So many firsts

A is fitting into our family so well.  It makes my heart smile to see her light up around her siblings (they are totally smitten by her).  She is glad to see daddy when he gets home from work.  She tolerates her dog (which is more than I do most days).  She enjoys crawling around and exploring her new home.  She is such a resilient and flexible baby.  It’s hard to believe all the change and newness she’s experienced over the past week and a half: 

Being outside

Having sun/wind on her face

Mirrors

Air travel

Parents

Television

Shoes

Grass

Carseats

Siblings

Doorbells

Grandparents

Carpet

Finger foods

Night lights

Cousins

Washing machines

Enfamil

Cold weather

Domestic housepets

Highchairs

Stairs

How we're doing...

The question that I've answered the most this week is, "So, how are you guys doing?"  And the answer is, "Except for a few isolated moments here and there, we're really doing very well."

I've been sick as the dickens.  Finally today, I feel like I'm making some significant improvement.  This same thing happened after our first trip.  I brought back a dash of the "orphanage crud."  I just can't keep my hands off those sweet kids (despite their snot and coughs).  Feeling crummy for a week once I'm back home seems a worthy price to pay.

A has been improving faster than me.  Her cough is almost completely gone; her runny nose is improved; and she hasn't woken in the morning with junky eyes since the second or third morning home.

This week was irregular in that we had several morning appointments and commitments.  We were generally able to make it places by 9am (leaving the house by 8:30am), though I don't want to make it a habit!!  We didn't do school this week for the boys, but I actually think our normal school day routine will be easier to maintain since we'll be at home for naptimes, etc.

We've got about the best friends in the world, who have been keeping us well-stocked with food and ensuring that I need never cook again (now if I could only wrangle some type of free housekeeping service!!).  Folks have generously been helping with childcare while I've taken A to doctor's appointments (just getting a baseline for her health, doing some testing, and determining which vaccines she'll need to receive).

So all in all, we're really doing very well (and I can only assume that I'll be an even better mom-of-4 once I can breathe through my nose again).

We made it home

We were so thankful to make it home last night around 7pm.  What a sweet time with our family and friends.

Introducing, for the first time...our party of six

PS- I'm so glad to report that our first day and night at home have gone really smoothly.

She's Legal

Baby A got her passport...

...and it tastes just fine.

We're packing up and getting ready to head home.  In a few hours we get on our flight to Washington DC... scheduled to land in first thing in the morning there (it'll be about 17 hours for us in the plane).  We'll be all the way back home later on Saturday...which is tomorrow...which is crazy to me.

Thanks so much for your prayers and well-wishes this week.  We have enjoyed reading your kind comments and thinking of you from across the globe.  We will appreciate you praying us on home.  I have to admit that I am rather dreading this long plane ride, but it will be worth whatever the difficulties to put our feet back on US soil and bring home our girl and see our other kids again.

PS--Her pony tails look much better in person than in this "horned" photo.

Bathtime, Take 2

Bath time was much easier today, mostly due to the fact that we found a better sink plug (a gatorade lid this time) and used a bath towel rather than a bath mat for a sitting surface on the bottom of the sink. We even had time and hands enough to snap a photo.

I tried my very best at parting and pony-tailing A's hair today, but I was able to get in a mere four before we (both) needed to stop for a breather.  I think the four look pretty cute.  Mostly symmetrical and well-placed.  I have hope that once we get home and I actually get her hair truly soaked and combed; and once she can sit in a Bumbo watching some type of media or sibling entertainment while I work; and once she likes me better, I will be fully capable of attending to these beautiful, curly locks.  Until then, I say, "Thank you, God, for headbands."


We're going to pick up A's passport/visa this morning and then visit the Ethiopian National Museum, which according to our guide book, is the best of it's kind on this continent.

Thursday

Our Embassy appointment went smoothly today.  We were in and out in 30 minutes; they asked us questions to which we knew the answers; and they'll have A's passport stamped with her visa and ready for pick-up at 10:00am tomorrow morning.  Baby A will be a US citizen once our plane touches down on US soil.

Baby A has had some good moments and some hard moments.  We hope some of the difficulty is illness and tremendous food and atmosphere change.  She gets a medal for good behavior under duress.  She's been sleeping well at night, and she seems happier when we get out of the guest house and she has some different scenery to enjoy.  She's pretty sick with the "orphanage crud."  We'll be anxious to get her home and get her feeling better.  

Embassy Appointment

Today is the day.  Our appointment at the US Embassy is Thursday afternoon.  They will ask us some questions, we will (hopefully) answer them well, they will issue Baby A her passport/visa, and then we can go home on Friday.  We can't wait until our family is all together for the first time!!!

It is another beautiful day today.  We ate breakfast at the guest house with a man from Holland who is here working on a World Bank project... he has been here for months and said it was like someone flipped a switch 10 days ago... it went from cloudy and rain every day to sunny and 72 degrees every day.

