Tutova Baby Adventures: Happy First Day of March!

Today, we celebrated the first day of March and the coming of Spring. In Romania, it is celebrated by exchaning pins as a symbol of a wishful and healthful new year. The pins are called Martisors-I'm missing a few of the Romanian accents. A time to reflect and bring good thoughts along with the new season. Here is what it looked like here in Tutova, hopefully spring will come soon!

At least the snow is melting, right? :)

And, here are the very nice pins I received today. That was so nice of them, totally made my day!!

it's little but can you see the pins all pinned on the left sides of our chest?

In addition to receiving pins, I also received my very first manicure in Romania!! One of the aides was so nice and she noticed that I liked her nails the other day so she offered to paint mine:) She even had a little chair with a cushion all set up for me.

Roxana and I admiring my new mani!!

It's hard to believe that this is my last week. I keep looking at all these cute little faces and can't help but tear up at the thought of leaving them soon. I spent my morning as usual with the babies. Poor Nico, she has been having a rough time with her cough and is now getting more frequent breathing treatments and medication through an I.V. placed on top of her foot, right at her ankle...which means we haven't been able to work on standing or kneeling/quad activities. They are really keeping a close eye on her. I hope she doesn't haven't to go to the hospital. Our little Andrada has still not come back yet. I'm really hoping she comes back this week so I can say good bye to her. I held Cleo a few times today...she has really started to let us know when she wants to be held or needs some loving.

At the end of the day, one of the aides asked me to hang out with the toddlers while she prepared the evening bottles. It was the first time I had really hung out with all of the older toddlers in one room. It was wild and so much fun!!! They are some tough kiddos:) I finally heard the "Zoom Zoom" song that I've been hearing about all this time, and I had the chance to see firsthand what Kellie was talking about when the toddlers immediately get on their backs to assume feeding position as soon as they see the bottles!! It was so cute to watch. I also experienced how strong Ion can throw!! I didn't even see it coming but I sure felt it when a rattle hit me square in the face. He was standing way across the room...he has the best aim ever!! It was so funny and I was so shocked, I couldn't even get mad. And then, of course, he came to give me the biggest hug and kiss ever. Little Ion.

It was a good day for hugs and kisses. Especially for my buddy Paula. She was having a great day today. All about the kisses and she even busted out some dance moves that I know, our previous volunteer Steve taught her!!! It was awesome to see her so happy.

Paula---check out her new haircut

Today was a rather quiet day in the baby room like I mentioned before but yesterday was a different story!! Marius joined our little baby room sometime over the weekend and boy, did he make things exciting!!! He was in the crib right next to Cleo's and I completely forgot that he was there while I was giving her a bottle until...a pair of little hands started pulling out my hair with an accompaniment of very loud and contagious gigles!!! He was having so much fun!! Poor Cleo, she didn't know what was coming at her for the rest of the day. He would drop blankets and soft toys right on top of her head or be knocking their cribs together. She didn't seem to mind though, and seemed to enjoy all of the different sounds. I discovered Marius really, really loves to be tickled so that was fun. And, at the end of the day, I found he really likes to be carried and sung to, so that was really touching and I was so glad to finally be able to connect with him.

Cleo, beautiful, precious Cleo

Celine and Gina workin' hard!

My friends back home may notice that my cheeks have like doubled in size and I am getting chubbier by the minute, so I wanted to show you why...check out some of the wonderful food I'm eating! Oh, and you guys are going to trip out that I have been totally loving dessert and eating it almost everyday. You'll see why when you see some of the pics. Yum yum.