The Long Night

Last night was a very long night. Around 11:30 Karla woke up just screaming hear head off. We went from silence to banshee in 0.25 seconds. We think she was having a night terror - something that's not uncommon in adopted children. She was screaming, tears streaming down her face, clinging to Jennifer's neck but then kicking her like she wanted to get away. It took about 15 minutes for her to calm down and we had a juice box, a milk box and watched some Thomas the Tank Engine on TV and she fell asleep finally after about 45 minutes. Unfortunately I disturbed her again when I tried to put the rest of the milk box away in the refrigerator and it started all over again. She wanted to "vamos" so Jennifer took her for a walk in the hall but then she just started being very bad. She would go out into the hall and then start screaming. Jennifer would take her back into the room and she'd calm down, want to "vamos" again" and then start screaming as soon as she was in the hall. She was just so tired and was fighting sleep because recently we've been walking her in her stroller to put her to sleep that she was just stubbornly misbehaving. She'd point to her crib and we'd put her in and she'd lay quiet for about 5 minutes and then she's start wailing again. Jennifer laid her back in bed with me and took a little breather and Karla cuddled with me for awhile quietly (watching TV) and then started screaming again. So we put her back into her crib and was going to let her scream it out - because we were out of ideas. And then she dropped right to sleep! But I don't think it was a restful night for anyone. Jennifer and I were on edge all night and we'd both wake up and look at her as soon as she moved or rolled - which seems like a lot last night. So we're all pretty exhausted.

Fortunately Karla seems to be bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and happy as a clam this morning - for the most part. We had the morning "boo" routine and lots of cuddling with mommy, daddy and oso in bed. Then she was ready to "vamos" to breakfast - she was probably hungry after all the screaming. So we had some "lechita" and then went to breakfast. There was a clown there and made Karla a balloon flower. We also found the church that we went to the first time we were here meeting in a different room. They seemed to have more people and had a children's program. Karla stood in the doorway and danced for a little while, but we didn't way to stay long because we were afraid Karla would disrupt the service. She ran around the atrium a lot with her balloon and then we went up to the playroom. She played here for a very long time. There was another family from Philadelpha there and they have their embassy appointment on Monday with us. So we talked with them for awhile and Karla played a little with Jose and Jennifer took a shower. Karla and I played a lot by ourselves and she even sat in my lap and watched TV for awhile. I had to change a very potent diaper right before Jennifer came back but fortunately she got to witness the tail end of it so she couldn't claim it was benign.

We're playing on the floor of the room right now, dreading and forestalling the nap time that is upon us. We don't want her to get too far off her schedule though because we'll have to wake her up tomorrow morning at 6am for our embassy appointment.

Just a little while ago she grabbed Jennifer's glasses and spit on her, which is the first time she's done that in a few days. We'd hoped we were past that. Interestingly though as soon as she did it, she came for poppy trying to not get in trouble.

We're going to try the nap now. *sigh*

Nap is in progress. Only 10 minutes of screeching... I guess that's progress. Mommy and daddy are now going to nap as well.