She is sooooo hungry. My precious little girl is so hungry, she gets so excited about food... look at this smile over a piece of plain white toast! She also, loves chocolate and every sweet/candy/lollipop goes by one name... Chocolate! She already knows how to play me, she looks up at me with these huge sad eyes and very quietly whispers 'chocolate'? It took me a while because her accent was so strong but finally I realized what she was saying. I didn't have any chocolate on hand but gave her a lollipop and instead and now whenever she wants one she points to the bag she knows they are in and mentions the magic word.

She's been pretty sick though, we may have to take her to the doctor tomorrow. As weak as she is though and as sick as she's been she has been amazingly brave. She is also incredibly loving and has the funniest sense of humor. She's fascinated with a small calculator I had and she walks around with it hanging around her neck like the best piece of jewelry. She writes her numbers in letters in Marathi and then again in English... she's incredible! She is definitely ready for kindergarden! She talks up a storm, in Marathi of course, but some how I've managed to figure out what she needs and when I don't we just each accept that we are both trying as hard as we can. The most heart breaking part is when in the middle of the night she is ill and lies quietly in the bed gazing up at me, she'll say these soft words in Marathi that I can't make out enough to look up or ask her soon to be translator... my heart breaks because I don't know what she is trying so hard to tell me but she just sighs sadly and still somehow manages to gaze up at me with total love and trust. She's been walking around with my picture and my mothers pictures for months and from the moment she saw us she knew us... we've been her family in her mind for a long while... she truly was waiting for us to get here. The bonding was already there, it's a miracle. Tonight when she was lying in bed not feeling well she called me to her side and patted the bed next to her as if to say 'lie down next to me' and when I did she sighed the most beautiful happy sign and her face lit up with this ethereal smile... it seemed to say, ahhh, this is right all is good' she just trusts and accepts me that much. Grandma makes her laugh so hard, they have little toy throwing fights and it's adorable.

Today was the scariest for her... we had been locked away in the hotel since Wednesday when we came from the orphanage. Today we met our driver to take us to the court house to have our last meeting with the judge. Kajal completely shut down the second we got in the car..... her terror was palpable and her body full of fear and anxiety. I realized she thought we were taking her back to the orphanage... Meenal our social worker from Maps our adoption agency was there and I mentioned to her what I thought was happening... she explained to Kajal that she was not going back to the orphanage, that we loved her and wanted her to stay with her...that we really were her 'forever family' words didn't help though. I realized that she's heard words before... many times, but people always left her just the same. Her eyes were so sad and hopeless, I held her and tried to reassure her but nothing worked. When she looked in my eyes I saw the pain and it was the worst thing I've ever seen. She followed us sadly and quietly into the court house and it was at least an hour later before we saw her perk up a wee bit. We went before the judge and he was wonderful, very kind. Kajal was too scared to say a word but he granted us his blessing just the same. He just asked me lots of questions about my life, work, family and why I wanted a child that looked so different from me. I told him the truth, I prayed for a child and this was the child God sent for me and since I first saw her face I knew she was mine. It was all good.... only when we left the court house did Kajal come back to herself. We checked into a new hotel, the Meridean in Pune (my oh my it's a palace) and then  I had to take her back to the car to go for our Visa photographs. She shut down again and the stress was too much, after only 10 or so minutes she got violently ill and we turned back for the hotel.

I think this was the moment that so far, I've felt the most like her mom. Standing in the hotel lobby I asked for a bellman to run and get me a towel to wrap her in. She was so weak and despondent. A woman walked through the lobby saw her and gave her a look of disapproval for the front of her dress was beyond soiled and let me tell you... I wanted to rip that womans look right off of her face. The protective instinct kicked in like I couldn't imagine and I just wrapped her in a towel and carried her upstairs in my arms. Her eyes were so blank and sad but she put her head on my shoulder.

My heart is hers....