Worm Hunting and a Norwegian Birthday

Today we stayed at the hotel all day, and we had a MUCH better day than yesterday.  It was a beautiful day here, sunny and a high probably in the 80's.  We had breakfast, and then headed to the park.  The boys have discovered that the morning after it has rained, they can search for earth worms.  The worms are pretty small, anywhere from 1/2" to 2" long.  The first time they saw a worm (2 days ago), Santi attacked it with a plastic shovel and smacked it over and over and over until there was nothing left to it but worm-jam.  Today, however, they were quite brave, after Jason showed them that it was ok.  They held worms in their hands, dug and dug in the mud, and saved their worms in a plastic bucket.

The whole while that the older 2 kids were searching for worms, Christian was walking around pushing his empty stroller.  It is good exercise for him and his coordination seems to be getting better and better.  It was a really warm morning today, so we played in the park for about an hour and then headed back to our room to change clothes and go to the pool.

We played in the pool for a couple of hours.  There are 2 Norwegian families that are staying here for adoptions also, and we have gotten to know them these last few weeks.  One of the families consists of the dad, Ronnie, the mom, Ellia, the 8 year old son, Ellias, and their new 2 year old son, Hektor.  Yesterday Ronnie told us that today is Ellia's birthday, but when he said it, I thought that he said it was Ellias's birthday.  So all day long today we have all been walking up to Ellias and telling him happy birthday.  Then Ronnie invited our family to come up to their room for some cake and a little birthday party.  Well, since we thought that it was Ellias's birthday (an 8 year old boy), the kids drew a card, and we brought a gift of a Packers Superbowl Championship t-shirt in his size.  Imagine our embarassment when we showed up and realized it was the MOM's birthday, not the boy's - OOPS!!!  We all laughed and laughed, and I think I turned pink. 

The kids had a great time playing in their room because the Norwegian family had tons of toys.  It actually made Jason and I feel kind of bad that we haven't bought more toys our kids here, but they are just so hard on things at this stage.  Pretty much all of the toys that their foster mom sent with them 2 weeks ago are all ready broken in one way or another.  It is also hard for us to justify buying lots of plastic junk here that we will just have to lug all the way back home.  We may have to take another trip to Exito and pick up a few small things, but we'll see how much longer we will be here before we do that.

When we first got to the party, the kids were kind of bashful and were playing quietly.  The other families commented on how nice our boys were.  Fast-forward 2 hours.  The kids chugged down pop, cookies, candy, and cheetos - look out!  Juan Manuel was playing around with this singing microphone toy, dancing around the room stealing the center stage.  We knew that it was time to go when Juan Manuel started revving and was kicking a giant balloon (imagine a pilates-ball-sized balloon) around the room, and Christian was passed out asleep with his head bobbing all around...yep, our bobble-head baby!  So we headed back to our room to do some skyping, eat our picnic-style dinner, and have baths for everyone.  Our Norwegian friends received their Sentencia yesterday, and Sunday is their last day here in Medellin.  We will be sad to see them go, as they have been very kind to us and a pleasure to know.

We had another load of laundry sent out today and got it back tonight.  We are able to do wash in our sink, but things like denim take about 3 days to line-dry and end up smelling like mildew.  Plus, the kids get so filthy, especially Christian at meal times, that sink washing just doesn't always do the trick.  We are hoping to scrape by with only one more time of sending out laundry, but it all depends on how much longer we are here.  One of the other families here said that rather than sending out their laundry, they have been purchasing new clothes instead - yikes!  Seems kind of extreme, but they said that they had packed a lot of white and pink clothes for their daughter, and have now realized that the better options are any shade of brown or anything that will help hide stains from dirt and food.

Jason went to a new grocery store today called Carulla.  It is a lot closer and a lot nicer than the grocery stores we had gone to previously.  Margarita never told us about this store, and we only found out about it through talking with the Norwegian families.  At this point, we are a little bit frustrated with Margarita.  Due to all of the earlier miscommunication between her and our adoption agency, we have the feeling that she is not terribly fond of our family, and doesn't go out of her way to help us.  She has seemed rather cool to us lately, as if she is doing only the mandatory things.  It is unfortunate for us, but there is nothing that we can really do about it at this point.  We don't mind being self-reliant, so at least that serves us well.

Case in point:  today one of the doors between our 2 adjoining rooms jammed.  We have tried to rig up the doors so that the kids can't close them and accidentally lock themselves in one room or the other.  Somehow, the latch wouldn't release and Jason had to take apart the doorknob to get the door open.  The kids were eating their lunch, watching, and talking a mile a minute asking "What's wrong?  What is Papa doing?  Will we ever be able to get back in that room?  Where are we going to sleep tonight?  Are we all going to live in this room now?  Where will we play from now on?"  Etc., etc, etc.  We finally had to demand SILENCIO por favor!!!  Jason got it fixed, and we are as good as new.  Thank goodness he packed his leatherman tool!

That's about it for today.  The boys still bicker amongst themselves, but I am getting more attuned to detecting it and redirecting them.  Tomorrow we are sticking to our good old routine and hoping for good weather.  It rained hard this afternoon, so there should be some great worm-hunting in the morning!