We were up pretty late last night packing. We had to be up at 5:00 am, So this will be a short post.
We got up and got the two children dressed and ready for the long day.
Our driver picked us up at 6:15am for a 10:00am flight. We loaded our ten tons of luggage into his car and drove through Bogota for what may be our last time. I tried to soak in the sites and burn them into memory, but we know how that goes. After a while, the memories fade of the minute details. And all you have is the photos.
We get to the airport in only about 20 minutes. Once at the airport, we unloaded our ten tons of luggage. We get a sky cap and have him tow our luggage into the terminal.
Once inside, our driver told us to hang out and wait for him. So the sky cap and the Carman family waited for about 15 minutes for Mauricio to return. He had to go pay the airport deportation tax. That is a tax that every person leaving Colombia has to pay. It costs $50 U.S. per adult and about $30 for James. But you can not get your boarding passes unless you have a receipt of payment.
Then we had to go towards the ticket counter. Our sky cap had to unload the little luggage cart and place it on the floor. So I gave him a $3000 peso tip, which was my last of the pesos. He counted it and stood there. He said something to our driver, who then asked me for more. Some pair, huh? I told him that was it, I was tapped out. So my driver gave him some more.
We had 5 check on bags, two of which were over the allowable weight. The airlines wanted us to pay $75 extra per suitcase. But Mauricio talked them out of it. So he was good for something after all.
They did ask Linda to step to the side so they could open one suitcase. They took everything out of it. I was stuck at the counter getting our tickets. Linda gave Mauricio the baby, and James was basically roaming around doing whatever he wanted. After about 2 minutes, Amelia started screaming and crying, but there was nothing either one of us could do.
Finally, after almost 25 minutes, we got everything approved.
We then walked to the gate, but not before stopping at a place to buy 10 bags of Colombian Gold.
Coffee that is. So whomever would like to come by for a cup of joe tomorrow, we will be serving between 8:00am -10:00am.
Mauricio walked us to the gate and we bid our fond farewells. I just remembered that he never gave me the change from the $300,000 pesos I gave him for the airport tax. Which was about $230,000 pesos. Scum chicken!
We had to wait about an hour before we could board our plane. Amelia was great this whole time.
Our flight was 5 1/2 hours long. Amelia had about 3 outbursts through out the flight. Each lasted about 5 to 10 minutes.
We all have heard the one about being stuck on a plane with a crying baby, Well now we were the ones with the crying baby.
I was a little freaked by the whole experience, but Linda handled it very well.
Everybody napped for a little while, and all in all in hindsight, the flight was not bad.
After we landed, I was ready for an experience that we had when we came home with James. Especially after Sept, 11th.
We were the last ones off the plane. We than had to go through immigration which felt like 3 miles from where we got off the airplane. The last time we had to wait on line for about 30 to 45 minutes before even reaching an immigration official. This time we waited about 30 seconds. The guy told me to take the sealed package that the U.S. Embassy gave us and hand it to any officer near the exit.
I did and he told Linda and James to sit and wait while I took the baby to the office of immigration/department of home security. Last time we had to wait about an hour before we were seen. This time it was about one minute. By the time my name was called, and I got to the counter, the guy was handing me Amelia's passport back and said good luck.
From there it was on to baggage claim. Last time, at least a 30 minute wait. This time about 3 minutes. I gathered my 10 tons of luggage on to a cart and we went off to U.S. Customs. Last time we waited for customs at least 30 minutes, and were asked a bunch of questions. This time we walk in the guy says were you in Colombia for business or pleasure? I said to adopt this beautiful baby girl, point to Amelia. He looks up, smiles and says how long was the adoption process? I say since August. He says that's great, have a nice day and congratulations.
We went downstairs, and there was my mother waiting for us. I wanted to have the video camera ready for that, but didn't get a chance. James ran to grandma with big hugs. He then introduced my mom to his new baby sister. It was very nice.
From there we went to the car, hopped in and started home. The last time we came home, we had landed in a blizzard. We were supposed to be home by 7:00 pm but because of the snow, we didn't get home until 4:00am. This time, other than being stuck on the belt parkway for a little while, we were home by 6:20pm. About 3 hours less then I anticipated.
We came home about 10 minutes earlier than we should have. We caught Linda, Michael and Matt decorating our house with welcome home signs and balloons. And a red carpet was laid out from the stoop down the walk, good idea Matt!
My sisters and their families came over with some pizza's which the three of us ate and cherished. Linda went out to get Mrs. Henriques to come back and meet Amelia for the first time.
It is now 10:15, James went to bed about 20 minutes ago and is out cold by now.
The baby is in her crib, in her own room.
Now that we are home, it is like the last two weeks never happened. Driving home on the crappy belt parkway at about 8 miles per hour, made me kind of miss the lush tropical Andes mountains of Colombia.
But in actuality, It has never felt so good to be home.
Thursday, February 09, 2006
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Wednesday - Final Day!!!!!
I want to take this time to say thank you to everyone who has been reading along. Your comments of love and support have been very helpful to us here in Colombia. You all have made us feel like we haven't been that far from home.
Every night I would stay up until 12 or 1 in the morning writing our daily experiences. And throughout the next day I would read all the great comments from our friends and family, which made the late nights worth every second.
I didn't know what to expect when I thought about doing this daily blog. But after the first day, when we started receiving emails, I knew it was the right thing to do. Every night was like a little bit of therapy for me.
So you all got to see a little bit of what makes Dan Carman tick. What was inside me during these last couple of weeks. Hopefully you got to understand when I was happy, sad, pissed off or scared.
If anybody has any questions about our adoption experience, please do not hesitate to ask. If I left something out, I will be happy to fill in the blanks.
With that said, I will probably be the same old quiet and private Dan Carman the next time you see me. It has always been easier for me to write down how I feel, rather than sharing it in person.
- - - - - -
Today started very early for us. We were up at 5:30. Our driver, Mauricio, came to pick us up at 6:30 for a 7:00am appointment with the U.S. Embassy approved doctor. He basically had to put his final stamp of approval on all of Amelia's vaccinations and general health. Other than her cold, she got 100% approval.
-- let me interject here for a moment, When we first had our meeting with our attorneys to discuss "donations", they gave us a very specific set of dollar amounts for each step of the way. This new driver, we were told, does not get anything other than what is on the list, no matter what.
Our last driver, took care of everything, from buying us some sodas or coffees or parking. Never asked for anything. We were allowed to tip him anything we wanted on top of his regular fee.
This new driver, needed $10,000 pesos to pay for parking at the doctors office. We had to pay the doctor $120,000 pesos. We had to pay for Visa photos. Non of which was told to us by our Attorneys, so today we had to go find a ATM, because we need $50 U.S. each or $100,000 pesos each (airport tax) to leave this place.
Sorry for venting, I'll continue with the days events ---
From there, we went right to the U.S. Embassy. By the time we got there it was about 8:15ish. We stopped out front to get more photos for Amelia's visa.
The line to get into the embassy must've been 50 people deep. We walked right through to the front of the line. Apparently, Adoptions go to the head of the line.
From there you must go through two separate check points, before getting close to the embassy. The embassy has a 6-8 foot black metal fence surrounding the perimeter with another fence inside. Sounds like it is a fortress, but I only saw one American soldier seemingly getting breakfast. The place is actually parolled by a local private security company, and each one only carries a side arm.
Once inside, we discovered that Adoptions have to wait like everybody else. Inside the outdoor waiting area was hundreds of people waiting for one thing or another.
After giving our name, we waited about an hour before they called our name. Then going to the window, where you must speak through a telephone (like in prison), an interview is conducted. Linda was the interviewee, and basically answered simple straight forward questions about the baby. The interview lasted about 15 minutes. Then we had to wait to be called back for a final interview before we could leave. Now we had to wait a good two hours before they called us back up to the window for our closing interview. The whole time, we were waiting for a receipt that reminds us in six weeks to make sure we have our final immigration papers.
We came back to the hotel, and we all took naps, except James. After a while we went into the giant mall, that is attached to our hotel. This mall is twice the size of Roosevelt field mall, with inside and outside stores. We made a bee line for the food court and all had Cheeseburgers and fries.
Than we kind of explored the mall, but it was very difficult because it has about 5 levels, all of which are not on top of one another. They are spread out in every direction.
By 3:00 we headed back to the room, at which point Linda had to go back to the embassy to pick up Amelia's immigration docket. Which we need for customs when we get home.
James, Amelia and I kinda hung around watching cartoons in spanish until Linda got back. Linda got back just in time to feed Amelia, than the two of them went shopping again in the mall. James and I hung out some more.
It is now 8:19pm and the two kids are sound asleep. We just ordered room service and we are about to pack once again.
- - - - - -
By the time most of you read this, We will be on a plane flying back to NY!
As many of you have stated in the posts, sight seeing would be a fun thing to do. However, as you all could imagine, nothing is more important to us than getting home and getting some regularity in our lives. Besides, I think I might have to fly home "commando" since we have no clean clothes left.
- - - - - -
Again, Thank you all for your love and support. This is probably my last entry here at "thecarmans.blogspot.com"
It has been an amazing two weeks! I am so glad that you all got to join us in this amazing journey!
We are happy to start our continuous journey as The 4-Person Carman Family and hope you will all follow along until we are all old and grey!!!
Love you all,
Dan
Every night I would stay up until 12 or 1 in the morning writing our daily experiences. And throughout the next day I would read all the great comments from our friends and family, which made the late nights worth every second.
I didn't know what to expect when I thought about doing this daily blog. But after the first day, when we started receiving emails, I knew it was the right thing to do. Every night was like a little bit of therapy for me.
So you all got to see a little bit of what makes Dan Carman tick. What was inside me during these last couple of weeks. Hopefully you got to understand when I was happy, sad, pissed off or scared.
If anybody has any questions about our adoption experience, please do not hesitate to ask. If I left something out, I will be happy to fill in the blanks.
With that said, I will probably be the same old quiet and private Dan Carman the next time you see me. It has always been easier for me to write down how I feel, rather than sharing it in person.
- - - - - -
Today started very early for us. We were up at 5:30. Our driver, Mauricio, came to pick us up at 6:30 for a 7:00am appointment with the U.S. Embassy approved doctor. He basically had to put his final stamp of approval on all of Amelia's vaccinations and general health. Other than her cold, she got 100% approval.
-- let me interject here for a moment, When we first had our meeting with our attorneys to discuss "donations", they gave us a very specific set of dollar amounts for each step of the way. This new driver, we were told, does not get anything other than what is on the list, no matter what.
Our last driver, took care of everything, from buying us some sodas or coffees or parking. Never asked for anything. We were allowed to tip him anything we wanted on top of his regular fee.
This new driver, needed $10,000 pesos to pay for parking at the doctors office. We had to pay the doctor $120,000 pesos. We had to pay for Visa photos. Non of which was told to us by our Attorneys, so today we had to go find a ATM, because we need $50 U.S. each or $100,000 pesos each (airport tax) to leave this place.
Sorry for venting, I'll continue with the days events ---
From there, we went right to the U.S. Embassy. By the time we got there it was about 8:15ish. We stopped out front to get more photos for Amelia's visa.
The line to get into the embassy must've been 50 people deep. We walked right through to the front of the line. Apparently, Adoptions go to the head of the line.
From there you must go through two separate check points, before getting close to the embassy. The embassy has a 6-8 foot black metal fence surrounding the perimeter with another fence inside. Sounds like it is a fortress, but I only saw one American soldier seemingly getting breakfast. The place is actually parolled by a local private security company, and each one only carries a side arm.
Once inside, we discovered that Adoptions have to wait like everybody else. Inside the outdoor waiting area was hundreds of people waiting for one thing or another.
After giving our name, we waited about an hour before they called our name. Then going to the window, where you must speak through a telephone (like in prison), an interview is conducted. Linda was the interviewee, and basically answered simple straight forward questions about the baby. The interview lasted about 15 minutes. Then we had to wait to be called back for a final interview before we could leave. Now we had to wait a good two hours before they called us back up to the window for our closing interview. The whole time, we were waiting for a receipt that reminds us in six weeks to make sure we have our final immigration papers.
We came back to the hotel, and we all took naps, except James. After a while we went into the giant mall, that is attached to our hotel. This mall is twice the size of Roosevelt field mall, with inside and outside stores. We made a bee line for the food court and all had Cheeseburgers and fries.
Than we kind of explored the mall, but it was very difficult because it has about 5 levels, all of which are not on top of one another. They are spread out in every direction.
By 3:00 we headed back to the room, at which point Linda had to go back to the embassy to pick up Amelia's immigration docket. Which we need for customs when we get home.
James, Amelia and I kinda hung around watching cartoons in spanish until Linda got back. Linda got back just in time to feed Amelia, than the two of them went shopping again in the mall. James and I hung out some more.
It is now 8:19pm and the two kids are sound asleep. We just ordered room service and we are about to pack once again.
- - - - - -
By the time most of you read this, We will be on a plane flying back to NY!
As many of you have stated in the posts, sight seeing would be a fun thing to do. However, as you all could imagine, nothing is more important to us than getting home and getting some regularity in our lives. Besides, I think I might have to fly home "commando" since we have no clean clothes left.
- - - - - -
Again, Thank you all for your love and support. This is probably my last entry here at "thecarmans.blogspot.com"
It has been an amazing two weeks! I am so glad that you all got to join us in this amazing journey!
We are happy to start our continuous journey as The 4-Person Carman Family and hope you will all follow along until we are all old and grey!!!
Love you all,
Dan
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Tuesday - BOGOTA !
The baby is recovering nicely. Last night was not that bad. We actually took her out,against doctors orders, to dinner last night.
We finally got to experience real local cuisine. We went with another couple, who happen to speak great spanish.
We let them order everything. We had a little bit of everything. For all you spanish folks out there, we had empeñadas, buñuelos, pandeyuca, churizo sausages, plantains and a couple of diet cokes, you know to keep it real.
- - - - -
Enough of the small talk. Today around 9:30 we got the call that our case will be in front of the judge today. Our driver told me that we would be back by 2:30 pm.
So at 12:30 I took the baby, by myself, first to the notary. This is some run down little structure. This is where we get the birth certificate, with our names on it. We then went to lunch at some little roadside stand for some more empeñadas. We waited about an hour to get three original copies of the birth certificate. Each one had to be filled out with an old fashioned type writer. That is why it took so long.
Then from there, it was onto the court house. First we had to go to the passport office. There were probably 100 people in there. Today was the hottest day in quite some time. So Amelia and I were sweatin. We had to fill out a bunch of papers in order to recieve the passport. My driver, Eduardo does all the work. He had to stand on 3 different lines. This took about an hour.
From there we walked across the court yards to get to the main courthouse. Walked up 4 flights of steps. No elevators and no air = me sucking wind. At the main court house we met up with Fanny our lawyer. I had to add my signature to the final adoption decree. At which point, Eduardo says "Congratulations, it's a girl!" That's it, there is nothing anybody can do to take this baby away from me. She is mine! Hooray!
We still had to wait for the actual passport to be printed. But at this point, the baby was done. So she and I went back to the car for a daiper change.
We finally got back to the hotel at 3:45. From this point on it was nothing but crazy!
