Little Rascal :)

First full day with Essie

—-Saturday morning Daniel's POV—-

It's official! Essie is going to become my new little girl! I call Johnny and he literally starts declaring that he's gonna take some time off work to come a visit my baby girl before I take her home. I don't know if he will actually manage this or not as getting time off both of our jobs is very hard to come by.

I eagerly get myself ready and over to the adoption centre to spend my first full day with Essie!
I meetup with Clara and Marcus and they update me in how she has been struggling to sleep this week due to over excitement during bedtimes and has been quite the handful because of it. They also run down what Essie's routine is with me and how she strongly likes to go by it. Clara also says they will both be in the background the whole time just in case things go pear shaped but I know well enough from the transition plan we descussed that I am expected to do everything so that Essie gets used to having her needs met by me instead of her 2 current caregivers.

I gently open the door to Essie's room "Good morning my Essie." I say gently as I switch on the lights. I have an over excited little instantly wake up and jump up and down in her bed as I open the blinds. I then come and kneel in front of her and she tries her best to stare at me despite her tired and eye avoiding gaze.
I unzip her bed panel and she rushes out into a big hug which I return. I catch her attention before saying
"Since I'm going to be with you all day today. You are going to need to teach me your routines." She nods and points to her backpack. I set her on the ground and she runs over and gets her symbol book out and shows me her morning routine page. "Right so number one, breakfast. Number 2, brush teeth and number 3 is get dressed. I think I got it but you will need to remind me if I forget cheeky minx."
She nods and giggles before pointing at the door. I take it she's signalling me to take her to the cafeteria for breakfast. She looks but doesn't acknowledge Clara and Marcus being inside the room as we head out.
I sit her in the same high chair as I remeber from when I first fed her. I pass her the menu and she points to what I want. I use the marker pen attatched to circle round what she wants and I pass it to Clara who goes to get the food.
I gather that Essie loves nature as she loves looking at the window repeatedly (and also from remembering how much she loved the walk we had on our first day.)
"Can you see any birds Essie?"
She looks out the window for a bit before turning to nod at me and shows me three fingers. "Good girl! What sound does a bird make?" She does cute little tweeting noises in response and I praise her and rub her back. She loves having her back rubbed.
Clara arrives with the food and I put a bib on Essie before starting with feeding her. Again she was an absolute angel for me. Ate all of her chocolate crossiants which I spooned for her. She had gotten the crumbs all over her bless her. I see why she always has breakfast first as she is such a messy baby. She drank all of her milk as I held the bottle for her very nicely as well. I wiped her mouth with the bib and picked her up from the high chair. I took her to her room and I brushed her teeth. I noticed she has a special kind of toothpaste which doesn't foam and has a milder taste to it. Again poor girl can't help dribbling a little out so I see why she brushes her teeth before getting dressed.
Once I washed her face and wiped her mouth with a soft flannel I laid her on the changing table in her room. I offer her some choices of clothes and she chooses a pink paw print patterned top with dungaroos and pink socks to sort of match with her top. Outfit chosen and put to one side I takes Essie's now very dirty footed onesie off and throw it in the wash basket next to us. I take her dirty nappy off "Essie do you need to go potty?" She thinks a bit before nodding yes. I encourage her to say the word yes and she does so.
I take her to the toilet and sit her on top of it and I grab the dirty nappy before putting it in the nappy bin whilst she does her business. When she was done I wiped her clean and she flushed the toilet. I took her back to the changing table and start to get her dressed. I put her top on first and then her socks before the dungarees. She was very helpful giving me each of her little feet, lifting her legs up when asked to and she sat up and lifted her arms in the air when putting her top on. Once she was dressed I brushed her hair which she sat very nicely for. Before we knew it we were done and Essie chose to go to the library using her ipad to speak. I can tell she knows nothing about me having read all her reports as since the last time she was in the library she definitely wouldn't have asked anyone who knew of that event to go back there again. I'm going to test how good she really will be for me as I know her cheekyness will come out at some point.
"Yes Essie we can go to the library but you must stay with me the whole time as a library is a big room and I don't want to lose you." I say to her before holding her hand as we leave. We soon arrive at the library and as I sit on a titan sized beanbag in the childrens sector. Essie chooses some books for me to read her. "Which book would you like first little one?" She hands me a book called how to be a pirate.