Anya

We went to visit Anya today. She is five years old, almost six. She is tiny for a five year old because she has FAS but she has grown up since we were away. When we left she was talking with difficulty and now she has improved so much in only six months time. She was extremely happy to see us and let out a big excited "yiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii" when she realized it was Anita picking her up. We walked and talked outside for a long time and were followed by several other five year olds who wanted to hit us with sticks, eat Anya's bananna, and steal the chewing gum from my mouth. (The girl who tried to steal my gum told me she didnt love me anymore when she couldn't have it- I tried to explain to her it was tasteless and that I had been chewing it for a long time but her mind was made up.) There was one little boy who tried to convince me that we were all on our way home- saying "come on, I've had enough here, lets go home now". (That was hard to explain too).
Then we moved on to the small room where we play a game of taking all the toys out of the cabinet and rifling through them to find out what they do and how useful they are. Anya likes the computers/calculators best but was unimpressed by the fact that they were all broken. She ignored the Barbie doll. Good choice.
We gave her a cool new sweatshirt with a hood and wrote her name on the tag. Also some new warm pants. We are hoping they won't get stolen from her as this is an orphanage ritual. Hope that now she is bigger and can squeal, she will fight off the offenders.
I told her we used to come see her when she was tiny and little and pretended I was her when she was a baby. She bit me on the cheek. At least this time she did not pull out any hair.
Needless to say, we miss her and would adopt her if we knew how and if I had a home to house her in.
Will post her picture soon.