I brought the baby up the room, and sent Linda down to the travel agent to get tickets for a 7:10 flight to Bogota! We need to be downstairs in the lobby by 5:00 to get to the airport in time. By the time Linda came back we only had about 45 minutes to finish packing and go.
So here I am in Bogota.
We stopped by the couple from California's room to say goodbye. We felt very bad that they had to stay behind. They have been down here since Jan 15th. And because their case didn't go through today means they probably won´t come to Bogota until next Tuesday. That means almost a full month for them.
When we got downstairs, to load up the truck, the other couple from Denmark were just coming back from shopping. The look on the wife's face was so sad. She came and hugged Linda and we all said our goodbyes, even James and Simon. They were not happy of this situation that they are in. They have been here since the first week of January. They weren´t even allowed to see their baby until the day after we got Amelia on January 27th. Their baby, Julianna, was sick and at the foster parents house. The foster parents had no way to get the baby back to the orphanage because some roads were washed out or somethng. So these people actually went up to Cartegena, which is just like the carribean for a week. Anyway, they also won´t be going home until next week on their 15 hour flight.
We will miss the friends that we made here.
- - - -
On Wednesday, our driver is picking us up at 6:30 am to take the baby to the embassy doctor for a final checkup (more effing doctors). From there we will go to the American embassy to apply for a visa for the baby.
We will be back around 1:00 to hang out until 4:00 pm before going to pick up Amelia's travel visa. After that I can be on the next available flight home. The next flight after that time of day is 11:30pm which gets me home on Thursday at 5am.
We won´t be taking that flight. We will try to be on a flight on Thursday morning around 10:30. We should be in Newark by 5 pm. But of course we have to go through customs which means I won´t get home until very late Thursday.
- - - - - -
We are kind of contemplating staying here an extra day to do some sight seeing. We´ll see.
We finally got to experience real local cuisine. We went with another couple, who happen to speak great spanish.
We let them order everything. We had a little bit of everything. For all you spanish folks out there, we had empeñadas, buñuelos, pandeyuca, churizo sausages, plantains and a couple of diet cokes, you know to keep it real.
- - - - -
Enough of the small talk. Today around 9:30 we got the call that our case will be in front of the judge today. Our driver told me that we would be back by 2:30 pm.
So at 12:30 I took the baby, by myself, first to the notary. This is some run down little structure. This is where we get the birth certificate, with our names on it. We then went to lunch at some little roadside stand for some more empeñadas. We waited about an hour to get three original copies of the birth certificate. Each one had to be filled out with an old fashioned type writer. That is why it took so long.
Then from there, it was onto the court house. First we had to go to the passport office. There were probably 100 people in there. Today was the hottest day in quite some time. So Amelia and I were sweatin. We had to fill out a bunch of papers in order to recieve the passport. My driver, Eduardo does all the work. He had to stand on 3 different lines. This took about an hour.
From there we walked across the court yards to get to the main courthouse. Walked up 4 flights of steps. No elevators and no air = me sucking wind. At the main court house we met up with Fanny our lawyer. I had to add my signature to the final adoption decree. At which point, Eduardo says "Congratulations, it's a girl!" That's it, there is nothing anybody can do to take this baby away from me. She is mine! Hooray!
We still had to wait for the actual passport to be printed. But at this point, the baby was done. So she and I went back to the car for a daiper change.
We finally got back to the hotel at 3:45. From this point on it was nothing but crazy!
I brought the baby up the room, and sent Linda down to the travel agent to get tickets for a 7:10 flight to Bogota! We need to be downstairs in the lobby by 5:00 to get to the airport in time. By the time Linda came back we only had about 45 minutes to finish packing and go.
So here I am in Bogota.
We stopped by the couple from California's room to say goodbye. We felt very bad that they had to stay behind. They have been down here since Jan 15th. And because their case didn't go through today means they probably won´t come to Bogota until next Tuesday. That means almost a full month for them.
When we got downstairs, to load up the truck, the other couple from Denmark were just coming back from shopping. The look on the wife's face was so sad. She came and hugged Linda and we all said our goodbyes, even James and Simon. They were not happy of this situation that they are in. They have been here since the first week of January. They weren´t even allowed to see their baby until the day after we got Amelia on January 27th. Their baby, Julianna, was sick and at the foster parents house. The foster parents had no way to get the baby back to the orphanage because some roads were washed out or somethng. So these people actually went up to Cartegena, which is just like the carribean for a week. Anyway, they also won´t be going home until next week on their 15 hour flight.
We will miss the friends that we made here.
- - - -
On Wednesday, our driver is picking us up at 6:30 am to take the baby to the embassy doctor for a final checkup (more effing doctors). From there we will go to the American embassy to apply for a visa for the baby.
We will be back around 1:00 to hang out until 4:00 pm before going to pick up Amelia's travel visa. After that I can be on the next available flight home. The next flight after that time of day is 11:30pm which gets me home on Thursday at 5am.
We won´t be taking that flight. We will try to be on a flight on Thursday morning around 10:30. We should be in Newark by 5 pm. But of course we have to go through customs which means I won´t get home until very late Thursday.
- - - - - -
We are kind of contemplating staying here an extra day to do some sight seeing. We´ll see.
Monday, February 06, 2006
Monday - Day 11 ? - Pictures (Finally)
I just spent the last hour typing. Then the computer crashed. Now I am starting from scratch. I am exhausted, so this will be short I think.
Last night was rough. Amelia would have a coughing attack every 30 - 45 minutes. She would start coughing and shoot the pacifier out of her mouth. She then would moan and cry until we stumbled in the darkness towards the sound of a sick baby, rummage through the crib looking for the "binky", and pop it back in. If it took you more than 2 minutes, she cried loud enough to wake herself up. So you had to hurray. This went on every hour of the night. Right up until 7:00 am, at which point she was ready for breakfast.
We had plans today to go to a clinic so the baby could get a vaccination. This vaccination was important enough that Raquel told us the baby needed it before we went back to the U.S.
Well we went to the orphanage to see their doctor first. You know, because Raquel was so worried about the baby last Thursday that we needed to see her doctor.
Thank god Linda called the hotel doctor the other day, which started the baby on antibiotics. Today she was diagnosed with a little bronchitis. Could you imagine if we didn't call the hotel doctor, how sick this kid could be.
This doctor prescribed 3 new types of medicine. More antibiotics, something similar to Tylenol for fever and one of those asthma puffer thingys.
So they tell us she can't have her vaccination because she is on antibiotics and that we would have to do it in the U.S.
One contradiction after another.
I can't wait to get out of this effing paradise!!!!!
- - - - - - - -
The good part about our visit to the orphanage was that we got a tour of the place. Our translator took us around the whole place. They said I could take as many pictures as I wanted but I felt a little uncomfortable. There were kids everywhere, watching us as we walked through.
I learned some things about the orphanage, that I didn't know when we came for James.
1) There is always about 40-45 kids in the orphanage
2) They range in age from brand new to about 12 years old.
3) 90% of the children are up for adoption, the other 5% are here because they are in protective custody. Which means that they come from an abusive family, drug addict parents, or their parents are in jail or whatever other bad thing you could imagine.
4) There is a nursery with about 8-12 cribs in it. There were babies on the floor in their baby seats and some were in swings hanging from the ceiling.
5) There is a boys room with about a dozen or so bunk beds. The girls room was larger and had more beds than the boys.
6) School age children are bused to the local school.
7) There is a full time medical staff, cooking staff, cleaning staff and maintanence staff.
8) Several children came up to us and tried to talk to James and I and wanted to touch the baby. That was hard.
9) Many children here have physical disabilities. I understand that some of the worse off ones spend their whole lives here, because they have no place else to go.
10) If I won the mega millions, I know where I would spend a lot of my money.
- - - - -
I was able to get pictures in front of the orphanage for posterity I guess.
Here is the section of the building where we were presented with Amelia, up on the second floor.
In this photo you can see the wing that we went to when James was ready for us. I remember walking up those steps, in was drizzling. I could hear the rest of the children behind those barred windows eating lunch. Something I will never forget.
And in this photo you can see behind me the view that these children see every day. Notice the top of the playground. The ground just goes almost straight down after that. But the kids are safe, they get fall down the mountain.
- - - - - -
The other day we went souvenir shopping at some little tourist trap that was up on top of some mountain somewhere.
Turns out we went to this place because our translator gets some kick backs when he brings in some Gringo customers.
Anyway, it was raining very hard as we were driving up this mountain. They roads were being widened on this mountain and here is what the road looked like.
This is not a good picture but I think it gets the point across. It is the view, just to the right of the road. The billboard is an ad for an undertaker (I think).
On the way back to the hotel. We stopped at a place that has a view of the Medellin, however it was so cloudy we really didn't see much.
This picture shows Linda and the baby sitting in my translator's truck. The truck was clean when he picked us up. Today he told me it took almost two hours to get it clean.
Here is a picture that shows the gang from Denmark. You can see Oola, with the white shirt. Wife, Brit with the new baby Juliana and in the yellow shirt is Simon. James is at the left pissed off about something. Oh yeah, and an amazing view also. See in the back the mountains in the clouds.
Here James and Simon take in the view. Now remember these two guys do not speak the same language. Yet talk to each other and kind of get the gist.
- - - - - -
Here are some random images. Some good some bad. It has been awhile so I figured I owe you some.
Amelia chillin' poolside, pre bronchitis.
Amelia, not feeling well.
Amelia will eat that whole bowl of soup, twice a day.
View from my room.
View of the hotel, from poolside.
Good Daddy Kiss, Bad Daddy Kiss.
Mommy changing a sick baby. Mommy wants to go home...
We have a 90% chance that we will be flying out of here tomorrow (Tuesday) to go to Bogota which is several days earlier than expected. We may be home by Thursday.
Okay it is now 12:30 and I am tired. So, Hasta la bye bye baby!
Last night was rough. Amelia would have a coughing attack every 30 - 45 minutes. She would start coughing and shoot the pacifier out of her mouth. She then would moan and cry until we stumbled in the darkness towards the sound of a sick baby, rummage through the crib looking for the "binky", and pop it back in. If it took you more than 2 minutes, she cried loud enough to wake herself up. So you had to hurray. This went on every hour of the night. Right up until 7:00 am, at which point she was ready for breakfast.
We had plans today to go to a clinic so the baby could get a vaccination. This vaccination was important enough that Raquel told us the baby needed it before we went back to the U.S.
Well we went to the orphanage to see their doctor first. You know, because Raquel was so worried about the baby last Thursday that we needed to see her doctor.
Thank god Linda called the hotel doctor the other day, which started the baby on antibiotics. Today she was diagnosed with a little bronchitis. Could you imagine if we didn't call the hotel doctor, how sick this kid could be.
This doctor prescribed 3 new types of medicine. More antibiotics, something similar to Tylenol for fever and one of those asthma puffer thingys.
So they tell us she can't have her vaccination because she is on antibiotics and that we would have to do it in the U.S.
One contradiction after another.
I can't wait to get out of this effing paradise!!!!!
- - - - - - - -
The good part about our visit to the orphanage was that we got a tour of the place. Our translator took us around the whole place. They said I could take as many pictures as I wanted but I felt a little uncomfortable. There were kids everywhere, watching us as we walked through.
I learned some things about the orphanage, that I didn't know when we came for James.
1) There is always about 40-45 kids in the orphanage
2) They range in age from brand new to about 12 years old.
3) 90% of the children are up for adoption, the other 5% are here because they are in protective custody. Which means that they come from an abusive family, drug addict parents, or their parents are in jail or whatever other bad thing you could imagine.
4) There is a nursery with about 8-12 cribs in it. There were babies on the floor in their baby seats and some were in swings hanging from the ceiling.
5) There is a boys room with about a dozen or so bunk beds. The girls room was larger and had more beds than the boys.
6) School age children are bused to the local school.
7) There is a full time medical staff, cooking staff, cleaning staff and maintanence staff.
8) Several children came up to us and tried to talk to James and I and wanted to touch the baby. That was hard.
9) Many children here have physical disabilities. I understand that some of the worse off ones spend their whole lives here, because they have no place else to go.
10) If I won the mega millions, I know where I would spend a lot of my money.
- - - - -
I was able to get pictures in front of the orphanage for posterity I guess.
Here is the section of the building where we were presented with Amelia, up on the second floor.
In this photo you can see the wing that we went to when James was ready for us. I remember walking up those steps, in was drizzling. I could hear the rest of the children behind those barred windows eating lunch. Something I will never forget.
And in this photo you can see behind me the view that these children see every day. Notice the top of the playground. The ground just goes almost straight down after that. But the kids are safe, they get fall down the mountain.
- - - - - -
The other day we went souvenir shopping at some little tourist trap that was up on top of some mountain somewhere.
Turns out we went to this place because our translator gets some kick backs when he brings in some Gringo customers.
Anyway, it was raining very hard as we were driving up this mountain. They roads were being widened on this mountain and here is what the road looked like.
This is not a good picture but I think it gets the point across. It is the view, just to the right of the road. The billboard is an ad for an undertaker (I think).
On the way back to the hotel. We stopped at a place that has a view of the Medellin, however it was so cloudy we really didn't see much.
This picture shows Linda and the baby sitting in my translator's truck. The truck was clean when he picked us up. Today he told me it took almost two hours to get it clean.
Here is a picture that shows the gang from Denmark. You can see Oola, with the white shirt. Wife, Brit with the new baby Juliana and in the yellow shirt is Simon. James is at the left pissed off about something. Oh yeah, and an amazing view also. See in the back the mountains in the clouds.
Here James and Simon take in the view. Now remember these two guys do not speak the same language. Yet talk to each other and kind of get the gist.
- - - - - -
Here are some random images. Some good some bad. It has been awhile so I figured I owe you some.
Amelia chillin' poolside, pre bronchitis.
Amelia, not feeling well.
Amelia will eat that whole bowl of soup, twice a day.
View from my room.
View of the hotel, from poolside.
Good Daddy Kiss, Bad Daddy Kiss.
Mommy changing a sick baby. Mommy wants to go home...
We have a 90% chance that we will be flying out of here tomorrow (Tuesday) to go to Bogota which is several days earlier than expected. We may be home by Thursday.
Okay it is now 12:30 and I am tired. So, Hasta la bye bye baby!
Sunday, February 05, 2006
Day 10 - Superbowl Sunday !
As stated in yesterday's post, I went to sleep with a couple of drinks in me. So my night was relatively quiet. Linda on the other hand, had a rather long night.
So at 6:00 in the A.M. Linda was done and it was now my turn. Ugh! Doesn't she know that I was up until 1:30 writing the all important days events? (Note to self: no more drinking while there is 4 - 6am feedings happening.)
The baby is still feeling crappy. There is no pleasing her. She doesn't sleep for very long, maybe 3-4 hours at the most. Today was for maybe an 1 at a clip. Nothing that we do will stop her from crying. We both feel so bad for her. Every time she has an "episode" James gets very nervous and doesn't know how to handle the situation. So he kind of goes off the deep end. Which means we now have two kids at a time losing it.
He has the same helpless feeling that I do, and just wants to do anything to make the baby feel better. I start to get angry at him for doing things. Then of course after the situation I feel guilty for yelling at him.
Anyway, Amelia was up for about 2 hours and finally went back to sleep. I decided that I needed some air and went down to have breakfast by myself.
