End of week one

Hello,

Well it's Saturday morning, the beginning of a quiet weekend for me. Stephani and Liz left for Bucharest early this morning, hopefully their flights will go smoothly tomorrow. We heard that parts of Germany are snowed in and there is snow in France too (Stephani's flight has connection in Frankfurt and Liz's in Paris) so we're keeping our fingers crossed that they don't meet any problems. And Evan and Jamie are off touring the painted monasteries; I could have gone with them but the painted monasteries -beautiful as they are- kind of bored me the last time. I really enjoyed seeing the first one but after that, it was like enough already. As Mihaela said "You've seen one painted monastery you've seen them all". So I decided to sit this trip out and have a restful weekend at the Giani. I have of course contracted a cold from our sweet babies and am trying to nip in the bud before Monday.

We had a great day at the clinic yesterday. I brought in two cute outfits to dress our twins Denisa and Larisa in for a photo session. They are both beautiful girls but the navy blue and red sleepers they've been wearing just doesn't bring it out in them. I was planning to upload some photos this weekend but, alas, I do not have the right cord. I thought I brought the usb cord but I actually brought the firewire; so for now, no photos. Maybe I'll be able to get ahold of a usb cord sometime next week. I hope so because I got some great photos of the kids I'd love to share. Miss Andreea R (who is now 2 years, 4 months) is quite the model. She did a bunch of silly poses for me, most of them just after I took a picture, but I did manage to capture some great ones.

Abel (the little cross eyed boy whom we called Nicu last time) started walking by himself this week and had been cruising the halls with little Mirella. He has had surgery on his eyes and I think since then his development has really been taking off. Last time, at seven months old, he couldn't even hold his head up and now he is walking all over the place.

It's so good to see such progress. The toddler group has amazed me with their abilities. They can talk a little bit and are very communicative. They are also very interactive, both with adults and with each other. They play together very well, and of course they fight with each other too (over toys mostly) just like regular toddlers. It was such a surprise to hear them talking. Last time I don't think any of the toddlers could tell you their own name, and this time little Florin can identify each of the toddlers by name. I believe their preschool teacher is now there everyday and I can tell this is doing them alot of good.

Oh and a question for Barbara Gray (or anyone who knows about dentistry) None of the children ever get their teeth brushed, in fact Alex's and Anna maria's (who are 4 and 5) teeth have actually rotted out. One of the volunteers left a few children's toothbrushes in the supply cabinet and I'm wondering: since these kids already all eat from the same spoon, drink from each others bottles, etc. is it going to cause any harm if we use the same toothbrush on more than one kid? And if so is the harm that would cause worse than not getting their teeth brushed at all? It seems to me sharing a toothbrush is better than not using one at all but I thought I'd check before we give it a try. I can already see the massive plaque build up on Ramona's teeth and I don't want them to rot out like Alex's.