My Daughter

Today I got to hold my daughter...

All we had scheduled for today was to go visit Malia at her orphanage.  We are seriously struggling with the time difference and were dragging this morning.  Our driver and interpreter picked us up this morning, actually a bit early, and took Wendy and I on a short tour of a beautiful part of Moscow.  We were able to see the university built during the Stalin era which was a magnificent structure.  We could then look over the central part of Moscow at the vast expanse of buildings, the Kremlin in the distance, Stalinist era Gotham style buildings and new modern buildings alike.  It was very cool.  But we were very ready to see our girl and I was craving a good squeeze on her.

We arrived and were waiting in a hallway for them to bring Malia to us.  We knew we were going to have more time today with her but weren’t sure just how much.  Wendy went with Anya to find the restroom so I just stood there and waited.  I was looking out the window at one of the workers pushing a couple of babies in a stroller with one little one hanging on to the side.  I happened to turn to my left and there was a worker walking my little girl to me.  I honestly didn’t know what do for two reasons. One, there she was all to myself, and two, she was bundled up much more than I had expected for a 70 degree spring time day.  She had a little toboggan on her head and a fuzzy yellow snow suit.  She looked like a little eskimo with her big chubby cheeks being squeezed out by her toboggan. None the less she hesitantly walked to me and let me pick her up and love on here for a bit.  Wendy and Anya finally came back and we took her outside to one of the small pavilions that have toys for the children to play with.  We had her and the pavilion all to ourselves.  She went to a little see-saw first and I started lifting her up on it and we immediately got smiles and giggles out of her that I will never forget.  We played with other toys and pushed a baby stroller with a teddy bear in it around the grounds of the orphanage.  She is responding very well to us.   She doesn’t understand what we are saying but that will come in short time.  She is very quick and perceptive and my favorite part is she appears to be very even keeled like me.  You all will melt at the pictures we got of her and her with us today.  We got to play with her for nearly an hour and a half.  To say it was magical and surreal is a massive understatement.  We can’t wait for tomorrow.  The bad part is we can’t sleep much either.  I’ve got a little girl. God is so good.