Upon my return, everybody, including the baby was awake. So now Linda and James needed to escape, and they went down and left me with a baby that we cannot make happy.
She was actually quiet and sat on the bed with me for quite some time. Long enough that she started falling asleep in a sitting position. It was pretty funny actually, because she did not want to fall asleep. So she kept dozing off, with her eyes rolling back into her head. Then she would start to slump forward only to catch herself and then she would pop up like a jack-in-the-box.
I felt bad and tried to get her into the crib. We've noticed that she is alot like her big brother, whenever they both start falling asleep, they do whatever they can to wake themselves up.
So once I stood up, she starts freaking out and screaming. Another 20 minutes of screaming and she falls asleep in my arms.
At which point Linda and the tasmanian devil stroll back in. The tasmanian devil with 5 pancakes and a half a gallon of syrup in his belly.
Linda actually got him to sit still and do homework at this point, don't ask me how she did it. It is like trying to keep a hurricane in a box, it is almost impossible. But she did it.
It was a perfect opportunity for me to get some work done. So both James and I did homework. His was over within the hour. Mine was a few hours longer.
The baby got up screaming and crying again. So James and I abandoned Linda and went to the pool.
We met up with Oola and his son, Simon. We hung out down there from about 12:30 to around 4:00. It has been raining here every day. But today it wasn't raining when we were in the pool, it was cloudy though. The pool is heated and is warmer then the air. It is actually quite chilly when the sun is not out.
We had lunch and a couple of margheritas for Daddy at the poolside.
Linda and the baby showed up around 4:00 about 7 minutes before the rains came. So she turned around and went back up stairs. And 10 minutes later James and I were right behind her.
She had stopped at the front desk to inquire about how we could see the super bowl. The other guys wanted to get together and watch it somewhere, even though Oola has no idea what it is.
The front desk informed her that the game was on ABC and that the hotel didn't have ABC. Now I have not missed a super bowl since I was ten years old. That is 28 years without missing a superbowl.
Okay, do I hold this over Amelia's head for ever? After all she is the reason I am down here in the first place.
So I suck it up and realize, what the hell, it is only a game. We decided the baby was starting to do better and we all went downstairs to the outdoor restaurant for some dinner. The baby fell asleep within minutes, so we were going to have a nice family dinner.
Before they came to take our order, the baby was awake and screaming.
We placed our orders, and Linda took the baby for a walk, only never to return. She walked right up to the hotel room with a screaming baby.
Let me just interject here for a moment. Things are different here. There is no such thing as a quick bite to eat. When you first sit in the restaurant a waiter comes to take your drink orders. Before you even see a menu.
The 10 - 15 minutes that it takes to bring a 7-up and a couple of margherita's (see the pattern) is like an eternity when you have children. They bring the drinks, then you have to request a menu because they assume you will have cocktails for awhile.
Another 5-10 minutes goes by before the menu shows up.
When it does (This is the point at which the baby wakes up freaking out), the waiter disappears.
15-20 minutes later, he comes to take your order. Gracias, senor waiter for blessing us with your presence.
Linda splits, and another 15-20 minutes later the food makes it to the table.
After you are done eating, you have to get a waiters attention, because he will never come to you. They believe it is rude to interupt you until you need them.
James and I order some chocolate ice cream (another 10 minutes).
IT IS AT THIS POINT THAT OOLA COMES DOWN TO GET SOME FOOD TO BRING BACK TO HIS ROOM, THAT HE INFORMS ME THAT HE IS WATCHING THE SUPERBOWL IN HIS ROOM AND I AM WELCOME TO COME WATCH!!!!!!
Well I had made the mistake of ordering a cappucino, which of course is another 5 - 10 minutes.
Let me just say that there is only 6 other people in the entire restaurant, so I certainly wasn't competing with anybody else for a little time with my waiter.
I drink the cappucino. I have to get the waiters attention to bring me the check. Another 10 minutes.
I am usually pretty casual about the time line, but now that I have been told that the superbowl was actually on I needed to get upstairs as quick as possible.
Let me add up all of those minutes for you. We made it down to the restuarant around 6:30ish. James and I got back to the bedroom at 8:55.
He was losing it, Linda felt abandoned all day so I called him to decline his offer and to find out what channel the game was on.
Channel 19, ESPN Desportes!
The TV in my room goes from 2 to 17 then 20 and above. Are you freaking kidding me? I immediately run down to the receptionist and ask her to fix it.
They send a maintainence guy up to my room. The tv is right next to the crib where the baby is finally sleeping. He whips out of his tool belt a universal remote control to reprogram the tv.
This process involves the tv going by itself from channel 2 to 120 searching for a signal. It then does it a second time to confirm the signal and automatically makes the channels work.
Well my autoprogramming functioning tv goes from 2 to 17 and then 20 to 120. Skipping ESPN Desportes channel 19. What the hell?
The looks at me and says in english "TV no works, buenos noches"
Okay, I can handle it. I have seen every Super bowl for 28 years, so what if I miss this one game.
5 minutes later there is a knock at the door, It is the maintanence man. Standing before me in the doorway holding in his arms a brand new television set. He goes into the room and moves furniture around removes the old tv and installs the new one all by himself in about 3 minutes.
This guy should work in the restuarant. He would make a killing with the American clientele.
Downside is the baby wakes up crying again. So what! I have the super bowl on for almost the entire 2nd half. I have a screaming baby in my arms, which doesn't matter because the game is being broadcast in spanish.
She passes out after a good 30 minutes, but again who cares, I have the superbowl!
For those of you who don't know, I am a NY Giants fan for as long as I remember. However, My grandparents and my mother are from Pittsburgh. I went to college in Pittsburgh. So I am glad that they won and that I witnessed it about 8 gazillion miles from home.
29 super bowls and still counting.
- - - - -
I was going to end this evenings blog there.
However, after reading the last comment from yesterday, I need to continue. It seems that "Sam T" doesn't know if this is a family blog or not, so some things must be clarified.
1. Linda thought the same thing about his traveling companion.
2. You know me, I may only look tough, but deep down, I'm a softy.
3. Ancyay Kayay isyay elcomeyay otay eesay myay ideovay
4. a. Real estate is good. Land is expensive but labor is cheap. There is no middle class here. The rich get richer and the poor live in shacks with tin roofs outside of the city limits in shanty towns, I am trying to get a picture, because these towns spread for miles into the horizon.
b. Exchange rate is fairly stable at $2000 pesos to $1 U.S.
c. Hookers? Not that I noticed. HOWEVER, for all of you single guys back home. I have met or seen 4 Americans down here with their new Mail order brides. The women all get boob jobs, and walk around showing everything off. They think it will win them a green card. I have included a google link to satisfy all of your curiousities. Kids under 18 stay away!
d. Don't even know who to ask about the poker, but I have seen it on tv here.
5. We effed up, what can I say?
6. My camera was not my good digital one, but it was an Olympus and Nancy will be getting a call.
7. The guy from Hicksville has an aunt here with a full time staff of servants. Each servant is responsible for a particular job, one cooks, one cleans etc. Each one is paid the equivalent of $40 U.S. a week. And it is the best job that they could ever ask for. So I am thinking a dirty sanchez might be affordable...
8. We miss you too, and hopefully you will be home soon.
9. If any kid under the age of 20 comes to me and asks me what a dirty sanchez is, I will give you Sam's email address, because he will be only too happy to answer that question.
10. We will always love Sam.
Adios, and hooray for the Steelers!
So at 6:00 in the A.M. Linda was done and it was now my turn. Ugh! Doesn't she know that I was up until 1:30 writing the all important days events? (Note to self: no more drinking while there is 4 - 6am feedings happening.)
The baby is still feeling crappy. There is no pleasing her. She doesn't sleep for very long, maybe 3-4 hours at the most. Today was for maybe an 1 at a clip. Nothing that we do will stop her from crying. We both feel so bad for her. Every time she has an "episode" James gets very nervous and doesn't know how to handle the situation. So he kind of goes off the deep end. Which means we now have two kids at a time losing it.
He has the same helpless feeling that I do, and just wants to do anything to make the baby feel better. I start to get angry at him for doing things. Then of course after the situation I feel guilty for yelling at him.
Anyway, Amelia was up for about 2 hours and finally went back to sleep. I decided that I needed some air and went down to have breakfast by myself.
Upon my return, everybody, including the baby was awake. So now Linda and James needed to escape, and they went down and left me with a baby that we cannot make happy.
She was actually quiet and sat on the bed with me for quite some time. Long enough that she started falling asleep in a sitting position. It was pretty funny actually, because she did not want to fall asleep. So she kept dozing off, with her eyes rolling back into her head. Then she would start to slump forward only to catch herself and then she would pop up like a jack-in-the-box.
I felt bad and tried to get her into the crib. We've noticed that she is alot like her big brother, whenever they both start falling asleep, they do whatever they can to wake themselves up.
So once I stood up, she starts freaking out and screaming. Another 20 minutes of screaming and she falls asleep in my arms.
At which point Linda and the tasmanian devil stroll back in. The tasmanian devil with 5 pancakes and a half a gallon of syrup in his belly.
Linda actually got him to sit still and do homework at this point, don't ask me how she did it. It is like trying to keep a hurricane in a box, it is almost impossible. But she did it.
It was a perfect opportunity for me to get some work done. So both James and I did homework. His was over within the hour. Mine was a few hours longer.
The baby got up screaming and crying again. So James and I abandoned Linda and went to the pool.
We met up with Oola and his son, Simon. We hung out down there from about 12:30 to around 4:00. It has been raining here every day. But today it wasn't raining when we were in the pool, it was cloudy though. The pool is heated and is warmer then the air. It is actually quite chilly when the sun is not out.
We had lunch and a couple of margheritas for Daddy at the poolside.
Linda and the baby showed up around 4:00 about 7 minutes before the rains came. So she turned around and went back up stairs. And 10 minutes later James and I were right behind her.
She had stopped at the front desk to inquire about how we could see the super bowl. The other guys wanted to get together and watch it somewhere, even though Oola has no idea what it is.
The front desk informed her that the game was on ABC and that the hotel didn't have ABC. Now I have not missed a super bowl since I was ten years old. That is 28 years without missing a superbowl.
Okay, do I hold this over Amelia's head for ever? After all she is the reason I am down here in the first place.
So I suck it up and realize, what the hell, it is only a game. We decided the baby was starting to do better and we all went downstairs to the outdoor restaurant for some dinner. The baby fell asleep within minutes, so we were going to have a nice family dinner.
Before they came to take our order, the baby was awake and screaming.
We placed our orders, and Linda took the baby for a walk, only never to return. She walked right up to the hotel room with a screaming baby.
Let me just interject here for a moment. Things are different here. There is no such thing as a quick bite to eat. When you first sit in the restaurant a waiter comes to take your drink orders. Before you even see a menu.
The 10 - 15 minutes that it takes to bring a 7-up and a couple of margherita's (see the pattern) is like an eternity when you have children. They bring the drinks, then you have to request a menu because they assume you will have cocktails for awhile.
Another 5-10 minutes goes by before the menu shows up.
When it does (This is the point at which the baby wakes up freaking out), the waiter disappears.
15-20 minutes later, he comes to take your order. Gracias, senor waiter for blessing us with your presence.
Linda splits, and another 15-20 minutes later the food makes it to the table.
After you are done eating, you have to get a waiters attention, because he will never come to you. They believe it is rude to interupt you until you need them.
James and I order some chocolate ice cream (another 10 minutes).
IT IS AT THIS POINT THAT OOLA COMES DOWN TO GET SOME FOOD TO BRING BACK TO HIS ROOM, THAT HE INFORMS ME THAT HE IS WATCHING THE SUPERBOWL IN HIS ROOM AND I AM WELCOME TO COME WATCH!!!!!!
Well I had made the mistake of ordering a cappucino, which of course is another 5 - 10 minutes.
Let me just say that there is only 6 other people in the entire restaurant, so I certainly wasn't competing with anybody else for a little time with my waiter.
I drink the cappucino. I have to get the waiters attention to bring me the check. Another 10 minutes.
I am usually pretty casual about the time line, but now that I have been told that the superbowl was actually on I needed to get upstairs as quick as possible.
Let me add up all of those minutes for you. We made it down to the restuarant around 6:30ish. James and I got back to the bedroom at 8:55.
He was losing it, Linda felt abandoned all day so I called him to decline his offer and to find out what channel the game was on.
Channel 19, ESPN Desportes!
The TV in my room goes from 2 to 17 then 20 and above. Are you freaking kidding me? I immediately run down to the receptionist and ask her to fix it.
They send a maintainence guy up to my room. The tv is right next to the crib where the baby is finally sleeping. He whips out of his tool belt a universal remote control to reprogram the tv.
This process involves the tv going by itself from channel 2 to 120 searching for a signal. It then does it a second time to confirm the signal and automatically makes the channels work.
Well my autoprogramming functioning tv goes from 2 to 17 and then 20 to 120. Skipping ESPN Desportes channel 19. What the hell?
The looks at me and says in english "TV no works, buenos noches"
Okay, I can handle it. I have seen every Super bowl for 28 years, so what if I miss this one game.
5 minutes later there is a knock at the door, It is the maintanence man. Standing before me in the doorway holding in his arms a brand new television set. He goes into the room and moves furniture around removes the old tv and installs the new one all by himself in about 3 minutes.
This guy should work in the restuarant. He would make a killing with the American clientele.
Downside is the baby wakes up crying again. So what! I have the super bowl on for almost the entire 2nd half. I have a screaming baby in my arms, which doesn't matter because the game is being broadcast in spanish.
She passes out after a good 30 minutes, but again who cares, I have the superbowl!
For those of you who don't know, I am a NY Giants fan for as long as I remember. However, My grandparents and my mother are from Pittsburgh. I went to college in Pittsburgh. So I am glad that they won and that I witnessed it about 8 gazillion miles from home.
29 super bowls and still counting.
- - - - -
I was going to end this evenings blog there.
However, after reading the last comment from yesterday, I need to continue. It seems that "Sam T" doesn't know if this is a family blog or not, so some things must be clarified.
1. Linda thought the same thing about his traveling companion.
2. You know me, I may only look tough, but deep down, I'm a softy.
3. Ancyay Kayay isyay elcomeyay otay eesay myay ideovay
4. a. Real estate is good. Land is expensive but labor is cheap. There is no middle class here. The rich get richer and the poor live in shacks with tin roofs outside of the city limits in shanty towns, I am trying to get a picture, because these towns spread for miles into the horizon.
b. Exchange rate is fairly stable at $2000 pesos to $1 U.S.
c. Hookers? Not that I noticed. HOWEVER, for all of you single guys back home. I have met or seen 4 Americans down here with their new Mail order brides. The women all get boob jobs, and walk around showing everything off. They think it will win them a green card. I have included a google link to satisfy all of your curiousities. Kids under 18 stay away!
d. Don't even know who to ask about the poker, but I have seen it on tv here.
5. We effed up, what can I say?
6. My camera was not my good digital one, but it was an Olympus and Nancy will be getting a call.
7. The guy from Hicksville has an aunt here with a full time staff of servants. Each servant is responsible for a particular job, one cooks, one cleans etc. Each one is paid the equivalent of $40 U.S. a week. And it is the best job that they could ever ask for. So I am thinking a dirty sanchez might be affordable...
