Our First Field Trip - day 6

Hey everybody,

Keep on leaving your comments, they are great! Whoever wrote the Letterman top 10, had us cracking up. I feel like I'm communicating with everybody more than I usually do!

We have had this baby now for 4 nights, and Linda already is in the process of weaning her off her middle of the night feeding. They get later and later and shorter and shorter.

Last night was a cake walk, she got up around 1:30 but was only up for about 20 minutes and then she got up around 5:30 and also was up for about 20 minutes.

Me?, I'm still having a panic attack if she makes one little peep! So Linda doesn't even get a chance to do a night feeding. I am standing over the crib before I even have my eyes open.

After writing it all out like this, I am sure I probably cursed myself so hopefully it goes well tonight.

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So since yesterday was a nightmare and all we wound up doing was "nothing", today we were to go sight seeing. All I wanted was good shots of the city. So this morning I got up and charged the extra batteries for the camera and made sure the video camera was all ready to go.

We were supposed to go out with the translator around 11:30. But he called at 10:30 and said he was getting a new muffler for his car and would be here around 1:30.

So that gave us time to veg for a while. We put the baby on a sheet on the floor. She layed there for a long time and was very happy to do so. She started to get fussy on her back bacause she couldn't see James. She is very infatuated with James. If he is in the room, she will not take her eyes off of him.

He was only a few feet away watching a dvd, so we plopped her next to him. And after a few seconds she focused and, boom,couldn't get her eyes off of him.

So together they both watched the dvd.

James is very fond of his new sister. (More on that in a second.)

When it was finally time to go check out the sights, we packed up everything and got down stairs raring to go. We were going to this place that is similar to the Old Bethpage Village Restoration. I will never remember the name. It is a replica of a Colombian village square from over a hundred years ago.

We drove for about 20 minutes to get there. If you look close in the distance you can see the bright green christmas tree at the top of the hill, that was our destination.

There is a large observation area that over looks the valley that has the city of Medellin in it. Behind us you can kinda see the view.

It was at this point that my glee turned to despair, for in my haste to leave the room, I left the extra batteries to the camera behind and that was the only picture I was able to get of the city below. :-(

Luckily I had the video camera, so we hopefully have the memory of that view on tape. I was hoping to share these incredible views with you guys, but alas.

It was actually getting fairly hot at this point so after we walked around the little town square, we decided to go back to the hotel and veg some more. The little town square, in case anybody is interested (Nancy K), it was actually really boring. It was mainly a touristy thing. The best part was there was a church at the end of the square that actually holds mass on Sunday. It reminded me of those old Clint Eastwood movies where there is always a church with a taco bell tower on it. You all know what I am talking about.

By the time we got back to the hotel and changed into our bathing suits, the weather started getting pretty cloudy. Linda and I hung out by the pool watching James and his new found talent swimming back and forth in the pool. After a while we met the other couple and chilled out with them for awhile. They introduced us to another local who had lived in brooklyn and graduated from manhattan music school and now teaches with her husband here at some prestigious music school. The woman's sister graduated from Columbia university and is now some big wig architect in the city.

It didn't take long for the weather to really start to get crappy, this picture doesn't really do it justice, but a storm came rolling up the valley towards where we were. It was like some hollywood special effect. By the time we got the boy out of the pool, the storm just went to the left and it never even rained one drop.

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James is starting to go through the "I'm done sharing my Mommy and Daddy" phase. He has started all the classic signs of trying to get more attention by acting like his baby sister. Doing the same things that we say are cute for Amelia, but not cute for a 5 year old. As much as we reassure him of our love and devotion towards him, he is having a hard time accepting it. When one of us is with him, the other one becomes the enemy.

This morning, Linda and I were both in the bedroom when he woke up. Usually he wakes up and wants some hugs and some cuddling. The first thing he said to us this morning was "How come you pay more attention to Amelia than to me?" Well if you are not crying right now… My heart was up in my throat with that question. Linda of course had a crying baby in her hands so there was nothing that she could do right away. At the same time all we both could manage was "you know we still love you." I'm sure it sounded pretty weak to a 5 year old.

How do you explain to your child that you still love them the same, yet they see your love being directed in somebody else's direction? We have been making a conscience effort, even before we came down here to reassure him of our love for him. He will obviously come around, but right now, he's got it rough.

The kid loves this little baby, he does stuff all day long to play with her and to make sure there aren't things lying around that she can get to. And constantly tells us both, how to feed, burp and change a baby.

Tonight for dinner he wanted to have a pizza, so luckily at the pool side restaurant they have fairly decent brick oven pizza.
While were down there finishing up the other couples with the 5 year old boys showed up. God has blessed us with the presence of these little boys. One of the little boys is from Denmark and does not speak any english, yet the three kids play like they have know each other forever. James can at least act like a five year old boy for a little while, showing off each day.

After dinner we came back to the room to get ready for bed and the woma, Alyssa, with the boy, Santiago, called us and asked if we would like to accompany her, Santiago and her husband to the giant shopping mall tomorrow.

We have been trying to get enough courage up to go by a taxi to this mall. Everybody raves about the restaurants and the shops. They also have small rides for the kids. So that was very nice of them to offer their time to take us there.

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Also, everybody say your prayers for us, because one of the most important parts of the adoption process is happening tomorrow. We have to go meet with the social worker. She (or he) has the ultimate say if we can go onto the next step. We weren't supposed to go until after we established residency for at least a week down here. But they called the orphanage today and told them to send us tomorrow. We assumed that it would be Friday or Monday. We have our meeting at 8:15 am.

We'll let you know how it goes.

Good night all....