so much in such a short period of time and will forever be changed! Thank you Lord for putting a burden on our hearts to rescue this little blessing and making her apart of our family!

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Bites, Supermarket, Gifts, 2 yr old & squatty potties!

Sorry our blog post is a little late today. We had a long crazy day. Loved our visits with Mina. She was very sleepy for some reason today. She actually fell asleep in my arms for this mornings visit and started to fall asleep during the afternoons visit. She had a couple crying fits this afternoon. Don't know if she is just really tired or not feeling very good. She was covered in bites today when we picked her up. She has had a few bites on her periodically that we've noticed and I have just thought they are mosquito bites but she hasn’t been outside to get any bites and she has a ton of them on her face, her head, her arms and legs. The poor girl is covered. I feel so bad for her. Several of the other kids are covered in bites so I think it must be some bugs getting them at night while they are sleeping.

During the afternoons visit we took a huge gift bag full of Blankets (from those who donated through our blankets for the orphans fundraiser), Clothes (boys, girls, summer, winter, hats, mittens), bibs, etc. We just brought a whole check bag full of things to give to the orphanage because they definitely could use some more clothes and blankets. We took Rostik in to translate for us. It was a little stressful of a time to give them the gift because the kids were crying and you could tell the caregiver was very stressed out so we just quickly gave it to her and she said thank you and put it in the closet for later. Rostik also went to another groupa at the same orphanage that another little girl had been adopted from through RR and he read a letter that the adoptive mother had written to the groupa caregivers and gave them some precious recent pictures of the child they adopted. Rostik said they were very thankful of the message and loved the pictures.

After we made it back to our apartment we decided to take a walk to the supermarket to buy some gifts for the caregivers and nurses, and some chocolates to bring back home to share. It was about a 15 minute walk. There was a mall right over by it so we went in there and just looked around for a bit. It is so funny because just about anywhere or any stores you go into you are practically followed around by someone. When you walk down another aisle they walk where they can see you and keep an eye on you like a hawk. Really it is kinda just annoying and it makes me want to laugh because there will be numerous other people in the store and we are the ones that get followed. I guess maybe we stand out and they can tell we are not from here. Too bad they can’t tell that we are not the type of people that would ever steal anything. Anyway we didn’t buy anything…. All their clothes are so expensive compared to back home and the sad part is they make so much less money and can hardly pay to survive and feed themselves but yet they all have really nice clothes. Baby stuff is outrageously expensive as I believe I’ve mentioned already. Everything is practically double what it would be back home. No wonder they feel they can’t afford or support their babies and many probably end up in orphanages because of it. I’ve gone into numerous baby stores hoping to find a bumbo. I am determined to go into every baby store I pass and hopeful that I can find one to give the orphanage and explain to them to sit the children in it so that hopefully at least the ones who can’t sit on their own aren’t just left to lay down all the time and it will help them work on sitting up and developing the muscles needed to sit up. Pray I can find one somewhere.

So we shopped at the supermarket. Myla got to play at the play area at the back of the store… and every time we go there of course she has to go potty… which I dread every time. At the supermarket the potties are Turkish squatty potty style I believe and it is so nasty and hard to take a 2 yr old in one of those for numerous reasons. 1. I have to try to hold her up and keep her from peeing all over her pants and all over herself. 2. It is dirty in there and so I don’t want her to touch a thing. I’d prefer the normal potty seat where I can wipe it down with a Lysol wipe or use a toilet seat cover for her. Much much easier…. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about falling head first in the pot while I’m trying to balance my daughter while she goes potty. Oh what joy and fun … hence the sarcasm.

By the time we left it was dark and we walked back. We used Myla’s stroller to put our groceries and things in and we carried Myla back. That made It a bit easier then carrying all the bags and Myla enjoyed being held.

I will have to post pics tomorrow through our blog app on our phone. We have to go down and find wifi to post through that but it was taking to long to upload pics this route.  It’s almost midnight here and I’m tired so off to bed. Promise to send today's pics tomorrow!! Have a great day!

1 comment:

Sarah said...

I always wondered how the heck little kids went potty on those toilets! When we were there we went to the circus and I had to use the potty really bad so I sucked it up...they were NASTY turkish toilets and I saw all these mamas taking their kids into the stalls. Maybe they know something we don't??? LOL.