8. We miss you too, and hopefully you will be home soon.
9. If any kid under the age of 20 comes to me and asks me what a dirty sanchez is, I will give you Sam's email address, because he will be only too happy to answer that question.
10. We will always love Sam.
Adios, and hooray for the Steelers!
Saturday - Day 9 - Hitting the wall!
Let me start by saying, I hit my breaking point today.
Last night I went to bed at 11:40 which was about 5 minutes before Amelia woke up for another hour or so. She was still not feeling well. She was coughing all night. I had her for an hour and could not get her to go back to sleep. Every time she would lay down she would fall asleep and a few minutes later she would wake up coughing and whining.
Linda took her around 1:00, and laid down on the couch holding the baby in an upright position so she could get some sleep.
I was greatfull for the relief, I did work last night and was exhausted by the time Linda took over. I laid down, and let me remind you of yesterdays post, that James went to sleep around 5:30. Which means by 1:10 he had already slept for a good 8 hours.
Two seconds after my head hit the pillow, I hear James waking up. I look over just as he comes crawling over into my bed.
He says "Daddy, when are we going to eat dinner?"
I got him up and took him to the bathroom and brushed his teeth. He came back into bed with me and he actually went back to sleep.
I don't know what time Linda finally got the baby into her crib, but I awoke around 4:00 and realized that Linda was sleeping in James' bed. James was wide awake at 4:00 am, because he has now been in bed for 10 1/2 hours. He is trying to wake me up by sitting on me, and then he was trying to push me over.
I feel bad now but I had to yell at this kid several times to go back to sleep. Which is crazy because he had already had a full nights sleep. He did fall back to sleep and we all slept until around 7:00am.
My infant slept through the night, but my 5 year old was awake at 4:00 than at 5:00 than at 6:00....you get the picture.
- - - - -
So we wake up at 7:00 knowing that Eduardo, our translator was going to pick us up at 10:00. Now yesterday, he told us to see how she was today and that we would be able to bring Amelia to see the doctor from the orphanage.
Well we meet up with him and the Danish family to go shopping at some touristy place. Immediately we tell him that the baby was still kind of wheezing and she had a fever during the night. So he says, we have to wait until Monday when the doctor is available from the orphanage.
So in my head, I am thinking "What the F*ck?" And also he doesn't bring the camera cable that he promised.
Amelia seemed better after we gave her the motrin. We decided to go to this little shopping village and see what would happen. It was kind of rainy all day. We had to drive up to the top of the mountains to reach this little tourist trap.
After being there for about an hour and Linda spending $150 U.S. on little b-s stuff, we headed back to the hotel.
I do not like shopping, no matter where I am in the world. So my job was to mind the two kids inside of this store at the top of the mountain. At this point is when Amelia started to decline. She started to become a little whiny, nothing I couldn't handle.
Byt the time we got back to the hotel, Amelia was kind of acting okay. Not really a 100%, but we decided to go down by the pool to give James some fun time.
We met up with the two other adopting families, and hung out for about 15 minutes. The the skies opened up and we had one helluva rain storm. So we all went into the hotel lobby bar which didn't open for another hour or so.
After awhile it was time to go back to the room, you know for feedings and diaper changes etc. The Danish couple, Oola and Brit, invited us to go to the Colombian restaurant across the street for dinner. Which I very happily accepted.
Well in the short time it took to go from the lobby bar to my room, things started spiraling down.
I get back to the room to discover that the baby has a fever and she is now wheezing heavily. James was exhausted from all the sleep he had the night before, so he was being a pain.
We were supposed to meet the couple downstairs in less than an hour. James wants nothing more than to go to dinner, but does not want to get ready to go. I have been wanting to go to this restaurant since we got here.
Linda starts to get a little more worried about the baby.
For one full hour, we try to figure out what we should be doing. James is crying that he wants to go to dinner. Linda is starting to get a little more freaked because of the condition of the baby. The baby is now crying/whining not really knowing what she wants.
We decide at the last minute not to go to dinner. James freaks out and goes berserk. He starts throwing things around, saying bad things starts to hit me, so I yell and he gets time out. All because we told him we were going to dinner with his friend Simon, and now we weren't going.
Now we want to order room service because it is getting late and we are hungry. But Linda doesn't want room service, she wants me to go down to the pool side restaurant and get a menu so she could get something from there.
I get dressed, the baby is crying continuously, James is pretending he is a Jedi master and jumps from bed to bed to floor and back again about 8 gazillion times. Every time James jumps he misses the baby by about a fraction of an inch. So I try to get him to stop, which only makes him do it more.
I go down to poolside and of course they are not allowed to deliver the food from the restaurant to the rooms. So i go all the way back to the room.
We start all over again, James wants to go out, so he is crying. Linda doesn't want anything from room service, but hasn't eaten anything all day. Baby hasn't settled down yet.
We finally figure out what we want for dinner. James wants Mac and Cheese, which is fine, but now I have to cook it. Linda is trying to get the baby to stop crying. The phone rings. Eduardo is downstairs with the camera cable. So I run downstairs, to meet Eduardo and his girlfriend at the bar. He invites me for drinks.
There is nothing more that I really wanted at this point than a drink.
But alas, the baby is crying, Linda is freaking and I have mac and cheese heating on the stove. So I bid him and his girl a fond farewell.
I come back to the room just in time for room service and Linda wanting a doctor to come right now. She calls and asks for the doctor. The doctor comes just after we ate dinner which they didn't bring everything we asked for.
James is starting to freak out now because his mother is freaking out about the baby's health. James is hanging all over me and all he want is that I sit and watch a movie with him. The baby is crying.
I officially have had enough at this point.
9 days in and all I want is to be sitting in front of my tv dozing off on my chair. With no kids crying and no wife freaking out.
Dinner sucked tonight. I just want to have a home cooked meal.
The doctor finally shows up with two ambulance drivers. Turns out he lived in fort worth for a year and spoke english well enough to communicate with us.
Apparently the drops that the first doctor gave us last week were for Amelia once a day to be given orally. Holy effing crap!!!
We had been giving her these effing drops in her nose. And every time we did, this poor baby would lose her mind.
Shoot me now!!!
#@$%&* ME!!!
The last doctor didn't speak english, and as stated in a previous post, I translated the prescription over the pone to the translator who then phoned in the order and then called back to tell us what the dosage was and how to use it.
We were under the effing assumption that we got nasal drops. God, I just wanted to be home. I have hit the wall.
- - - - -
Deep breaths.....
The doctor nebulized the baby, and gave us a prescription for an antibiotic. She has a slight infection in her lungs. And she has goo coming out of her left tear duct.
more deep breaths...
When the doctor was done, the baby stopped crying. He wrote us the prescription and reassured us that the baby was fine. She actually was very calm and laughing at this point.
...I am slowly calming down now.
As soon as the doctor left, the phone rang. It was Ernesto from long island wanting to know if I wanted to go downstairs and have a drink.
Linda took the call and told him that I would be dressed and ready within 10 minutes.
I really didn't feel like going.
He showed up at my door with a bottle of scotch and three glasses. He and I went downstairs and met Oola down by the pool. Apparently we were all losing it. After a half a bottle of scotch and a few rounds of beers I was feeling normal again.
After listening to the other two guys bitching about this whole process that we are going through, I felt much better.
Guy therapy! Scotch, beers, cuban cigars, and a little cursing and we all felt better.
My wife is great for making me go out with these complete strangers from different parts of the world.
I came home shortly before 12:00. Opened the door only to have Linda hand me a crying baby, and you know what?
I wouldn't change it for all the scotch or cuban cigars this planet has to offer.
Here it is at 1:20 am now that I am done writing and I am really tired. Let's see how tomorrow goes...
Ciao
Last night I went to bed at 11:40 which was about 5 minutes before Amelia woke up for another hour or so. She was still not feeling well. She was coughing all night. I had her for an hour and could not get her to go back to sleep. Every time she would lay down she would fall asleep and a few minutes later she would wake up coughing and whining.
Linda took her around 1:00, and laid down on the couch holding the baby in an upright position so she could get some sleep.
I was greatfull for the relief, I did work last night and was exhausted by the time Linda took over. I laid down, and let me remind you of yesterdays post, that James went to sleep around 5:30. Which means by 1:10 he had already slept for a good 8 hours.
Two seconds after my head hit the pillow, I hear James waking up. I look over just as he comes crawling over into my bed.
He says "Daddy, when are we going to eat dinner?"
I got him up and took him to the bathroom and brushed his teeth. He came back into bed with me and he actually went back to sleep.
I don't know what time Linda finally got the baby into her crib, but I awoke around 4:00 and realized that Linda was sleeping in James' bed. James was wide awake at 4:00 am, because he has now been in bed for 10 1/2 hours. He is trying to wake me up by sitting on me, and then he was trying to push me over.
I feel bad now but I had to yell at this kid several times to go back to sleep. Which is crazy because he had already had a full nights sleep. He did fall back to sleep and we all slept until around 7:00am.
My infant slept through the night, but my 5 year old was awake at 4:00 than at 5:00 than at 6:00....you get the picture.
- - - - -
So we wake up at 7:00 knowing that Eduardo, our translator was going to pick us up at 10:00. Now yesterday, he told us to see how she was today and that we would be able to bring Amelia to see the doctor from the orphanage.
Well we meet up with him and the Danish family to go shopping at some touristy place. Immediately we tell him that the baby was still kind of wheezing and she had a fever during the night. So he says, we have to wait until Monday when the doctor is available from the orphanage.
So in my head, I am thinking "What the F*ck?" And also he doesn't bring the camera cable that he promised.
Amelia seemed better after we gave her the motrin. We decided to go to this little shopping village and see what would happen. It was kind of rainy all day. We had to drive up to the top of the mountains to reach this little tourist trap.
After being there for about an hour and Linda spending $150 U.S. on little b-s stuff, we headed back to the hotel.
I do not like shopping, no matter where I am in the world. So my job was to mind the two kids inside of this store at the top of the mountain. At this point is when Amelia started to decline. She started to become a little whiny, nothing I couldn't handle.
Byt the time we got back to the hotel, Amelia was kind of acting okay. Not really a 100%, but we decided to go down by the pool to give James some fun time.
We met up with the two other adopting families, and hung out for about 15 minutes. The the skies opened up and we had one helluva rain storm. So we all went into the hotel lobby bar which didn't open for another hour or so.
After awhile it was time to go back to the room, you know for feedings and diaper changes etc. The Danish couple, Oola and Brit, invited us to go to the Colombian restaurant across the street for dinner. Which I very happily accepted.
Well in the short time it took to go from the lobby bar to my room, things started spiraling down.
I get back to the room to discover that the baby has a fever and she is now wheezing heavily. James was exhausted from all the sleep he had the night before, so he was being a pain.
We were supposed to meet the couple downstairs in less than an hour. James wants nothing more than to go to dinner, but does not want to get ready to go. I have been wanting to go to this restaurant since we got here.
Linda starts to get a little more worried about the baby.
For one full hour, we try to figure out what we should be doing. James is crying that he wants to go to dinner. Linda is starting to get a little more freaked because of the condition of the baby. The baby is now crying/whining not really knowing what she wants.
We decide at the last minute not to go to dinner. James freaks out and goes berserk. He starts throwing things around, saying bad things starts to hit me, so I yell and he gets time out. All because we told him we were going to dinner with his friend Simon, and now we weren't going.
Now we want to order room service because it is getting late and we are hungry. But Linda doesn't want room service, she wants me to go down to the pool side restaurant and get a menu so she could get something from there.
I get dressed, the baby is crying continuously, James is pretending he is a Jedi master and jumps from bed to bed to floor and back again about 8 gazillion times. Every time James jumps he misses the baby by about a fraction of an inch. So I try to get him to stop, which only makes him do it more.
I go down to poolside and of course they are not allowed to deliver the food from the restaurant to the rooms. So i go all the way back to the room.
We start all over again, James wants to go out, so he is crying. Linda doesn't want anything from room service, but hasn't eaten anything all day. Baby hasn't settled down yet.
We finally figure out what we want for dinner. James wants Mac and Cheese, which is fine, but now I have to cook it. Linda is trying to get the baby to stop crying. The phone rings. Eduardo is downstairs with the camera cable. So I run downstairs, to meet Eduardo and his girlfriend at the bar. He invites me for drinks.
There is nothing more that I really wanted at this point than a drink.
But alas, the baby is crying, Linda is freaking and I have mac and cheese heating on the stove. So I bid him and his girl a fond farewell.
I come back to the room just in time for room service and Linda wanting a doctor to come right now. She calls and asks for the doctor. The doctor comes just after we ate dinner which they didn't bring everything we asked for.
James is starting to freak out now because his mother is freaking out about the baby's health. James is hanging all over me and all he want is that I sit and watch a movie with him. The baby is crying.
I officially have had enough at this point.
9 days in and all I want is to be sitting in front of my tv dozing off on my chair. With no kids crying and no wife freaking out.
Dinner sucked tonight. I just want to have a home cooked meal.
The doctor finally shows up with two ambulance drivers. Turns out he lived in fort worth for a year and spoke english well enough to communicate with us.
Apparently the drops that the first doctor gave us last week were for Amelia once a day to be given orally. Holy effing crap!!!
We had been giving her these effing drops in her nose. And every time we did, this poor baby would lose her mind.
Shoot me now!!!
#@$%&* ME!!!
The last doctor didn't speak english, and as stated in a previous post, I translated the prescription over the pone to the translator who then phoned in the order and then called back to tell us what the dosage was and how to use it.
We were under the effing assumption that we got nasal drops. God, I just wanted to be home. I have hit the wall.
- - - - -
Deep breaths.....
The doctor nebulized the baby, and gave us a prescription for an antibiotic. She has a slight infection in her lungs. And she has goo coming out of her left tear duct.
more deep breaths...
When the doctor was done, the baby stopped crying. He wrote us the prescription and reassured us that the baby was fine. She actually was very calm and laughing at this point.
...I am slowly calming down now.
As soon as the doctor left, the phone rang. It was Ernesto from long island wanting to know if I wanted to go downstairs and have a drink.
Linda took the call and told him that I would be dressed and ready within 10 minutes.
I really didn't feel like going.
He showed up at my door with a bottle of scotch and three glasses. He and I went downstairs and met Oola down by the pool. Apparently we were all losing it. After a half a bottle of scotch and a few rounds of beers I was feeling normal again.
After listening to the other two guys bitching about this whole process that we are going through, I felt much better.
Guy therapy! Scotch, beers, cuban cigars, and a little cursing and we all felt better.
My wife is great for making me go out with these complete strangers from different parts of the world.
I came home shortly before 12:00. Opened the door only to have Linda hand me a crying baby, and you know what?
I wouldn't change it for all the scotch or cuban cigars this planet has to offer.
Here it is at 1:20 am now that I am done writing and I am really tired. Let's see how tomorrow goes...
Ciao
Friday, February 03, 2006
Friday - Day 8 - Sick Baby (ies)
Hola Everybody!
Last night went okay. The baby was fidgeting all night long and didn't sleep to well. She developed a cough yesterday ( I guess too much sight seeing). So she was kind of coughing all night and would wake up for a quick second. She actually only woke up twice to be picked up during the night. Each time was for only about 15 minutes.
The night was long, but not unbearable.
