Integracion Approval

Today was a busy day for us.  At 8:30 we were picked up and had to go to the judicial building to sign a few papers.  The process only took about 15 minutes, and the taxi ride there and back to the hotel was about 45 minutes total.  We think that the kids must have been nervous about the change in our routine because both Juan Manuel and Santiago were kind of in a funk this morning.  At breakfast, Santiago was playing with his food, intentionally dropping it on the floor, and then threw some across the table at Juan Manuel.  That was the end of breakfast for him.  He was very fussy, had a mini-meltdown, and I had to carry him out of the restaurant while he fell apart.  Oh well, what can you do?

While we were at the judicial building, Juan Manuel was pretending to be asleep.  We had to drag him by the arm through the building, and he was difficult and uncooperative, and seemed to be taking great pleasure in giving us a tough time.  When we got back to the hotel, he magically reverted to being full of energy, but we made him lay in his bed for a "siesta" for 15 minutes, since he had supposedly been so tired.  Sometimes we are at our wit's end about how to appropriately deal with the kids' behavior.  We try to be reasonable and have natural consequences to their actions.

Christian went down for his nap a little bit better today.  Instead of screaming his head off for an hour, he only cried for 15 minutes before he went to sleep.  Thank you Steve and Julie for the advice on how to lovingly keep him in his crib without him feeling abandoned.  When he cries, I gently go to him, lay him back down in the crib, and then sit nearby on the floor.  Boy, does he get mad!!!  He stands in the crib and babbles and shakes the side railing.  When I go to the side of the crib, he stops crying because he thinks that I am going to pick him up and give up on the idea of a nap.  When I pick him up to help lay him back down...LOOK OUT!!  After about 10 times, he realizes that he is going to just have to lay down.  He still cries for a while longer, but eventually tires himself out.  He always sleeps at least 2 hours once we get him down, so he definitely still needs his nap.  We are hoping that every day will get a little easier once we all get the hang of the routine.

The afternoon was a little bit difficult because the kids knew that we had to go for our Integracion meeting at ICBF, and we think they were really nervous about it.  Juan Manuel was talking a mile a minute and copying everything that everyone said to him.  I think that even the other kids were getting frustrated with him.  Once we got to the ICBF building, the kids were definitely nervous, except for Christian, who didn't realize what was really happening.  Santiago kind of hid behind us, and Juan Manuel sat in absolute silence for 30 minutes.  Mind you, this boy hasn't stopped talking for more than 2 minutes since the moment we met him.

We met with the kids' psychologist, Ruby, our attorney, and of course Margarita.  Ruby asked us lots of questions.  How have things been going?  How are the boys responding to us?  What do we think about being parents to these boys?  What have our difficulties been?  We talked for about just under an hour.  Ruby said that she could tell that the kids are feeling secure with us, and are very receptive to us.  She thought that they all looked to be in great shape, and that we are all adjusting well to being a new family.  We were given approval, and now our case will be presented in the judicial building tomorrow, and we will be assigned a court.  We are keeping our fingers crossed for one of the speedier courts, but have no control over where we will end up.

At the end of the meeting, Ruby offered the kids a glass of pop.  We have been having a bit of a tough time getting the kids to drink enough fluids.  They want juice all of the time, but we would prefer if they also added water or milk.  They each chugged their pop in about 30 seconds flat - even Christian!  I guess that we now know that they like pop, but just can't bring ourselves to give it to them other than on rare occasion.  In the taxi ride on the way home, the kids heard us say the word "wow", and repeated it over and over all the way back to the hotel.

In between our appointments, we tried to keep the kids busy.  In the morning we went outside and played soccer in the ring designated for volleyball and bull fights...don't worry, there were no bulls there today except for the kids taking turns pretending to be "el toro".  We also spent some time at the pool as well. 

Tonight we all played in the room together.  Every night before bed, we all pile in the bed together and watch a little bit of a movie, continuing every day until the movie is finished.  First we watched Cars, then Toy Story.  Tonight Jason got to pick the movie, and he chose The Great Outdoors.  Juan Manuel was crushed - he wanted Dora the Explorer.  We watched all the way through the water skiing scene, but I am not sure whether the kids will tolerate another night of non-cartoon movie tomorrow night...we'll see!

Tomorrow we have nothing on the books, which I think will be good for the kids.  If the weather is rainy and we are stuck inside, we might head back to the shopping mall just to get out of our room.  If it's sunny out, we are headed to La Piscina, The Swimming Pool.  Hopefully the boys will be able to just have a fun day with no worries, they could use one of those!!