Day 5 in Romania/ Wednesday Morning at Clinic

Baby Petre outside in his baseball cap -- ignore the pink striped girly outfit!! :-)

Cristi enjoy some time rolling around on the blanket in the shade -- Notice below he borrowed Ema's nice pink flowery hat! :-)

Ion doing his military crawl across the blanket

Sweet Ema-Elena... yes, dressed in the same outfit as yesterday -- remember if the clothes aren't dirty there is no need to change them...

Judy ( a volunteer and 6th grade Social Studies teacher) and her new love Andre... ignore the pink hat and notice the teething toy bought with donations -- these are a HUGE hit!!

Doesn't Alina look beautiful in her flowery outfit!

Ion taking a break from trying to Crack the Code of the toy in the picture...

Ion doing all the work and Alina cheering him on...

Leigh (left) helping Alina cheer on Ion in his quest for mastery! Becky (center), Leigh's daughter, holds Petre and Allie (right) is holding Andreea.

First grocery store stop -- 207.32 lei.... not bad for wipes, batteries ( for the bouncers and swing), laundry detergent, and toilet paper (about $69.02 US). A little story about the toilet paper... on Monday one of the volunteers told an English speaking person at the clinic that the toilet was out of toilet paper. The person then offered to let the volunteer use some of her personal stash from her purse but explained that the clinic was out of toilet paper. Needless to say I bought a pack for the clinic!

Day 4 in Romania/Tuesday at Clinic cont'd

Ion and Andreea playing on the floor

Baby Andreea

Ion playing with one of the teething toys I bought with donation money

Cindi's Hats

A sweet friend from my childhood, Melinda R., who now lives in AZ saw my updates about Romania and shared the info with her friend, Cindi. Cindi mailed me all these cute hats to bring to the babies.. obviously too warm for them now but we stiil had a photoshoot!! Alexandra

Andre

Petre

Sleepy head Andreea

Alina

Marius

Funny man, Cristi

Ion,who thought the concept of a hat was the silly thing he had ever heard! :-)

Day 4 in Romania/ Tuesday at Clinic

Little Alexandra (or maybe Alexandria) is the newest member of the clinic... she is itty bitty and has some physical problems. Her hands each have 3 fingers and she isn't ready to suck yet so she has a feeding tube. She is in the isolation room with Maria. My roommate Mariah asked to hold her and was given the okay.. 5 seconds later Alexandra spit up all over her! LOL She already fits right in!! I have no other info on this sweet one yet but will let you know when I find anything out!

The second newest member of the Tutova Clinic is Petre. He is a precious 2 1/2 month old who is being taken care of by Becky, Leigh's 29 year old daughter. He was a preemie and malnourished.

I love holding Ema -- this is her cute sunsuit and matching hat!! Can you tell how hot I am?! I am ready to ask Dan to shave *my* head like little Cristi!! (Joyce is the volunteer in the background -- a 6th grade teacher from NJ)

Ema in her favorite rainforest swing!

Leigh, a volunteer from WI, holding Maria... Dan brought her into the non-mobile room for one of us to hold after lunch. She is so beautiful. We are all deeply saddened by her condition. :-(

Sweet Maria Cleopatra...

Allie, our youngest volunteer 16 -- she is here with her mom, brother, and aunt all of whom have been teaching English at the school... she is playing with Baby Andreea

Sweet Ionela showing her independence by trying to put on her shoes

My roommate, Mariah, helping Ionela put on her shoes for an outside adventure!

Ema when I arrived at the clinic (she is dressed in a pair of Hannah's shorts, Trish)

HEAT, HEAT, HEAT

I have been walking around in disbelief that it seemed so hot here! I am sweating up a storm -- so happy every time we get in an air conditioned room. I keep thinking (and saying to my roommate Mariah) "I am from the South, I am used to heat! What is wrong with me?!". Then at lunch today Dan told us it is 93 degrees Farenheit today!! LOL I feel better -- I should be sweating and hot!!
The walk to the clinic is short and sweet -- maybe a 5 minute walk and there has been a breeze up until this morning. For future volunteers: the AC works really well in the rooms at the hotel, but in the restaurant you have to ASK every day for them to turn on the AC LOL I have been sweating by the end of breakfast :-) Bring light clothing!!
Dan also said it can get up to 105!!!! YIKES I hope not this year! ;-)

FINALLY BABIES!!!

While a team of 19 sounds good in theory -- "one adult for each baby" -- in reality it is a tad large for the clinic. It is hard to fit that many adults into such a small space... today 3 volunteers went to teach English at the high school and a mother/daughter team was traveling from Bucharest after recovering from a stomach flu so we only had 14 at the clinic and it took some getting used to! Due to the huge number of people... and the fact that many went their own way... I was unable to get pictures of all the babies today :-( Also Big Andreea and Miastra are at the hospital in Barlad for routine tests and will hopefully return by Wednesday.

Nicoletta (the wonder aide!) blowing bubbles for Sami, Cristi, Mihaela, and Ionela

Ion (pronounced e-juan).. a cute baby boy who has returned to the clinic after heart surgery

Little Andreea (we dressed her in girly clothes shortly after this picture)

Andre... another new arrival since my time here in December

Lea-Celine, who was in Iasi in the hospital during my Dec/Jan stay

Sweet Alina, trying to get her eyes adjusted to the sunshine

Sami reading a book in the mobile room

Cristi with his new summer hair cut!

Mihaela (above and below).. look at those curls!! She is walking on her own 100%

Ionela enjoying the swing in her pretty fancy shoes!

Gabriela with my new friend, Lauren -- Gabi has grown so much in the last 6 months.. actually in the last 3 months since Lauren was here (March '09).. she is pushing up.. reaching for toys.. HUGE leaps and bounds in development but still the sweet cuddly baby she was before!

Ahhh.. Ema-Elena.. the medicine she is taking for seizures has helped so much with her spasms...She seemed so comfortable all day today. Unfortunately tonight she had a very rough evening... and cried almost constantly with her body stiff :-(

My first new picture with Ema :-)

What do 3425 Playtex bottle liners look like?

Well, if you have a smart-packing older sister like I do this is what it looks like! I wheeled one suitcase of donations over to the clinic this morning as I went... it was quite funny to see the nurse's face as Dan unpacked the bag for me! LOL