She awoke around 5:00 for her 7:00am feeding. Both Linda and I got up, I prepared the bottle, while Linda tried her best to soothe a hungary baby. (See previous post.)
As soon as Linda gave her the bottle, Amelia calmed down and started pigging out. That's when I made my move...
I made a bee line right towards my pillow.
After the feeding and noticing that the baby's cough was still kind of there, Linda felt we should just take it easy today instead of more sight seeing. So we shut the alarm off and decided to stay in bed as long as possible today.
At precisely 8:00 the phone rings and we were all still sound asleep which is an absolute rarity, but given the long night, I'm not gonna justify it. It felt goooood!
Anyway, it was the Orphanage director wanting to know if she could come by and discuss some of our final steps. Linda had to ask her to come around 9:30 or the woman was coming right then. Linda thought the woman said in her broken english, that she wanted to come by around breakfast time.
So Linda rushed into the shower while I woke up James. The baby woke up when the phone rang. We rushed around cleaning our hotel room, trying to make it look like we are the Stepford family. I ordered lots of fruit and danishes and coffee has any gracious host would do.
We actually were ready and waiting for Raquel. She showed up at 9:30 on the dot. She came in and saw the table settings and was a little embarassed that we didn't eat yet. At which point the food arrived, and Raquel was ready to go stand in the hallway while I ate my breakfast. The ettiquet here is a little different than at home. We have noticed little things through out the week. Anyway, Raquel meant that she wanted to come after we had eaten our breakfast.
So it was a little awkward.
She took the baby and insisted that I sat down to eat while she had my baby sitting on the couch. So we all felt a little funny now. Needless to say, James and I sat at the table while Linda sat with her and the baby on the couch.
It was at this point she noticed that baby had this cough. She started acting like the worried grandma. She immediately wanted us to bring the baby by the orphanage today to see the pediatrician that had been taking care of Amelia since day 1.
Which made Linda very happy. So Raquel got up to leave and told us that she would call within the hour to tell us what time to go to the orphanage.
Well, our translator called several hours later and said that the doctor was very busy today and that if the baby sounded the same way tomorrow than we should go to see the doctor.
The baby had a slight fever this morning. But after giving her infant motrin, she was okay.
At this point Linda needed some James time and he wanted to take her to the trails behind the hotel. So they left.
My first solo flight.
Ooooh, it was nerve wracking. It was lunch time for the baby. Every thing went smoothly. Yet I was still a little freaked. I was counting the seconds until everybody returned. Which they didn't. I get a call about 45 minutes later to come down to the poolside restaurant. Linda and James were hanging out having some sodas and were thinking about having a pizza.
Okay, so my first solo flight consisted of hanging out in the room stuffing her little face. Which really is a piece of cake, because she is like a little baby bird. She sits with her mouth wide open waiting for the next spoonful of soup.
Now I had to clean her up, pack up the 8 million things that accompany a baby whenever you leave the house (even if it is to just go outside to get the mail) and go meet them for pizza. (Like I was going to pass that up)
So I get her into the stroller and we stroll (hence the name) down the hall to the elevators. All the while she is enjoying the scenery. In the elevator I break out the video camera and decide to film the walk from the elevators to the pool.
I see my family sitting there drinking their sodas, enjoying the day. As soon as I get to them, I noticed it is a little cold. Linda also realizes that it is chilly and notices that the baby has no socks, pants or a sweater on. Also the onesy that she had on was not even snapped, so the baby's belly is all exposed.
Okay, so my first solo excursion went a little askew. At least I had 17 diapers and a few hundred wipes, you know, just in case there was a catastrophic diarhea explosion.
I did remember to throw a blanket on top of her though, so it isn't like she was a little babsicle.
- - - - -
As we were leaving to take James to the playground, the other couple came over. We wound up hanging out until almost 5:00. But during this time, my poor little Jimmy D was starting to act a little wierd. He wanted to sit on my lap while we were talking with other adults. Usually as soon as Linda or I am distracted he is looking for a way to get out of dodge.
Turns out he had a fever.
We came back to the room, Linda gave him some motrin. He laid down and has been sleeping since 5:30 without dinner. So hopefully he'll be okay in the morning.
Amelia also is supposed to eat food at 5:00 and a bottle at 7:00 but instead ate a huge dinner at 6:00 which ended up combining with her 7:00 bottle. She immediately passed out and has been sleeping ever since. Which means she will be up around ten for her next bottle.
We think Amelia might be teething, she had all the classic signs today. Slight fever, soft stool, and was chewing on her pacifier like a rabid dog. We think we noticed some white spot on her gums.
I say "think" because at this age, it is all conjecture anyway. I like when they hit that age and tell you what hurts.
- - - - - -
So the orphanage lady told us the judge has our paper work and if all goes well, we could be leaving here by Tuesday. But you never know. It still may wind up being Thursday which means that we will be in Colombia until at least Tuesday of the following week. That would make our trip 3 and a half weeks and that would not be fun.
If it is Tuesday, we will probably be allowed to come home a day earlier than planned. We will have to see what costs more, the changing of the airline reservations or one more night in Colombia.
- - - - - -
Observation 8?) If you sit in front of a laptop with Amelia on your lap, listening to itunes. Amelia dances back and forth.
Observation 9) Amelia gets comfort out of rocking herself back and forth, just like when my little sister, Rachel was a baby and now her daughter Paige. So already, Amelia is picking up family traits.
Love to all.
P.S. Still haven't gotten the camera cable to upload pictures.
Last night went okay. The baby was fidgeting all night long and didn't sleep to well. She developed a cough yesterday ( I guess too much sight seeing). So she was kind of coughing all night and would wake up for a quick second. She actually only woke up twice to be picked up during the night. Each time was for only about 15 minutes.
The night was long, but not unbearable.
She awoke around 5:00 for her 7:00am feeding. Both Linda and I got up, I prepared the bottle, while Linda tried her best to soothe a hungary baby. (See previous post.)
As soon as Linda gave her the bottle, Amelia calmed down and started pigging out. That's when I made my move...
I made a bee line right towards my pillow.
After the feeding and noticing that the baby's cough was still kind of there, Linda felt we should just take it easy today instead of more sight seeing. So we shut the alarm off and decided to stay in bed as long as possible today.
At precisely 8:00 the phone rings and we were all still sound asleep which is an absolute rarity, but given the long night, I'm not gonna justify it. It felt goooood!
Anyway, it was the Orphanage director wanting to know if she could come by and discuss some of our final steps. Linda had to ask her to come around 9:30 or the woman was coming right then. Linda thought the woman said in her broken english, that she wanted to come by around breakfast time.
So Linda rushed into the shower while I woke up James. The baby woke up when the phone rang. We rushed around cleaning our hotel room, trying to make it look like we are the Stepford family. I ordered lots of fruit and danishes and coffee has any gracious host would do.
We actually were ready and waiting for Raquel. She showed up at 9:30 on the dot. She came in and saw the table settings and was a little embarassed that we didn't eat yet. At which point the food arrived, and Raquel was ready to go stand in the hallway while I ate my breakfast. The ettiquet here is a little different than at home. We have noticed little things through out the week. Anyway, Raquel meant that she wanted to come after we had eaten our breakfast.
So it was a little awkward.
She took the baby and insisted that I sat down to eat while she had my baby sitting on the couch. So we all felt a little funny now. Needless to say, James and I sat at the table while Linda sat with her and the baby on the couch.
It was at this point she noticed that baby had this cough. She started acting like the worried grandma. She immediately wanted us to bring the baby by the orphanage today to see the pediatrician that had been taking care of Amelia since day 1.
Which made Linda very happy. So Raquel got up to leave and told us that she would call within the hour to tell us what time to go to the orphanage.
Well, our translator called several hours later and said that the doctor was very busy today and that if the baby sounded the same way tomorrow than we should go to see the doctor.
The baby had a slight fever this morning. But after giving her infant motrin, she was okay.
At this point Linda needed some James time and he wanted to take her to the trails behind the hotel. So they left.
My first solo flight.
Ooooh, it was nerve wracking. It was lunch time for the baby. Every thing went smoothly. Yet I was still a little freaked. I was counting the seconds until everybody returned. Which they didn't. I get a call about 45 minutes later to come down to the poolside restaurant. Linda and James were hanging out having some sodas and were thinking about having a pizza.
Okay, so my first solo flight consisted of hanging out in the room stuffing her little face. Which really is a piece of cake, because she is like a little baby bird. She sits with her mouth wide open waiting for the next spoonful of soup.
Now I had to clean her up, pack up the 8 million things that accompany a baby whenever you leave the house (even if it is to just go outside to get the mail) and go meet them for pizza. (Like I was going to pass that up)
So I get her into the stroller and we stroll (hence the name) down the hall to the elevators. All the while she is enjoying the scenery. In the elevator I break out the video camera and decide to film the walk from the elevators to the pool.
I see my family sitting there drinking their sodas, enjoying the day. As soon as I get to them, I noticed it is a little cold. Linda also realizes that it is chilly and notices that the baby has no socks, pants or a sweater on. Also the onesy that she had on was not even snapped, so the baby's belly is all exposed.
Okay, so my first solo excursion went a little askew. At least I had 17 diapers and a few hundred wipes, you know, just in case there was a catastrophic diarhea explosion.
I did remember to throw a blanket on top of her though, so it isn't like she was a little babsicle.
- - - - -
As we were leaving to take James to the playground, the other couple came over. We wound up hanging out until almost 5:00. But during this time, my poor little Jimmy D was starting to act a little wierd. He wanted to sit on my lap while we were talking with other adults. Usually as soon as Linda or I am distracted he is looking for a way to get out of dodge.
Turns out he had a fever.
We came back to the room, Linda gave him some motrin. He laid down and has been sleeping since 5:30 without dinner. So hopefully he'll be okay in the morning.
Amelia also is supposed to eat food at 5:00 and a bottle at 7:00 but instead ate a huge dinner at 6:00 which ended up combining with her 7:00 bottle. She immediately passed out and has been sleeping ever since. Which means she will be up around ten for her next bottle.
We think Amelia might be teething, she had all the classic signs today. Slight fever, soft stool, and was chewing on her pacifier like a rabid dog. We think we noticed some white spot on her gums.
I say "think" because at this age, it is all conjecture anyway. I like when they hit that age and tell you what hurts.
- - - - - -
So the orphanage lady told us the judge has our paper work and if all goes well, we could be leaving here by Tuesday. But you never know. It still may wind up being Thursday which means that we will be in Colombia until at least Tuesday of the following week. That would make our trip 3 and a half weeks and that would not be fun.
If it is Tuesday, we will probably be allowed to come home a day earlier than planned. We will have to see what costs more, the changing of the airline reservations or one more night in Colombia.
- - - - - -
Observation 8?) If you sit in front of a laptop with Amelia on your lap, listening to itunes. Amelia dances back and forth.
Observation 9) Amelia gets comfort out of rocking herself back and forth, just like when my little sister, Rachel was a baby and now her daughter Paige. So already, Amelia is picking up family traits.
Love to all.
P.S. Still haven't gotten the camera cable to upload pictures.
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Thursday - Botero Museo
Since I have been opening this blog every day with a description of the night before, I guess I will continue with this template.
Last night was cake... end of story.
She awoke this morning around 6:00am and was as happy as a clam. Which if the pattern continues, means we are in for a long night. We'll see.
- - - - -
Okay first off, if you read yesterday's entry you know that my camera crapped out. So I have no photos for you guys today. (more on that later)
Today started fairly early, Linda decided to set the alarm for 6:30 am, but since we have a built in alarm clock, we, I mean "I" was already up. Linda did get up and got a bottle ready right before going right back to sleep. So Amelia, and I kind of just laid in the bed playing and getting to know one another.
I have made a few observations of this little girl today. I will list them as I go, in no particular order, just as I remember them.
I had Amelia sitting up, and I was sitting indian style. She stayed like this playing with her toys for about 45 minutes. Then she was ready for an actual breakfast of Bananos and a 4 oz bottle of formula.
By this time we were all up, and Linda fed her breakfast.
We had plans to meet with Eduardo at 9:30 to go sight seeing. So around 8:30 we went down and got some breakfast ourselves. We once again met up with James' friend Santiago.
Afterwards, we met up with Eduardo. I asked him if there was anyplace that I could get my camera fixed. Basically they do not have Olympus brand camera's down here at least it is not a popular brand and he told me I would be better off to wait until I got home to fix it. He took me to a place to called "Foto Japon" to buy a disposable camera. They didn't have any and I wound up buying a $34,000 peso camera ($17 U.S.) and a roll of film for our sight seeing tour. Total bill: $24 U.S.
We drove downtown and saw the main part of the city. He took us to the Metropolitan Cathedral. Which is a beautiful 3 or 4 story Cathedral built of aged bricks. It was incredible. We got there just in time for the end of a mass. I hope the images from my $17 camera do it justice.
Right outside the church is Simon Bolivar Park. This park is dedicated to the guy who won indepence from Spain back in 1810. It reminded me of a smaller Union Square Park in Manhattan. It is a park in the middle of the city.
From there we went to the Botero Museo.
Ferdinand Botero is a world famous Colombian sculpter and painter. He is still alive and living in Italy. He is probably the most famous Colombian since Pablo Escobar. Anyway, he makes these giant sculptures of very round and fat people, here is one image that I found on the internet. It was nice walking through the quiet museum.
Okay Observation 1) Amelia loves being in the stroller, as long as you are moving. If she is in it just sitting there, forget about it. She watched everything in that museum.
Observation 2) Amelia is definately comfortable with us now. I noticed in the museum that even if I was across the gallery and I turned to look at her, she was already watching me. When she noticed me looking at her, she would smile and flail those little baby legs and arms. (Some of you may remember when James came home, even on that first day when everybody came over, he was looking for one of us making sure that we were in viewing distance.)
Observation 3) Linda and I both realised this earlier in the week, but I don't think I wrote about it yet. Amelia, really, really loves kisses. When you move in to steal a kiss, she immediately opens her mouth wide, and leans towards your face.
So this morning I put it to a test. I started kissing her, below her lips and above her little chin. She was laughing like a crazy girl. Not only does she lean into you, but her feet and arms start to flail about. It was great.
Right up until Daddy got a small mouthfull of pre digested formula. Now, James thought this was the greatest thing he has ever seen, laughing his little butt off. Laughing that is, until I informed him that whatever splashed off of my face, landed inside his brand new sneakers.
After we saw everything in the museum, we went down to the cafe so Linda could feed and change the baby. Eduardo bought us some refreshments of the Colombian version of a Frappucino made with very strong coffee.
I put mine down on the table and turned to help Linda get settled. When I turned back James was in the process of downing my drink. By the time I stopped him, he basically drank 12 ounces of my 16 ounce drink.
Do any of you know what 12 ounces of espresso will do to a 5 year old? Lets just say that he lasted a long time today before crashing and going through withdrawals that would kill a heroin addict. It is now 10:50 and I think I still hear him moaning.
Actually, I'm just kidding. He handled it okay. He had a belly ache and a wicked poop, but all is fine now.
After the museum, we drove around the city some more, just checking it out. On our way back to the hotel, Eduardo stopped by his friends house to pick up his digital camera so that we could use it for the rest of the time that we are here in Medellin. But he forgot the cable, so tomorrow I will have more digital photos to upload.
