A "splash" of progress

Greetings loved ones.

I will make this entry delightedly brief.

Yesterday, we went to see Maya at the orphanage. We were late because our driver didn't come to pick us up. I had a feeling this might happen because the day before, he called to the orphanage and said that he would be one hour late! I was not too happy about that because we had timed our progress with Maya based on an hour earlier. We saved our best till the end, and then figured out that we had 3 more innings yet to play!

We arrived at the orphanage almost two hours late, but still had plenty of time there. It was our best day there so far. We came and she was not displeased to see us. She was accepting when we offered her some wheat thin crakers that we brought with us. Of course we shared with the other children too. She seems to like things that are salty. We played ball, we played hide n go seek, and we looked at things on the wall. At one time, Staci even had her riding on my back as I was on all fours (only after one of the other children had done it and expressed great joy of course).

Our little Maya is an acrobat! We watched as she climbed inside of a small swining type crib and ballanced herself inside it. Then, she got on the rail of it balancing the whole time and THEN she turned around backward, facing out toward us and just swung back and forth and grinned. She even remained balanced as another little girl climbed up beside her on the rail and turned around too! There they were, the amazing toddling acrobats of Nepal..........I'm thinking maybe a branson show?? Just kidding.

All of this play and licking the salt of of all the wheat thins before handing them off to the other children has made Maya very thirsty. She discovers the water bottle in the side of my backpack and eagerly climbs in my lap to pursuade me that she should have some. So, I looked for approval from the caretaker and with a nod, I had the lid off and was pouring some into her mouth. Once again, sharing with others who wanted a drink. Maya was disatisfied with the technique she was using to drink and began to experiment with different ways to extract the water from the bottle. She decided on a full lips around the whole mouth of the bottle technique would be best for her. It was working out okay until she also decided that she should hold the bottle while inverting it in this way to drink. This is a similar technique to that which she uses with the sippy cups and bottles. All was well until she was finished with her drink and then pulled the bottle away from her lips. Well, the bottle was far from empty, and there was nothing to block it from spilling out all over her face and head. Before I could react, she had doused her entire face and head with water and was reeling from it! Staci and the caretaker were laughing so hard, they were not much help, so she had to turn to me. She was very taken back by this as you could imagine. She began to sputter and cough and rub her face in my chest. She frantically wiped at her face until she could see again. When she was finally able to catch her breath, she was very much finished with the water. She never cried once throughout the process. We took her wet clothes off and cleaned up the water. We discovered that she likes being shirtless and patted her belly with joy at her temporary freedom.

Can't wait to see what today has in store. As always. Thank you for the prayers - you are in ours. We love you!!

Marc and Staci