I Guess It's Official!

First of today was a beautiful day in Astrakhan! And, lucky for us, the caretakers in the orphanage let us take advantage of it by letting us play with her outside! She was much calmer today, which was nice. She played on some of the play equipment, walked on a concrete 'balance beam' jumping off each time she came to the end of it, went for several walks around the building holding hands with me, sat on the ground and colored in her coloring book, played with the blocks I had brought, rocked the baby doll, etc.
We noticed how very concerned she was that her hat stay over her ears at all times, so on the second visit of the day when she got the baby doll out of my backpack she kept pulling down on the doll's hat to get it to cover its ears. She eventually pulled enough that the seam to hold the cuff of the hat up unattached and she could fold it down over the doll's ears. That made her very happy.
I had planned on giving her that doll today, but she kept putting it back in the backpack. In fact everything she gets out, gets immediately put away when she's finished, that is all but the coloring book. She loves the coloring book! Yesterday she colored in it a little, then just looked through it flipping the pages over and over start to finish, then back to start again. Today she did the same thing. She carried it with her on our walks, she held it while holding the baby doll, and only put it down if she was going to flip through it again. When it was time to go I tried to get her to put it in the backpack, she just wouldn't. At one point she even said, "Nyet!" to me and turned herself around holding the book to her chest. So....I let her keep it. Am I spoiling her already? I had the translator ask if she could bring it with her when we play again tomorrow in case she wants to color and they told me that yes, that would be OK.
When we first got to the orphanage this morning the director was chatting with our translator while we waited for her to be brought out. I found out from the translator that Sister was telling everyone in her group last night, "I have a Mama!" in a tone of voice that sounds like 'I have a Mama and you don't!" She reminds me of someone in our family. If you know us, you'll likely know who.
Galina and Vica from CHI took us to The Horseshoe for lunch. Oh my goodness, every meal I have here is better than the last! For lunch I had salad, borscht, (SO good and Vica is going to send me her recipe!) goulash (beef stroganoff in America, but a thinner sauce and oh, the best, best, best ever!) and blinis topped with (most likely homemade) ice cream and fresh berries. Oh, and freshly squeezed lemonade!!! WOW! Then we went back to either Camelot or Kreme Cafe (can't remember) for dinner with two other moms and one son. My dad had the turkey kabob and I had shrimp kabob. And for the second day in a row, the best banana cheesecake ever!
Tomorrow we are being picked up at 9:45 to go to the orphanage; that's a little earlier than usual, so maybe with more time inbetween visits we can do some more souvenir shopping. We hit one store today and each bought a few things, but really want to explore a little more and not buy everything from just one shop.
One last thing, I signed the 'Intent to Adopt' form today, so I guess it's official!