No Time to Shower

Hi, friends! It was either shower for the first time since Thursday, or update the blog. This bonding stuff is very labor intensive! But Biruk just went down for a nap, and Alan, Celie and Joey are out, so I thought I'd get something up for you.

Now that we're home, things are going very much like we expected from our training classes. Biruk is very mommy-focused. (He calls me 'amama'.) He wants to do everything with me, to sit in my lap and to be held in my arms. That's a good thing! -- but hence the lack of time for a shower so far.

Celie and Joey are mostly enjoying playing with Biruk, but the novelty is wearing off a little, and they are noticing how he dominates my time. So I'm being very intentional about giving them as much attention as I can squeeze in. Celie and I had a fun little mother-daughter outing yesterday for an hour. That was a sweet time (and another reason not to shower.)

It's been fun introducing Biruk to our home. Above are some photos of the last 24 hours: being a goof-ball at dinner, first time in the wading pool, and the traditional pulling-out-of-pots-from-the-cabinets, as all children must do. Alan is out right now getting child-proofing locks for select cabinets so that Biruk's curiosity doesn't get the best of him, or drive us crazy saying "No, no!" all the time.

On top of the adjustments to our relationships, and how we spend our time, there's still some jet-lag to deal with. Friday night, Biruk was up from 2:30 to 4:30am. Last night, Saturday, he was up from 3:30 to 5:30am. It would be so great if we could skip getting up at 4:30am tonight, and just make it through the night. Biruk has had a pretty bad cold since we got him, and I've been fighting it off only partially successfully, so those middle of the night wakings are a serious bummer!

When we first got Biruk, if he woke up in the middle of the night, all he wanted was a bottle of water to curl up around. It seems that might be how he was comforted in the orphanage. Now the water holds no attraction, and he only wants to curl up against my chest. The week we were in Addis, Biruk got no naps due to all our scheduled appointments, which made him a maniac. Yesterday, it took an hour and much crying for Biruk to understand that he could lie down in the crib, or sit in the rocking chair with me, but he WAS going to take a nap. Today, it took 10 minutes to get him down for his nap. Woohoo! It's so good to see progress. Now if I can only get that shower in....

Sorry for the uninspired blog-post...there's so much to tell you about our time in Ethiopia, and lots of photos, and of course the gory details of bonding, so stay tuned.