Salmon and Hot Dogs

We had a good day with the kids today.  The weather was beautiful here again, which means we try to spend lots and lots of time outside.  Breakfast is becoming more and more routine, as we now know what the kids do and do not like to eat.  We are working on being able to use silverware, and that isn't going so good, but lots of the foods are finger-food kinds of things anyways, so no worries.  There are 2 business conferences going on at our hotel the last couple of days, so the restaurant has been crazy busy at breakfast.  The kids have been doing better and better about not yelling in the restaurant.

We saw Margarita this morning in the hotel (she was here to meet with another family), and Santiago was very afraid to see her.  He hid behind my legs and did not want to talk to her at all.  I think he might be afraid that she will take him away from us.  But, we only talked with her briefly and then went to play at the park.

Christian was super fussy this morning.  Jason went to help take Christian's jacket off, and he had a full blown melt-down, laying on the ground with his back arched and screaming.  He is definitely 2!!  When I put him down for his nap today, he was furious.  The last 2 days he had gone down for his nap a lot easier, so we were hoping that we were making progress.  Today was a totally different story.  I put him in the crib, sat closely by, and when he tried to get up I laid him back down.  He kept trying to squeeze himself through the rails in the crib and then would look at me to make sure I could see how "hurt" and "stuck" he was (he wasn't hurt or stuck at all!).  When I didn't pick him up and hold him, he just screamed at me.  Now that we are getting to know the kids better and better, I can tell that this is a battle of wills with Christian.  We know that he needs his naps - he sleeps 2 hours every time, but he is just so mad about being separated from all of the fun and action that he rants and raves.  We will see what tomorrow brings, but listening to a baby rage sure does test a person's nerves!  But after Christian got up from his nap, he was like a new child.  He was cuddly, playful, talkative...all of the best parts of his day were squeezed into the last few hours.

Santiago was very affectionate today and less sad and whiney.  Santiago has this toy that the foster family gave him for Christmas.  It is a plastic Transformer toy that plays a loud obnoxious song and has lots of blinking lights.  Of course, the kids LOVE that toy.  They also always fight over that toy too.  Somehow that toy remained tucked away all day today, and the none of us ever thought to bring it out...sweet mercy!!!  Santiago is learning to swim under water, and he told us again today that he can't wait to catch lots of big fish. 




The headache-enducing Transformer toy


Juan Manuel had a really good day today.  He was gentler with his brothers, and did a good job of talking to us with respect.  After dinner, Juan Manuel said he wanted to watch the video that we had made and sent down for the kids last November.  He had caught a glimpse of the DVD in our closet and remembered exactly where it was.  It was fun to watch it with the kids, and they had almost all of our dialogue memorized from it, and they spoke along with it.  Especially the part where Jason says in a loud booming voice "EL BANO".  Ha!  Then the kids made us watch Dora with them.  Juan Manuel and Santiago love Dora, but Christian is soooo not into it.  He squirms around like a little worm and won't sit still at all. 

I wish that I could understand more of what Juan Manuel is saying, because I think a lot of it is actually quite funny.  He talks almost non-stop and is very expressive.  The elevators here can be kind of tempermental, and on more than one occasion, one of us has almost gotten eaten by the doors closing too soon.  So the kids started slapping the open doors and saying something that sounded like "choque la" every time we would go in or out of the elevator.  I tried many many times to ask the kids what they were doing, but I could never get the hang of what they were trying to tell me.  I finally asked Margarita, and she laughed her head off.  She said that what they are saying is the Spanish equivalent of "Give me 5".  Who knew...so now we join in with the kids slapping the door.

I forgot to mention it yesterday, but we found out that our lawyer here in Medellin is going to be on vacation all of next week...groan.  Basically it means that nothing can happen for us next week.  Even if the judge happens to review and approve our papers, our Sentencia cannot move forward until Nora returns from her vacation.  We have been really striking out on that front lately.  First, our LSS case worker is out of the office this entire month, then LSS's usual in-country coordinator is on sabatical for 6 months, and now our attorney is on vacation too?  Oh well.  We can't do anything about it, so we will just sit tight and wait for her return.

Today for dinner we ordered room service.  While it didn't seem bad to us at the time, it later seemed atrocious when Jason told his mom that he and I shared salmon for dinner and the kids had hot dogs.  Hot dogs???  WHAT IS WRONG WITH US??!!!  We knew that they like hot dogs, and it was the easy choice.  So much for not giving our kids processed junk, right?  But, just so we don't seem TOO horrible, we did share the side dishes from our meal with the kids...they helped us with the salad and rice.  I must say that it will really be great when we have a kitchen again and can have "normal" meals.  Although we try to stock our room's mini-bar refrigerator with lots of fruits and healthy snacks, there is only so much we can do.  We are just lucky that the kids are little enough not to realize that a slice of baloney, some chunks of apple, and bread with jam are not a normal balanced lunch.




Grenadilla fruit that I mentioned yesterday

Tomorrow we are going to try going to church with the kids.  We wanted to go last week, but only having had the kids for 3 days and not really having any kind of handle on things yet, it didn't seem like a good idea at the time.  Hopefully we can sit near the back and can step out in case any of the kids has a major melt down. 

Here's hoping for another good day tomorrow, and stay tuned for more creative menu choices in our hotel room!!