We got back, put the baby down for her nap. James and Linda did some homework and I went to the gym for an hour.
The other adoptive parents called and invited us to go to dinner at a local restaurant. So we jumped at the chance. Both of them speak spanish so we felt very comfortable going out without our guides.
We went to what we are told is the best steak place in Medellin. We were able to walk down to the restaurant, it was about 3 blocks away. San Carbon steak house, had menus in spanish or in english so we were set. I must say, I was worried, because the beef here tastes different than at home. Well, this was the best meal that we have had yet. This was like being at Peter Lugers. You could cut this one inch thick steak with a fork. The dinner for 4 adults and 1 kid with beers and margheritas cost about $198,000 pesos. Which after we split the bill came to about $50 U.S.
We walked back and my family went to the poolside restaurant for some desert.
That's it, that was our day.
- - - - - -
Observation 4) When Amelia drinks a bottle of formula, she gets a row of sweat beads that form across the top of her forehead. By the time she is done drinking, and is passed out, she is soaking wet from sweat. Her hair is actually wet.
Observation 5) James tries to make her laugh all day long. Mainly doing those annoying things that 5 year olds think are funny. Well today he figured out that if he sneaks off to her side and jumps in front of her, he could scare the pants off of her. I was about to yell at the kid, when I realized that Amelia laughs every time he scares her. She jumps which makes James laugh, which in turn makes Amelia laugh. Today, James actually laughed so hard because she jumped, that he had an accident. She is absolutely infatuated with him. It's great.
Observation 6) I am absolutely in love....
Hasta Mañana
Last night was cake... end of story.
She awoke this morning around 6:00am and was as happy as a clam. Which if the pattern continues, means we are in for a long night. We'll see.
- - - - -
Okay first off, if you read yesterday's entry you know that my camera crapped out. So I have no photos for you guys today. (more on that later)
Today started fairly early, Linda decided to set the alarm for 6:30 am, but since we have a built in alarm clock, we, I mean "I" was already up. Linda did get up and got a bottle ready right before going right back to sleep. So Amelia, and I kind of just laid in the bed playing and getting to know one another.
I have made a few observations of this little girl today. I will list them as I go, in no particular order, just as I remember them.
I had Amelia sitting up, and I was sitting indian style. She stayed like this playing with her toys for about 45 minutes. Then she was ready for an actual breakfast of Bananos and a 4 oz bottle of formula.
By this time we were all up, and Linda fed her breakfast.
We had plans to meet with Eduardo at 9:30 to go sight seeing. So around 8:30 we went down and got some breakfast ourselves. We once again met up with James' friend Santiago.
Afterwards, we met up with Eduardo. I asked him if there was anyplace that I could get my camera fixed. Basically they do not have Olympus brand camera's down here at least it is not a popular brand and he told me I would be better off to wait until I got home to fix it. He took me to a place to called "Foto Japon" to buy a disposable camera. They didn't have any and I wound up buying a $34,000 peso camera ($17 U.S.) and a roll of film for our sight seeing tour. Total bill: $24 U.S.
We drove downtown and saw the main part of the city. He took us to the Metropolitan Cathedral. Which is a beautiful 3 or 4 story Cathedral built of aged bricks. It was incredible. We got there just in time for the end of a mass. I hope the images from my $17 camera do it justice.
Right outside the church is Simon Bolivar Park. This park is dedicated to the guy who won indepence from Spain back in 1810. It reminded me of a smaller Union Square Park in Manhattan. It is a park in the middle of the city.
From there we went to the Botero Museo.
Ferdinand Botero is a world famous Colombian sculpter and painter. He is still alive and living in Italy. He is probably the most famous Colombian since Pablo Escobar. Anyway, he makes these giant sculptures of very round and fat people, here is one image that I found on the internet. It was nice walking through the quiet museum.
Okay Observation 1) Amelia loves being in the stroller, as long as you are moving. If she is in it just sitting there, forget about it. She watched everything in that museum.
Observation 2) Amelia is definately comfortable with us now. I noticed in the museum that even if I was across the gallery and I turned to look at her, she was already watching me. When she noticed me looking at her, she would smile and flail those little baby legs and arms. (Some of you may remember when James came home, even on that first day when everybody came over, he was looking for one of us making sure that we were in viewing distance.)
Observation 3) Linda and I both realised this earlier in the week, but I don't think I wrote about it yet. Amelia, really, really loves kisses. When you move in to steal a kiss, she immediately opens her mouth wide, and leans towards your face.
So this morning I put it to a test. I started kissing her, below her lips and above her little chin. She was laughing like a crazy girl. Not only does she lean into you, but her feet and arms start to flail about. It was great.
Right up until Daddy got a small mouthfull of pre digested formula. Now, James thought this was the greatest thing he has ever seen, laughing his little butt off. Laughing that is, until I informed him that whatever splashed off of my face, landed inside his brand new sneakers.
After we saw everything in the museum, we went down to the cafe so Linda could feed and change the baby. Eduardo bought us some refreshments of the Colombian version of a Frappucino made with very strong coffee.
I put mine down on the table and turned to help Linda get settled. When I turned back James was in the process of downing my drink. By the time I stopped him, he basically drank 12 ounces of my 16 ounce drink.
Do any of you know what 12 ounces of espresso will do to a 5 year old? Lets just say that he lasted a long time today before crashing and going through withdrawals that would kill a heroin addict. It is now 10:50 and I think I still hear him moaning.
Actually, I'm just kidding. He handled it okay. He had a belly ache and a wicked poop, but all is fine now.
After the museum, we drove around the city some more, just checking it out. On our way back to the hotel, Eduardo stopped by his friends house to pick up his digital camera so that we could use it for the rest of the time that we are here in Medellin. But he forgot the cable, so tomorrow I will have more digital photos to upload.
We got back, put the baby down for her nap. James and Linda did some homework and I went to the gym for an hour.
The other adoptive parents called and invited us to go to dinner at a local restaurant. So we jumped at the chance. Both of them speak spanish so we felt very comfortable going out without our guides.
We went to what we are told is the best steak place in Medellin. We were able to walk down to the restaurant, it was about 3 blocks away. San Carbon steak house, had menus in spanish or in english so we were set. I must say, I was worried, because the beef here tastes different than at home. Well, this was the best meal that we have had yet. This was like being at Peter Lugers. You could cut this one inch thick steak with a fork. The dinner for 4 adults and 1 kid with beers and margheritas cost about $198,000 pesos. Which after we split the bill came to about $50 U.S.
We walked back and my family went to the poolside restaurant for some desert.
That's it, that was our day.
- - - - - -
Observation 4) When Amelia drinks a bottle of formula, she gets a row of sweat beads that form across the top of her forehead. By the time she is done drinking, and is passed out, she is soaking wet from sweat. Her hair is actually wet.
Observation 5) James tries to make her laugh all day long. Mainly doing those annoying things that 5 year olds think are funny. Well today he figured out that if he sneaks off to her side and jumps in front of her, he could scare the pants off of her. I was about to yell at the kid, when I realized that Amelia laughs every time he scares her. She jumps which makes James laugh, which in turn makes Amelia laugh. Today, James actually laughed so hard because she jumped, that he had an accident. She is absolutely infatuated with him. It's great.
Observation 6) I am absolutely in love....
Hasta Mañana
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Wednesday - day 7 - More sight seeing.
I told you that I cursed myself.
We went to bed at a decent time last night, because today was our interview with Vienna Star, which is our adoption agency down here. This is the most critical phase of the whole process down here. You don't even get to see a social worker. Here you sit for about 15 minutes with an attorney.
I was asleep by 11:00 for the first time since we are down here. We had a great day yesterday, I'm in dreamland, everything was going great.
Great, that is until I wrote yesterday how great it was going.
My dream of a quiet mountain meadow with butterflies floating all around, was pure bliss. The part about the two midgets and the six pack of coronas was the best part. (uh, but that is for a different blog). Anyway, I'm rambling.
Have I set the mood yet? The rain outside was lightly hitting the windows, it is actually very cool here at night. So we're all bundled up in our covers.
You get the picture yet? Nice and quiet, all sleeping soundly.
That is…
Until the demon spawn awoke at 1:00 am. And none of that cute little baby cooing going on. Nope.
I can not put into words, the volume level coming from this little 6.5 kilogram (at least that's what the medical report says) bundle of joy. For the last few days she has been waking up a little fussy when she is ready for a night time feeding. Not this time.
I swear it went something like this, (deep base monster voice)
We went to bed at a decent time last night, because today was our interview with Vienna Star, which is our adoption agency down here. This is the most critical phase of the whole process down here. You don't even get to see a social worker. Here you sit for about 15 minutes with an attorney.
I was asleep by 11:00 for the first time since we are down here. We had a great day yesterday, I'm in dreamland, everything was going great.
Great, that is until I wrote yesterday how great it was going.
My dream of a quiet mountain meadow with butterflies floating all around, was pure bliss. The part about the two midgets and the six pack of coronas was the best part. (uh, but that is for a different blog). Anyway, I'm rambling.
Have I set the mood yet? The rain outside was lightly hitting the windows, it is actually very cool here at night. So we're all bundled up in our covers.
You get the picture yet? Nice and quiet, all sleeping soundly.
That is…
Until the demon spawn awoke at 1:00 am. And none of that cute little baby cooing going on. Nope.
I can not put into words, the volume level coming from this little 6.5 kilogram (at least that's what the medical report says) bundle of joy. For the last few days she has been waking up a little fussy when she is ready for a night time feeding. Not this time.
I swear it went something like this, (deep base monster voice)
I NEED A BOTTLE RIGHT NOW!!! I CANNOT WAIT ANOTHER SECOND!!! I AM ABOUT TO WAKE UP EVERY LIVING SOUL FOR MILES AROUND UNLESS I GET THIS BOTTLE.!!!"
After the 2 minutes it takes to warm up the bottle, Amelia decided that she was going to show us. She refused to take the bottle. Can you believe that?
Instead, she continued her tirade, at decibles that only the 200 watt/ per channel stereo that I had in college could reach.
Linda and I were quite the tag team, trying things to get this baby to stop screaming and to get a bottle in her yapper! Nothing worked. I could not be the party that sat by on the sidelines. So I took that baby into burping position. I walked up and down, patting her back. She must have a nice hand print on her back by now.
45 minutes straight. My left arm was becoming lifeless and limp. I lost all feeling. I was delirious from exhaustion.
If any of us even talked for 45 minutes straight, we would be drinking herbal tea and sucking on throat lozenges for the next couple of days.
Finally, the clouds opened up and the light from above shone down on me. I could see the faint glow of the halo coming back.
And not just a little baby burp, she rips like five in a row, it would've made any teenage boy proud.
And just like that she takes her bottle, has a couple of ounces and passes out for the rest of the night. We actually had to wake her up for our appointment this morning.
- - - - - -
Speaking of which, we had to all be down stairs waiting for our driver at 7:50 am. Well, of course being the first time with two kids to get ready in the morning we were running around like lunatics. But we were only 5 minutes late.
We all had to be dressed in our Sunday finery. We had to make an impression on every level. We actually went to this meeting with the couple from Denmark. We get to this place and we all have to walk up the 4 flights of steps. Carrying our kids.
They made us all wait for about 20 minutes. My family got to go in first. Our translator introduced us to the attorney. She was a little scary, she shows no emotions. She barely smiles at you. It is very "Gestapo" like.
Anyway, the questions she asks are very straight forward. Anybody with kids can answer them. Her questions focused mainly on James. How have we raised him, what values have we instilled in him. How do we see ourselves in 20 years? I actually answered "old". For a brief second I saw a slight smile on her face.
Then she says, congratulations! So that's it. Our next step is to get her pass port photos taken, and a few minor things, we have to stay here in Medellin at least until Monday, because the baby has to get a shot and we must show a record of it to the American Embassy in Bogota. We are actually a day ahead of schedule.
- - - - -
Unfortunately today on our trip to the Medellin Zoo my camera stopped working. So I only took a handfull of pictures. We went to the zoo with the family from Denmark. And once again, their little boy, Simon, and James were inseperable. It is amazing, that kid doesn't speak english and his parents told me that the two kids are actually talking about the same things most of the time. I guess 5-year old boy, is a pretty universal language when all they are actually doing is trying to come up with a crazy stunt to impress the other one.
Here you can see the very strict standards the Colombian government has when driving children around.
Pretty crazy, huh?
Somebody told us what to expect when we got to the zoo today, it is kind of like a glorified Long Island Game Farm. You know how zoo's all over the world are trying very hard to make realistic habitats for these wonderful creatures? Well not here.
I was only able to get one picture, but you get the idea. Here is the mighty Black Rhino in all it's glory.
I must say though, all of the animals are up close and personal. The Rhino was probably the furthest thing from the viewers.
There was 2 adult hippos and a baby hippo. They were probably 10 feet away in there pool that is smaller than my swimming pool. Also in the big cat area, they had 2 of every kind of cat you could think of.
There was a gigantic Male lion and two female lions, one of which was in heat and had to be separated into a holding cell. The lions were going crazy, roaring all day long. It was actually awesome.
As sad as it is for these animals, this trip to the zoo was great. When was the last time you went to the Bronx zoo and actually saw an animal that wasn't 500 feet away, lying under some shrubbery?
Anyway, another amazing thing at this zoo is the fact that wild Iquanas roam the park. These things are like the size of a Komodo Dragon. If you look at the bird expression, even it is like "Holy crap! look at the size of that thing!" This one was one of the smallest ones we saw. And they are everywhere. They mainly travel in the tree tops, and we were warned that they tend to, and I quote from our translator, "Drop shit bombs, not like a chicken but a big giant shit bomb." Some of the ones that were in the trees were probably 6 to 8 feet long.
- - - -
Tonight, the other family with a five year old boy invited us to go to the local mall with her and her son, Santiago. This mall is incredible. We didn't get to see too much of it because we couldn't get the kids out of the Amusement park area. It has some pretty incredible rides for the kids. We were in this area for about an hour and it cost us a whopping $20,000.00 pesos ($10).
But the best part for me, was dinner at the food court. MMMM! Nothing says home cooking like KFC baby! I can't wait to go back for some Dunkin Donuts and some Subway!
The woman showed us how to get a cab from the hotel to the mall and back. It costs about $5000.00 pesos each way. Which is a total of about $5 U.S. round trip.
Elisa was very nice to us, She certainly made us feel very comfortable here and we appreciate everything that she did for us!
We echanged emails, so she'll be on the Carman family christmas card list.
- - - - - -
That's it for now. Good night and God bless.
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
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.
- - - - - -
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.
- - - - -
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.
- - - -
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....
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.
- - - - - -
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.
- - - - -
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.
- - - -
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....
I Can't Believe I forgot to tell you this...
The other day I am walking down by the restaurant by the pool and happen to walk past somebody that looked very familiar to me.
Than yesterday in the broad day light, I figured it out. Can anybody recognize this guys tattoo?
I was walking by and and saw these two guys sitting there trying to order food in english. When I got closer, I said outloud "wow, you guys are the last Americans I would expect to see down here in Colombia." (because I am cool like that).
The big guy's response was "Yeah that's why we're down here. Nobody knows who we are". He asked where I was from and we spoke a little bit about how nice the country was.
