Too Tiny for Her Clothes

The princess is being swallowed up by fabric. Today we took some outfits that were sized Newborn -- too big. (She is like my friend Sharon -- skinny and beautiful!!)

Feeling badly that my little princess has to battle clothes all bunched up here and there, we set out in search of some preemie sized clothing in a city where 1) we have to walk to take a taxi anywhere we go; 2) we don't speak Russian, and 3) there are no Wal-mart or Target stores.

You see our dilemma.

There is a toy/baby store on the way to The Metro (one of our favorite eateries) and so we decided to stop in. The girl working there does not speak English. Occasionally, we luck upon someone who does, so I always try to ask. I begin to look through the clothes and find 0-3 months which states fits "Up to 6 kg". The princess is around 3 kg (6.5 pounds from what gets translated). I'm thinking these are too big. I show the worker a tag and make a sign for small baby and say "3 kg". She understands -- yay! -- and starts to look. Kevin finds some items marked "Newborn - up to 4 kg" and we are in business. We found four outfits that were marked "up to 4 kg" or "Preemie". We got them all. I know it probably doesn't matter to her, but what if it does??? This will give her some things that fit and will give us something to show her, years from now, how small she was.

Speaking of not speaking Russian, we've done fairly well. Today we had an issue at the photo developing place. She spoke NO English. FORTUNATELY, some girls who were there (teenagers, I think) said that if I would speak slowly, they would try to help. :-) They were able to tell her that I needed one print of each one on the card. They had some difficulty telling me when they would be ready. One girl told me, "Yesterday." I said, "Tomorrow?" and they all laughed and said, "Yes, yes." Then one said, "No, today." They told us 40 minutes when actually it was 2 hours. I think we'll probably pick them up tomorrow. We have to give them to our coordinator to present for us in court.

Here are photos of Ellie's outfits -- nothing special, but tiny. To give you a frame of reference of their size, there is a Pringles can beside the first one.

The mountains were exceptionally beautiful today on our trip out to Tokmok. It has been really sunny and hot here today. I'm glad to report that they are not bundling Ellie up so much each day when I bring her out of the baby room.

And as a closing note, all of us want to thank each of you who read this blog and provide supportive comments, those who are taking care of all the things that have to be taken care of at home, those who have given money to help get us here, those who continue to plan how to get us back and to take care of Josh when we return, those of you who have prayed and continue to pray for us, those of you who have listened to us call you at crazy hours and those of you who came before us and give us great advice. Each day we are thankful for each of you. You do not know what a blessing you have been to us. As I write in each of the blogs each day, I think of different ones of you and wonder how you are and what you are doing. I am in prayer for all of you who are still waiting. I know the ache, the longing. I will not minimize it by saying cliche' things like, "It's all worth the wait once you get your child." The wait is extremely hard and reaching the goal doesn't minimize that pain -- it changes it, but does not make you forget it. We are here through the grace of God and the blessings of so many and we know that thank you seems so small -- but it's all we have. You have our gratitude forever for helping us reach our dream and find our daughter and sister!

Oh, and those of you who have read this far -- check out hubby's blog. He's got me CRACKING up with his blog titles. Who knew he was this funny?