Our First Full Day (Tuesday 26th May)

During the night she woke up at 1.30am for a feed and change and again at about 5am.  For the 1.30am feed I fed and changed her and settled her down pretty quickly.  Little Prince is in our room and she did disturb him a little, but he quickly settled back down to sleep.  However, for the 5am feed I made the fatal mistake of letting Mr Messy take her to wind and change her while I cleared away her bottles.  As soon as he lay her down to change her nappy she screamed so he picked her back up again, and this went on for the next hour and a half!  So we were all wide awake, tired and grumpy.  Even Little Prince kept telling Daddy to just get it over and done with!!!  Not a great start to our first full day with our newest daughter!!  We managed to get down to breakfast without too much bickering and falling out thankfully.  We had bought some breakfast cereal for the kids, which they enjoyed a lot more than the normal scrambled eggs!!  Then the miracle happened - Drama Teen's boyfriend had replied to her emails :-)  Happiness was restored to her world, and she has been a lot brighter and happier, and even more wonderful she's started eating a bit more!!!

 

The American couple went out for breakfast with an Ethiopian friend of theirs.  Their agency sent over a caregiver to look after their daughter as they aren't allowed to take her out and about with them!  The large Ethiopian discussion group says it is a rule from MOWA/Ethiopian Govt to all adopters, however, our orphanage director has never heard of it, and she works very closely with the government!!  Being cynical I think it has more to do with Agencies protecting their own incomes, as they tell parents that they can only have their baby with them if they stay in the Agencie's own Guest House!!!  Hmmmm!!!!   While they were out we bathed baby, and she was NOT impressed.  We wouldn't have bathed her this early in her placement, but her nappy rash is so bad we need to try and get her properly clean so that she can start to heal.    They then came back and went out again on a trip organised by their agency, again leaving their new baby behind!  Not long after they'd left, we decided baby was settled enough for us all to venture out too.  We insisted that Drama Teen came with us, and she did with hardly any protests.  We walked round to Kaldi's for some early lunch, Drama Teen and Little Prince insisted they only wanted ice cream but ended up pinching most of my fries!!!  The kids went over to the counter to choose their ice crream flavours, but when the ice creams arrived Little Prince had the wrong one!  He was NOT impressed and had a little tantrum about it.  A waitress and a few of the customers checked if he was ok, which I thought was very sweet of them.  When he calmed down again he did eat most of his ice cream and said he would have the other flavour next time.  After we'd finished eating we went over to the Business Centre and asked if we could make photocopies of our passports (for the Guest House and for when we apply for baby's British Entry Visa), but apparently they were just the internet part of the Centre and we had to go up to the 3rd floor to make photocopies.  We were all out of breath when we reached the third floor, but we managed to get the copies we needed for only 6 birr!!  Bargain :-)  Next we wandered downstairs in the mall to the stalls selling traditional Ethiopian souvenirs, we had a good look round before I showed Mr Messy where the book shop was.  Then we headed for the supermarket to stock up on more snacks for the children and get some more formula while its still in stock.  They didn't have any cans of Coke, just bottles and we weren't allowed to buy any without bringing back some empty bottles, which was pretty frustrating!!  But the Guest House has supplies of Coke so I can still get my "fix" lol each evening with dinner.  On the way back to the Guest House we called in the mall's toyshop and bought Little Prince a big bag of Duplo style Lego for him to play with at the Guest House.  Little Prince carried his precious purchase back to the Guest House himself. 

 

Once we were back at the Guest House me and Little Prince set about trying to make the models pictured on the leaflet inside the Lego bag.  We managed to sort of make the camel, with a few adaptations!  Then he made the letters "LEGO" like they do on the Lego Star Wars game, he managed it really well, but needed help with the letter "G."  Baby was a lot more settled with us today, with increased eye contact and a few smiles :-)  She is also drinking more milk and seems generally a little more settled with us, which is fantastic progress for the short time she has been here!!  Little Prince alternated between playing football with the Guest House guard and playing with his Lego.  During the evening there was a torrential thunderstorm, and once it had finished actually raining Little Prince had a great time running around in the puddles.  If I'd realised how wet he was going to get I would have inisted he wore his Crocs rather than his sandals!!!  Hopefully they will dry in the sun!!

 

Little Prince had a sandwich and was in bed by about 6.30pm, but as he had been woken up at 5.30am by his new sister, he needed it!!  We spent the evening chatting with the American couple and had dinner with them in the Guest House. Me and Mr Messy had burger and fries, Drama Teen just had fries and the American couple had injera.  When baby had drunk her 9pm bottle and seemed very settled we decided to take advantage of this and have an early night.  I must have been in a really deep sleep as I hardly knew waht planet I was on when Little Prince woke up and was violently sick at about 11.30pm.  Luckily I somehow managed to get him to the bathroom and once he was cleaned up got him settled back in his bed.  Not for long though as he woke up and was sick multiple times during the night, and at one point was sick all over his bed so had to come and sleep with me and Mr Messy in our bed.  I dealt with Little Prince and his waking sickies, whilst Mr Messy dealt with baby, who only woke up for a feed once during the night!!  We have decided to give her 6oz feeds and that seems to be suiting her a lot better.