I wanted to get a picture of him with James but I was too embarrassed to ask. But they hung out at the pool all day, and James and I were playing in the pool. I think just because we spoke english, those guys made small talk all day long.
Here is another image of the guy.
He is going to be here until tomorrow (wednesday) so hopefully I'll ask him to take his picture.
If you don't know who he is yet, his name is Jeremey Shockey. Tight end #80 for the New York Giants.
Than yesterday in the broad day light, I figured it out. Can anybody recognize this guys tattoo?
I was walking by and and saw these two guys sitting there trying to order food in english. When I got closer, I said outloud "wow, you guys are the last Americans I would expect to see down here in Colombia." (because I am cool like that).
The big guy's response was "Yeah that's why we're down here. Nobody knows who we are". He asked where I was from and we spoke a little bit about how nice the country was.
I wanted to get a picture of him with James but I was too embarrassed to ask. But they hung out at the pool all day, and James and I were playing in the pool. I think just because we spoke english, those guys made small talk all day long.
Here is another image of the guy.
He is going to be here until tomorrow (wednesday) so hopefully I'll ask him to take his picture.
If you don't know who he is yet, his name is Jeremey Shockey. Tight end #80 for the New York Giants.
Monday, January 30, 2006
MONDAY - day 5
We had set aside today to go sight seeing and to check out the local culture.
That was yesterday, before our night from hell began...
I posted late last night because I had the 10:00 feeding which wound up being 11:00 (not so bad). Amelia was very fussy during this feeding and drank about an ounce (out of the 4 that I made). She fell asleep around 11:40 at which time I did the blog update. Not to mention that James was up until after 11:00 for some reason extremely restless. He usually is sleeping by 8:30.
I was exhausted and went to bed around 12:45 about 7 minutes before she woke up crying. So I got up and walked her around the hotel for 25 minutes until she fell asleep. I laid back down around 1:15 am.
She woke up around 2:30 am at which point Linda got up, I think. I was so delirious I can't really remember. Linda tells me now that she was up for about 30 minutes.
Amelia than woke up at 4:00 am which was my turn. She was up for about 20 minutes.
She then woke up around 6:00 am, my turn, again ( I can't really figure out the math because I am still delirious). She cried for about an hour and 15 minutes straight. She drank about 1 ounce of the 4 ounce bottle that I made. She wanted nothing, except to cry hysterically, which by the way she is very good at.
At around 7:15 am I woke Linda up to relieve me. After making the handoff, I got back into bed and passed out. Around 7:45 my son woke up and climbed on top of me.
A A A A G G G H H H !
Actually this is where it all gets better...
James and I fell back asleep until about 9:00. Linda was able to work her magic and get the baby to stop crying.
I got up and made a fresh pot of Colombian Coffee, mmm! We sat around for a while. That's when our translator called to see what time we would be ready to hit the road for some sight seeing. We had to pass and rescheduled for Tuesday.
At this point Linda gave the baby a bath. After which the baby needed some naked time. Nothing is cuter than a baby cute little naked butt.
Needless to say James was already acting a little goofy, because he didn't get his usual 11 - 12 hours of sleep. I decided to take him down for some breakfast. Which was like trying to drag him off to be deloused or something. He wouldn't let me leave without him. but he wanted to go. Again, A A A A G G H H H!
Okay, actually this is where it starts to become the best day we have had here so far.
After James and I had breakfast, which consisted of one omelette each, (he didn't eat his) and about 10 pieces of french toast, which James ate half. We decided to go on an adventure.
We started our adventure at the hotel bullring. James was cool about it until he heard a noise and I told him I think that it was the bull, at which point he ran like it was Pamplona and the running of the bulls was about to happen.
The hotel has this really cool brick path that zig zags down a steep hillside. And of course beautiful scenery all around you.
At the very bottom of the path which took us about 10 minutes to get to was a very cool bamboo forest. These things were huge up close.
After that, James realised how easy it was going down hill and that we had a long way to go before we would get back to the top. We finally made it and James thought maybe now was good time to go tell Mommy about our adventure. We finally got to the elevator and the boy was sweating bullets.
After James did some homework and after the baby napped we all went down to the pool. All of us stayed by the pool for almost 5 hours. We had a pizza delivered to pool side. We sat under the palm trees.
We actually sat with another family that just adopted a baby girl. While we were hanging out a 4 1/2 year old boy, named Santiago came over to talk to us. Turns out he was from California. So James was so excited to have some one to play with. The two of them played in the pool for about 2 hours. This little boy knew how to swim very well. And I think James was embarassed that he was wearing swimmies.
Well, the knuckle head decided he didn't need the swimmies anymore and took them off. And proceeded to swim the entire length of the pool. If you look closely you can see his head in the background by the pool steps. He did this two more times. And I was like, ooh baby, this kid will be sleeping before dinner if he keeps this up. Afterward he was, of course, pretty exhausted.
And the entire day, this is how the baby acted. She was all full of life and happy as a clam.
We than met another family from Denmark, who just got their baby girl today. They also had a son, Simon, who was five years old. The little boy didn't speak english, but the parents did. So the kids all had somebody to play with, which was probably the best day for all of them.
Linda was hanging out with the other moms all sharing experiences. It was really great meeting everybody else.
I gotta say this trip is absolutely fantastic. We have seen so many Americans here, most of the help speak english. Communication is a lot less stressful.
It turns out that in the year 2000, when we came down for James, Colombia was having a very hard time with their civil war and the rebels were actually bombing in some of the larger cities. Tourism was almost non existant during this time. So we only saw about 10 other people here at the hotel. We were so scared we barely ever left our hotel room.
This time it is completely different, in 2001 there was a cease fire with the rebel forces and a new president has been elected here. The economy is booming, Colombia is apparently a hot bed for the textile industry. This past weekend here at the hotel they had a huge convention for the textile industry and there were people from all over the world here. That's why we had to change rooms after the first night. They kept all of the convention people on one side of the hotel.
Anyway, it is now my usual 12:30 am bed time. And we all know how fast that 4:00 am feeding comes around.
That was yesterday, before our night from hell began...
I posted late last night because I had the 10:00 feeding which wound up being 11:00 (not so bad). Amelia was very fussy during this feeding and drank about an ounce (out of the 4 that I made). She fell asleep around 11:40 at which time I did the blog update. Not to mention that James was up until after 11:00 for some reason extremely restless. He usually is sleeping by 8:30.
I was exhausted and went to bed around 12:45 about 7 minutes before she woke up crying. So I got up and walked her around the hotel for 25 minutes until she fell asleep. I laid back down around 1:15 am.
She woke up around 2:30 am at which point Linda got up, I think. I was so delirious I can't really remember. Linda tells me now that she was up for about 30 minutes.
Amelia than woke up at 4:00 am which was my turn. She was up for about 20 minutes.
She then woke up around 6:00 am, my turn, again ( I can't really figure out the math because I am still delirious). She cried for about an hour and 15 minutes straight. She drank about 1 ounce of the 4 ounce bottle that I made. She wanted nothing, except to cry hysterically, which by the way she is very good at.
At around 7:15 am I woke Linda up to relieve me. After making the handoff, I got back into bed and passed out. Around 7:45 my son woke up and climbed on top of me.
A A A A G G G H H H !
Actually this is where it all gets better...
James and I fell back asleep until about 9:00. Linda was able to work her magic and get the baby to stop crying.
I got up and made a fresh pot of Colombian Coffee, mmm! We sat around for a while. That's when our translator called to see what time we would be ready to hit the road for some sight seeing. We had to pass and rescheduled for Tuesday.
At this point Linda gave the baby a bath. After which the baby needed some naked time. Nothing is cuter than a baby cute little naked butt.
Needless to say James was already acting a little goofy, because he didn't get his usual 11 - 12 hours of sleep. I decided to take him down for some breakfast. Which was like trying to drag him off to be deloused or something. He wouldn't let me leave without him. but he wanted to go. Again, A A A A G G H H H!
Okay, actually this is where it starts to become the best day we have had here so far.
After James and I had breakfast, which consisted of one omelette each, (he didn't eat his) and about 10 pieces of french toast, which James ate half. We decided to go on an adventure.
We started our adventure at the hotel bullring. James was cool about it until he heard a noise and I told him I think that it was the bull, at which point he ran like it was Pamplona and the running of the bulls was about to happen.
The hotel has this really cool brick path that zig zags down a steep hillside. And of course beautiful scenery all around you.
At the very bottom of the path which took us about 10 minutes to get to was a very cool bamboo forest. These things were huge up close.
After that, James realised how easy it was going down hill and that we had a long way to go before we would get back to the top. We finally made it and James thought maybe now was good time to go tell Mommy about our adventure. We finally got to the elevator and the boy was sweating bullets.
After James did some homework and after the baby napped we all went down to the pool. All of us stayed by the pool for almost 5 hours. We had a pizza delivered to pool side. We sat under the palm trees.
We actually sat with another family that just adopted a baby girl. While we were hanging out a 4 1/2 year old boy, named Santiago came over to talk to us. Turns out he was from California. So James was so excited to have some one to play with. The two of them played in the pool for about 2 hours. This little boy knew how to swim very well. And I think James was embarassed that he was wearing swimmies.
Well, the knuckle head decided he didn't need the swimmies anymore and took them off. And proceeded to swim the entire length of the pool. If you look closely you can see his head in the background by the pool steps. He did this two more times. And I was like, ooh baby, this kid will be sleeping before dinner if he keeps this up. Afterward he was, of course, pretty exhausted.
And the entire day, this is how the baby acted. She was all full of life and happy as a clam.
We than met another family from Denmark, who just got their baby girl today. They also had a son, Simon, who was five years old. The little boy didn't speak english, but the parents did. So the kids all had somebody to play with, which was probably the best day for all of them.
Linda was hanging out with the other moms all sharing experiences. It was really great meeting everybody else.
I gotta say this trip is absolutely fantastic. We have seen so many Americans here, most of the help speak english. Communication is a lot less stressful.
It turns out that in the year 2000, when we came down for James, Colombia was having a very hard time with their civil war and the rebels were actually bombing in some of the larger cities. Tourism was almost non existant during this time. So we only saw about 10 other people here at the hotel. We were so scared we barely ever left our hotel room.
This time it is completely different, in 2001 there was a cease fire with the rebel forces and a new president has been elected here. The economy is booming, Colombia is apparently a hot bed for the textile industry. This past weekend here at the hotel they had a huge convention for the textile industry and there were people from all over the world here. That's why we had to change rooms after the first night. They kept all of the convention people on one side of the hotel.
Anyway, it is now my usual 12:30 am bed time. And we all know how fast that 4:00 am feeding comes around.
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Sunday - Jan 29
Thanks everybody for leaving comments. We really appreciate the feed back. It makes us feel like we are not that far away and going through this alone.
Today started at 5:10 am so already the 4 am feeding is later, woo hoo!
And I am posting so late because her 10:00 pm feeding just ended at 11:35 pm so we're hoping for a 6:00 am feeding tomorrow.
This morning the baby's congestion seemed to be getting worse. Linda wanted her to see a doctor. All guests of the hotel get free medical care. We called down to the front desk and ordered one doctor.
Within an hour a lady doctor and an assistant showed up at the door, neither of which spoke english.
Of course the english to spanish dictionary that we have doesn't have the word "congestion" or "yellow boogies" in it.
Linda and I had to play charades with the doctor which was actually alot easier than we figured it would be.
That is right up until she handed me a prescription. All of you know how difficult it is reading a prescription at home. Ha Ha, you should try being here. The Doctor starts telling me what to do in spanish. Just like dopey Americans who try to speak slower so the foreigner understands, she did to me. Well guess what, no matter how slow she spoke, I am still illiterate in Spanish.
I was freaking out, I could feel my ears getting hot and red. We had to call the front desk and the doctor told them what to do. They then translated to Linda over the phone. So the doc leaves.
Okay, now what. Do we call walgreens and go pick up or prescription in 20 minutes. Obviously they don't have a walgreens here. At least we haven't discovered one yet. So we called our translator to take us to a pharmacist.
He just happened to be up in the mountains today (his terminology, as I see mountains all around me) and won't be back until after 6:00 pm. Which by this time is about 8 hours away.
Now he wants me to read the prescription to him over the phone so he could call it in for us. Holy crap! As stated earlier, reading a prescription in english is nearly impossible. This process took about 15 minutes, because one of the words was apparently abreviated and he kept asking me why I needed drops for the baby's elbow. What the fudge was this guy doing up in the mountains anyway? Especially since we are already in the mountains.
He hangs up and calls back 5 minutes later and said that the drugs will be delivered to our room in about 20 minutes which they were and everything has been fine since. There must be some serious prescription plan here because the two drugs that I got cost a grand total of 6,800 pesos plus a 2,000 peso tip to the bell boy came out to the equivalent to about $4.50 american money.
- - - -
The rest of the day turned out to be a very casual day.
We had nothing to do today except lounge around the pool and go grocery shopping. We are now in an apartment suite with a kitchen, living room and Bedroom. It's nice and comfortable.
We met another couple from California who adopted a baby girl. They also were using the same attorney as us back on Long Island. It turns out this guy grew up in Hicksville and lived there until he was in his 20's. So we got pretty friendly with them.
They got here a week before us. It has been great to have somebody to talk to.
I'm going to sign off now because it is now 12:06 am and I can't see any more. I will have a bunch of pictures to upload tomorrow.
Today started at 5:10 am so already the 4 am feeding is later, woo hoo!
And I am posting so late because her 10:00 pm feeding just ended at 11:35 pm so we're hoping for a 6:00 am feeding tomorrow.
This morning the baby's congestion seemed to be getting worse. Linda wanted her to see a doctor. All guests of the hotel get free medical care. We called down to the front desk and ordered one doctor.
Within an hour a lady doctor and an assistant showed up at the door, neither of which spoke english.
Of course the english to spanish dictionary that we have doesn't have the word "congestion" or "yellow boogies" in it.
Linda and I had to play charades with the doctor which was actually alot easier than we figured it would be.
That is right up until she handed me a prescription. All of you know how difficult it is reading a prescription at home. Ha Ha, you should try being here. The Doctor starts telling me what to do in spanish. Just like dopey Americans who try to speak slower so the foreigner understands, she did to me. Well guess what, no matter how slow she spoke, I am still illiterate in Spanish.
I was freaking out, I could feel my ears getting hot and red. We had to call the front desk and the doctor told them what to do. They then translated to Linda over the phone. So the doc leaves.
Okay, now what. Do we call walgreens and go pick up or prescription in 20 minutes. Obviously they don't have a walgreens here. At least we haven't discovered one yet. So we called our translator to take us to a pharmacist.
He just happened to be up in the mountains today (his terminology, as I see mountains all around me) and won't be back until after 6:00 pm. Which by this time is about 8 hours away.
Now he wants me to read the prescription to him over the phone so he could call it in for us. Holy crap! As stated earlier, reading a prescription in english is nearly impossible. This process took about 15 minutes, because one of the words was apparently abreviated and he kept asking me why I needed drops for the baby's elbow. What the fudge was this guy doing up in the mountains anyway? Especially since we are already in the mountains.
He hangs up and calls back 5 minutes later and said that the drugs will be delivered to our room in about 20 minutes which they were and everything has been fine since. There must be some serious prescription plan here because the two drugs that I got cost a grand total of 6,800 pesos plus a 2,000 peso tip to the bell boy came out to the equivalent to about $4.50 american money.