Enjoying the view from the balcony

Both the girls are taking a morning nap

New Pics

Finally got some pictures to upload.  First two are from yesterday while hanging out in our room.

We gave Baby A a bath this morning.  Picture this...two grown adults who've been parents for years, both with master's degrees, completely soaked and desperately struggling to bathe one small and reasonably happy/cooperative child.  There's no bathtub here.  There's no bucket or small basin.  There's a sink (without a plugging mechanism), a coffee mug, a baby bottle lid.  There certainly wasn't an extra hand to photograph the event, but we've got a clean(er) baby.  MacGyver would be proud.

October 15, 2013

Baby A left the House of Hope today and is staying at the guest house with mommy and daddy now.  The nannies explained her schedule, and we ventured to the grocery store to get some formula and baby cereal.

The internet has been sketchy today, and we can't get any pictures posted, but she has changed a bunch...

She's got four teeth now (had none in July).
She can sit unsupported.
She is crawling.
We haven't seen it, but we think she can pull up to standing.
She can stand with help.

It's been a little hard for her to showcase her skills on the tile floor and the cement courtyard at the guest house.  Whenever we get to some place with carpet, I don't even know what she's going to do.

We'd appreciate your prayers for good health.  A has a yucky cold (with a cough and plugged nose), and she's been handling both of her ears, so I'm betting on an ear infection in the mix.  I hate that she'll have to fly with her ears already feeling funny, but thankfully she doesn't seem too worked up about it now.

We made it

It's Tuesday morning at 9am, and we're sitting in sunny, beautiful Addis Ababa (rainy season has ended, and it's so much more pleasant this trip than it was back in July).  Our flight was smooth and relatively painless.  A friend loaned me the first season of Downton Abbey on DVD.  I only got through disc one of three, but I'm already feeling more culturally-relevant.

We ate a quick breakfast and showered, and now we're resting for just a little while as we wait for a driver from the House of Hope to come pick us up at our Guest House and take us to the Transition House to see Baby A.

Deja Vu (but better this time)

I just like it so much when I know what I'm doing.  I am so much more relaxed this trip since I have some idea what to expect.  Psychoanalyze me, if you will.  There it is.

The first leg of our journey went really smoothly.  Flight to DC was smooth and efficient.  We arrived ahead of schedule.  Our checked bags arrived, too (I have about an equal amount of confidence in airline baggage processes about as I do in general technology...when I have to check baggage, I always prepare myself to never see it again, so it's like a little gift when that familiar bag flops down the shoot onto the baggage claim conveyor belt at my destination).

Because of the timing of our flights, Ethiopian Airlines put us up for the night in Washington, DC, just like last time.  So, we were at the same hotel.  We walked to the same restaurant area.  We ate at a different place (which was really great).  And when we came back to the airport this morning, we knew the ins and outs of the Dulles airport a bit.  We knew where to find the check-in counter for Ethiopian Air.  We knew where to find coffee once we got to our boarding gate.  Oh that the rest of our trip would go this smoothly.

We'll get on the plane in a couple hours, and then God-willing, we'll land in Ethiopia 14 hours later at what will be 6am on Tuesday morning over there.

PS- I spent most of our flight yesterday working on our Christmas newsletter, and I would humbly say that it's shaping up to be a good issue.

In Two Days

In a couple days, I will don my least-sparkly jeans, and we'll board a plane to begin our journey back to Ethiopia.  We're a bundle of excitement, nerves, anticipation, and relief.  Here are some FAQs about our trip:

Q- How long will you be gone?
A- We'll be in Ethiopia for 4 days, 7 total days of travel, returning Saturday evening.

Q- How long is the flight?
A- About 14 hours.

Q- What's the time difference?
A- Ethiopia is 8 hours ahead of us here in the midwest.

Q- Will Baby A stay with you in Ethiopia?
A- Yes.  We'll pick her up on the first day and take her back to the guest house where we're staying.  She'll stay there with us throughout the trip.

Q- What's your schedule while you're there?
A- We have our interview with the US Embassy on Thursday.  The rest of the days are really non-scheduled and up to us.  Perhaps some sight-seeing, souvenir shopping, etc.


We'd appreciate your prayers for our trip...
for smooth flights and travel mercies
for good health and energy (us, Baby A, our kids here, Papa & Nana who are caring for our kids this week)
for our Embassy interview to go smoothly
for Baby A to feel just as safe and secure and loved as possible as we begin our lives together
that God would finish what He started, over three years ago, by delivering all of us home together under one roof

Things that happened Wednesday...

Wednesday was a big day around here:

Our middle celebrated his 6th birthday.

We also got word that our case was cleared by the US Embassy.  We're booking tickets to go back to Ethiopia next week to bring home our girl!  We are delighted, overwhelmed, surprised, anxious, grateful, relieved.

By the way, did this post seem a little familiar to you?  Birthdays have served as good bookmarks for us in the past couple months.