Good Nap

That was so much better. I think we're all happier now. Room service is on the way to the rescue.

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.

More pictures

Jason and I are finally able to relax a little bit now that everything is pretty much done with our adoption case and we are having fun. :) Karla's in bed and we just ordered a pizza for dinner. I'll admit, I didn't eat 3 meals a day when Jason wasn't here. I did feed Karla regularly though! Apparently not enough fruit though. :) I always thought I would eat dinner after she went to bed...but I usually slept instead.

Anyway, I just uploaded some pictures and a video. The video is funny! We are going to have to be more careful of what we do. Karla observes and imitates us a lot! In the family room when we're not feeling as energized as she is, we sit on the couch or chair. Most of the time the lion has to be continually playing music. So, instead of using our hand to push his nose to make the music, somehow we started using our feet and then someone else wanted to use their feet...

More on Boxes of Milk

I haven't run away from stinky diapers, I just think that Jennifer's been waiting 2 years for this and I don't want to deprive her of this experience.

Horizon "organic" milk sound fine although I would argue that all milk is organic since it comes from a living source as opposed to a not-living source. Now milk that came from, for example, a rock would be non-organic.

In any case, here's the Guatemalan example.

For the record

I told Jason that milk could be bought in "juice box" form...but he didn't think so in the U.S.

Also, we can continue to pump her with fruit, BUT he has to start helping with "stinky" diapers and not running away saying "she smells".

:) :) :)

Boxes of Milk

So one of the things we've struggled with is that the only things she'll drink besides the sporadic "aqua" in the sippy cup are these (probably horrible for you) juice boxes called Sipi. Every morning after the "boo" from the crib and romping around on the bed with oso, she asks for "gee-ta" which we had no idea what that meant and then "drinkie" which means juice box. I think she asks for "drinkie" because she knows we know what she means. Not giving "drinkie" is cause for an immediate meltdown as I soon found out when I didn't think she needed a juice box at 8am. We asked one of the waiters who speaks pretty good English at breakfast finally what "gee-ta" meant because we thought maybe it had something to do with milk - i.e. her formula. He said that she's probably saying "lechita" which is "leche" with the diminuitive "ita" (i.e. Karlita) on the end. I guess here they call these small single-serving boxes of milk for kids "lechita". So today at Econo-Super I was on a quest for lechite and sure enough, right next to the juice boxes is a whole section of "leche" with a ton of various flavors (plain, vanilla, chocolate, strawberry) and in various forms of fat (or skim) milk and even lactose-free milk boxes. I chose "Dos Pino Leche Semidescremada" mostly because one side's information is in English. So Karla now has "gee-ta" of 2% milk that is creepily un-refrigerated until you open it. I guess Americans deal with milk quite differently than everyone else. I remember in German class a discussion about unrefrigerated boxed milk from Deiter Indinger and we all thought he must not have understood what we were talking about. I guess we were all wrong.

I tasted it and sure enough, it's milk.

Karla has drank about half of one so far when she asked for "drinkie" and seems happy with it. The only downside is that the slightest squeeze sprays milk everywhere.

Guess we'll have to find something like this in the US to get us started. Milk in a cup is immediately rejected.

Cute Karla Things

Jason is at EconoSuper getting some more diapers and another phone card. Jason is having some difficulty changing our flights for the way home. Of course he finally got to someone who might be able to help and we ran out of phone minutes. We had to pick a random date to come home and now he is trying to change the flights to Wednesday. It should work but we are trying to make it so it doesn't cost us an arm and a leg. Jason spent an hour on the phone (at least) already trying to work this out.

Karla is quietly entertaining herself so I decided to write some cute things about her.
*she randomly will start crawling on the flooring and barking pretending to be a dog. It is cute in the room but it was difficult to tell her "no" when we were at a restaurant the other night.
*she loves to dance
*likes to play peek-a-boo, either standing behind me or standing behind the chair in our room. She makes her bears play peek-a-boo. There is one waiter that always will "scare" Karla by saying boo. Now she shrieks with joy just seeing this waiter. She says "boo" first thing in the morning when we look at her in the crib. :)
*TODAY she said "cheese" for the first time when I was taking her picture.
*she loves both of her bears (osos). They get their hair combed, they get fed, they get lots of kisses, and Jason and I have to kiss them on their boca (mouth).
*one night, probably over a week ago, one of the nights she slept with me - she woke me up telling me her Oso had stinky feet. It was hard not to start cracking up even though I had been woken up in the night for this news.
*she makes noise and will talk sometimes when she is sleeping. She will say "oso" and hug him a lot in her sleep
*she loves balls (pelota)
*she loves grapes - I had been rationing these but now that Jason is here he tries to pump her with as much fruit as he can. I am not too happy about that today because we've had major diaper changes and clothes changes... I don't know if it is all the fruit or maybe her tummy isn't feeling good and that is why she was so fussy yesterday. I will monitor the situation. :)
*I am purposely "taking my time" doing things now. I will take a long shower (yeah!) so that Karla is getting used to being alone with Daddy. I let them head down to the pool several minutes before I went down. She seems to be doing fine with him now. He got to give her a bath last night and she finally kissed him today. I think she's adjusted to him quite quickly. :)

Gotta go...someone wants me to play.