- - - -
The rest of the day turned out to be a very casual day.
We had nothing to do today except lounge around the pool and go grocery shopping. We are now in an apartment suite with a kitchen, living room and Bedroom. It's nice and comfortable.
We met another couple from California who adopted a baby girl. They also were using the same attorney as us back on Long Island. It turns out this guy grew up in Hicksville and lived there until he was in his 20's. So we got pretty friendly with them.
They got here a week before us. It has been great to have somebody to talk to.
I'm going to sign off now because it is now 12:06 am and I can't see any more. I will have a bunch of pictures to upload tomorrow.
Saturday, January 28, 2006
Day 3 - 4:00 am Feeding! Ugh!
The orphanage told us that Amelia needs a 4:00 am feeding. Well, holy crap, she sure remembered that she needed to be fed. At exactly 4:02 am we awoke to a combination of a blood curdling scream and a coughing fit.
The baby is slightly congested so she tends to have coughing fits when she wakes up. Combine that with the fact that she was starving, Oh man, what a ruckus!
All I can say is, the 4:00 am feeding is just like I remembered it. It sucked!
I immediately jumped up and hit the ceiling. Scooped up this baby who sounded like she couldn't breath. But of course I was just panicking. Linda followed us into the kitchen area and while I paced up and down, she got the formula together. Well, that five minutes of prep time, seemed to last forever. I was already exhausted by the time Linda handed me the bottle.
Once I sat down and got comfy, all the while Amelia is screaming at the top of her lungs, I started to feel relaxed with the whole thing. This is the point that it finally hit home for me.
4:10 am, crying baby in my arms, looking to me to feed her. Her big round, tear filled eyes, staring at me. Asking me to take care of her. This is the point that it hits me, there is no going back now. I can almost see her walking down the aisle already.
Giving her that bottle, she slurpped at it like there was no tomorrow. After about 5 minutes she needed a burping, and man did she let some good ones go. I thought for sure she drank half the bottle. But she only drank one ounce, and she was done eating at thaat point. But she was wide awake and ready to go.
That was Linda's point to say good night again, and she disappeared and left me and Amelia alone.
Amelia and I walked up and down that hotel room about a million times. After about 45 minutes she started getting cranky.
I tried giving her the rest of the bottle, but it wasn't warm enough. At which point we start the whole ruckus over again.
I have the baby in one arm, trying to reheat the formula with the other. It only took a couple of minutes back in the hot water to get it to be drinkable again. But to Amelia it must've felt like ten hours.
Again, she starts slurpping that thing down so fast, she actually gets sweaty on her forehead when she eats.
After about 5 minutes she is unconscience and back in dream land. I cautiously get her back in her crib and tuck her in with her little blanky.
I notice it is 5:10 am and everybody is now sleeping soundly. I say to myself this would be a perfect time to get a workout in.
Well, that was the last thought that I had as I lay back down in my bed until James jumped on my at 8:20 am to get the day started.
The baby is slightly congested so she tends to have coughing fits when she wakes up. Combine that with the fact that she was starving, Oh man, what a ruckus!
All I can say is, the 4:00 am feeding is just like I remembered it. It sucked!
I immediately jumped up and hit the ceiling. Scooped up this baby who sounded like she couldn't breath. But of course I was just panicking. Linda followed us into the kitchen area and while I paced up and down, she got the formula together. Well, that five minutes of prep time, seemed to last forever. I was already exhausted by the time Linda handed me the bottle.
Once I sat down and got comfy, all the while Amelia is screaming at the top of her lungs, I started to feel relaxed with the whole thing. This is the point that it finally hit home for me.
4:10 am, crying baby in my arms, looking to me to feed her. Her big round, tear filled eyes, staring at me. Asking me to take care of her. This is the point that it hits me, there is no going back now. I can almost see her walking down the aisle already.
Giving her that bottle, she slurpped at it like there was no tomorrow. After about 5 minutes she needed a burping, and man did she let some good ones go. I thought for sure she drank half the bottle. But she only drank one ounce, and she was done eating at thaat point. But she was wide awake and ready to go.
That was Linda's point to say good night again, and she disappeared and left me and Amelia alone.
Amelia and I walked up and down that hotel room about a million times. After about 45 minutes she started getting cranky.
I tried giving her the rest of the bottle, but it wasn't warm enough. At which point we start the whole ruckus over again.
I have the baby in one arm, trying to reheat the formula with the other. It only took a couple of minutes back in the hot water to get it to be drinkable again. But to Amelia it must've felt like ten hours.
Again, she starts slurpping that thing down so fast, she actually gets sweaty on her forehead when she eats.
After about 5 minutes she is unconscience and back in dream land. I cautiously get her back in her crib and tuck her in with her little blanky.
I notice it is 5:10 am and everybody is now sleeping soundly. I say to myself this would be a perfect time to get a workout in.
Well, that was the last thought that I had as I lay back down in my bed until James jumped on my at 8:20 am to get the day started.
- - - -
The rest of the day was fairly uneventful. We had breakfast in our room. James played with his guys for awhile. We played candyland about a gazillion times.
We went down to the pool around 11:30 and James and I went swimming for about an hour.
Around 12:30 we came back up stairs and had lunch.
James had to do his homework today.
Here is the view to the left from one of our windows and here is the view to the right.
I wanted to include this image in yesterdays post, but forgot. It is the first time James got to hold Amelia for the first time.
Tonight we went down to dinner and right before we exited the building we spotted MOTHRA. Gotta love the South American jungle life.
And finally, here is how the day ended. James and Amelia sleeping soundly around 9:00 this evening.
So until tomorrow I bid you all a good night.
Friday, January 27, 2006
FINALLY!!!!
I know it took forever, but it took me two days to get the internet to work in our hotel.
I was going to tell you all about the wonderful flight to get down here. How excited James was to be on a plan for 5 hours (ha ha) and tell you how beautiful it is here in the Andes Mountains in Medellin, the city of eternal spring, but all of that seems trivial now because...
I was going to tell you all about the wonderful flight to get down here. How excited James was to be on a plan for 5 hours (ha ha) and tell you how beautiful it is here in the Andes Mountains in Medellin, the city of eternal spring, but all of that seems trivial now because...
Okay, so here's how the day went.
It's now 9:45 on Friday night and we have been a family of four since noon. So it is almost 10 hours and already she feels like she has been part of our family since the day she was born!
I cannot describe the feeling of anticipation that we had since we have landed. Even James just couldn't wait to get his baby sister.
Today we met up with our translator/guide Eduardo at 7:45 am to go to the public courts to see a notary. Once we were there we also got to meet with our lawyer Fanny Vargas.
Basically all we did was sign a couple of papers giving each other the power of attorney. What that does is it allows one of us to stay back at the hotel when the other has to be present at certain court appearances. The whole process took only about 45 minutes.
We came back to the hotel for a quick breakfast, because Eduardo came back at 9:45 to take us to the orphanage.
The orphanage looked good, it has an entirely new wing added to the old building. We saw a couple of small children playing just near the front of the old building. It happend to be a somewhat cloudy day, but being up in the mountains, makes everything beautiful.
Once inside, we waited for a few minutes before Raquel, the orphange director, came out to see us. She was the same woman who presented James to us, and we were very happy to see her again.
She brought us into one of the presentation rooms, which is a medium size room with a million photos on the walls of babies that have been adopted over the years. At this point she went over a lot of paper work which takes almost an hour. I thought James was going to explode with excitement. He was very, very good. And fairly patient for a five year old who could not wait to see his baby sister.
And after the hours time. Raquel left the room for five minutes to get the baby.
We were all very excited, it is like waiting for christmas morning when you are a kid. When Raquel came into the room holding this beautiful little girl... I don't even know how to describe it.
Linda let out a whispered "oooh", and smiled a great smile. James went over to get a better look. I stood there watching my family meet for the first time. My family. wow.
Raquel handed over the baby to Linda and left the room to give us some privacy. Amelia was so incredibly friendly, she immediately went into Linda's arms and smiled. Linda sat down so James could get a better look.
It was all so surreal, time seemed like it was standing still and yet moving by so fast. Amelia is incredible, she took to us as fast as we took to her.
Then it was my turn to finally get to hold this baby, oh my gosh, what a feeling.
After we spent about 15 minutes with Amelia, it was time to go back to the hotel.
First we stopped at a local grocery store to stock up on baby stuff and some junk food.
We have been in the hotel ever since around 2:00 PM. It is almost 11:00 now so I am going to sign off and update some more tomorrow.
Buenes Noches!
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Final Night at Home
Okay, this is it. We have been running around like lunatics all day.
We have 4 suitcases and several carry on bags packed and ready to go. We plan on walking out the door around 4:30am for a 7:00am flight. Man, do I hope we have everything we need.
We should be in Medellin by 2:00 in the afternoon, for one final day of being a family of three!!!
That's all for now, thanks to everybody for their support and prayers.
Hopefully we will see you all by Valentines day!!!!
We have 4 suitcases and several carry on bags packed and ready to go. We plan on walking out the door around 4:30am for a 7:00am flight. Man, do I hope we have everything we need.
We should be in Medellin by 2:00 in the afternoon, for one final day of being a family of three!!!
That's all for now, thanks to everybody for their support and prayers.
Hopefully we will see you all by Valentines day!!!!
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Sunday night
8:00 Sunday night-
4 more days until we are out of here.
We spent most of the weekend trying to finish up the baby's room. I had Michael LaRose helping me paint it. So that is finally done.
Linda had her last day of work on Friday, so she will be decorating the room for the next couple of days.
I am getting a little antsy the closer we get to the date of departure. I think we all are. James can't wait to stop going to school every day for 3 weeks. We still have to get the suitcases out of the attic.
I haven't even tried on my suit yet. I only own 2 and if neither one fits, oooh I am in trouble.
We just heard some good news about an hour ago. My brother Dave and Jackie are on the way to the hospital to have a baby. So after Wednesday, that makes 4 babies under the age of 15 months for my mom (the grandmother)!!!
4 more days until we are out of here.
We spent most of the weekend trying to finish up the baby's room. I had Michael LaRose helping me paint it. So that is finally done.
Linda had her last day of work on Friday, so she will be decorating the room for the next couple of days.
I am getting a little antsy the closer we get to the date of departure. I think we all are. James can't wait to stop going to school every day for 3 weeks. We still have to get the suitcases out of the attic.
I haven't even tried on my suit yet. I only own 2 and if neither one fits, oooh I am in trouble.
We just heard some good news about an hour ago. My brother Dave and Jackie are on the way to the hospital to have a baby. So after Wednesday, that makes 4 babies under the age of 15 months for my mom (the grandmother)!!!
Friday, January 20, 2006
Today's Status
Well, we are in a mad rush to finish getting things together for this new baby to come home.
Of course I am basically finished patching up the giant hole in the wall that Linda wanted complete before the baby came home.
Our plan is to have the whole bedroom painted by Saturday night before we go to bed. :-P
Sunday is going to be spent finishing up and decorating the room. It is going to be a mad rush, just like one of those decorating shows on tv.
We are supposed to call the orphanage to check in with the director, Raquel. For some reason both of us seem to be way to nervous to make this call. It has caused major stress. We can only call between the hours of 11:00am to 1:00pm. So yesterday I went home on my lunch hour to make the call. Only to discover our new phone (using the cable phone system) does not allow international calls. What the hell does that mean? After a few seconds of trying to get my panic down to a manageable state did I realize that I just have to go online and log into our account to give myself permission to make this call.
So I call Linda at work, figuring she would know what to do. She sends me to the website area. Okay easy enough. She then says to log in using a particular name and password. Well of course that doesn't work. Now I'm starting to panic even more, because my time window was closing rapidly, not to mention I have to get back to work.
I figure that maybe on her computer the password might be saved, so I turn on her computer. Which brings my blood to the boiling point way faster than it should have.
Apparently, her computer has to be turned on a "special way". Having her try to explain it over my cell phone with a lousy connection only adds to my inability to contain my mental stability. Repeatedly, turning her computer on then off, then unplugging usb cables, turning on the computer etc, etc, etc. I never got it to work....
Ultimately, I F R E A K stressed by the fact that I now have to be back at work in 20 minutes, and only 5 minutes left to call the orphanage. I couldn't handle it. So I yell and scream and curse and tell Linda that she has to call when she comes home from work at 3:00 and now it is her problem.
Typing it all down now just makes me look and feel silly. After all, it was just a simple little phone call.
After Linda came home she tried calling, but Raquel had gone home. Linda was told to call after 11:00am on Friday.
Today, Friday, I again rushed home. This time at 11:30 and tried calling. Of course I get a woman who doesn't speak English. So in my rudimentary Spanish I ask for Raquel. Only to be told in spanish, that Raquel was not there. The woman than started trying to explain something to me. But unfortunately, I didn't get it. For all I know Raquel couldv'e been coming back in 5 minutes. I hung up once again discouraged.
With all of the turmoil leading up to this adoption, We still can't wait to get a hold of that baby...
Of course I am basically finished patching up the giant hole in the wall that Linda wanted complete before the baby came home.
Our plan is to have the whole bedroom painted by Saturday night before we go to bed. :-P
Sunday is going to be spent finishing up and decorating the room. It is going to be a mad rush, just like one of those decorating shows on tv.
We are supposed to call the orphanage to check in with the director, Raquel. For some reason both of us seem to be way to nervous to make this call. It has caused major stress. We can only call between the hours of 11:00am to 1:00pm. So yesterday I went home on my lunch hour to make the call. Only to discover our new phone (using the cable phone system) does not allow international calls. What the hell does that mean? After a few seconds of trying to get my panic down to a manageable state did I realize that I just have to go online and log into our account to give myself permission to make this call.
So I call Linda at work, figuring she would know what to do. She sends me to the website area. Okay easy enough. She then says to log in using a particular name and password. Well of course that doesn't work. Now I'm starting to panic even more, because my time window was closing rapidly, not to mention I have to get back to work.
I figure that maybe on her computer the password might be saved, so I turn on her computer. Which brings my blood to the boiling point way faster than it should have.
Apparently, her computer has to be turned on a "special way". Having her try to explain it over my cell phone with a lousy connection only adds to my inability to contain my mental stability. Repeatedly, turning her computer on then off, then unplugging usb cables, turning on the computer etc, etc, etc. I never got it to work....
Ultimately, I F R E A K stressed by the fact that I now have to be back at work in 20 minutes, and only 5 minutes left to call the orphanage. I couldn't handle it. So I yell and scream and curse and tell Linda that she has to call when she comes home from work at 3:00 and now it is her problem.
Typing it all down now just makes me look and feel silly. After all, it was just a simple little phone call.
After Linda came home she tried calling, but Raquel had gone home. Linda was told to call after 11:00am on Friday.
Today, Friday, I again rushed home. This time at 11:30 and tried calling. Of course I get a woman who doesn't speak English. So in my rudimentary Spanish I ask for Raquel. Only to be told in spanish, that Raquel was not there. The woman than started trying to explain something to me. But unfortunately, I didn't get it. For all I know Raquel couldv'e been coming back in 5 minutes. I hung up once again discouraged.
With all of the turmoil leading up to this adoption, We still can't wait to get a hold of that baby...
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