Power Cut (Tuesday 2nd June)

First thing this morning Mr Messy had arranged for our driver to pick him up to take him to the bank so that he could change our travellers cheques into currency.  The Guest House Owner had requested that we pay our accomodation bill as soon as we could, and she would have preferred it to be paid in US Dollars, we hadn't brought enough cash to pay this to her in cash, but thought that we could change the travellers cheques to US Dollars and pay her then.  However, she explained that we would only be able to change the travellers cheques into Ethiopian Birr, and she was correct.  We had also been told by a previous UK adopter that we needed to bring the receipt from the Bureau de Change with us as this was required to change travellers cheques to cash, which was very good advice as it was asked for by the Bank (along with Mr Messy's passport as ID).

 

When Mr Messy got back he told me and the children to get ready as we were going to Bilo's Pastry shop.  We managed to get ready very quickly - the lure of gorgeous cakes was too much to resist!!  It wasn't too far a drive to Bilo's and the cakes were just as good as I remember from my last visit :-)  Little Prince managed to devour most of his cake, and liberally spread it round his mouth and down his t-shirt lol.  Drama Teen chose a chocolate layer cake, but found it was made with bitter dark chocolate so she didn't eat much of it.  She didn't want to swap with me, so she didn't get to enjoy Bilo's as much as we did :-(  When the waiter brought Mr Messy's drink he managed to spill mango juice all over my cake, so I couldn't finish it!!  As baby had woken up for her afternoon feed I wasn't too bothered.  We bought the American family's two children a cake each and then came back to the Guest House.

 

During the afternoon Mr Messy made it clear to Guest House Manager that he was NOT to wind Little Prince up and was to leave him alone!!  This was after Little Prince had been soaked twice in a water fight with the Manager, and been held upside down under the outside tap to be drenched!!!  The newly adopted child is fascinated with Little Prince's DS and keeps playing with it, which infuriates him!!  The two children have also commandered the lego bricks we bought to amuse Little Prince and make elaborate castles and towers and break Little Prince's lego robot models to get more pieces for their creations.  All this added together has made sure Little Prince has had a very stressful day and he has had a number of meltdowns and can't seem to control himself, hitting me so hard at one point he brought tears to my eyes!  The family are only here until Friday, so that will be one less stress for Little Prince by then!!  Although the Guest House Owner has gone on an overseas trip, and I am dreading how badly the Manager will now be with Little Prince (as he is always much more provocative and annoying when the Owner isn't there to see his behaviour!!!  However, after a stern warning from Mr Messy this evening Manager has been much gentler and kinder with Little Prince, I hope he still behaves like that once Mr Messy and Drama Teen go on their trip to where baby comes from, as it wil make things very difficult for me to manage on my own with our two youngest if Manager is being annoying!!!

 

Baby has always been a very sicky baby, bringing up her feeds constantly, she was like this when I visited the orphanage last time and seems even worse now she is with us!  We have been wondering if she is lactose intolerant (which might also explain why she has put on no weight at all since I was last here!) or if she has an underlying gut infection, but we can't really do anything about finding out until we get home.  We did have a fortuitous discovery that seems to have helped though!!  We had had to make up her new bottles without sterilising them (we are using a cold water steriliser and sterilising tablets) and just had to wash them in very very hot water, after drinking these bottles she has been noticebly less sickie!!  Perhaps the sterilising chemicals just don't agree with her??  So against all the advice we are going to carry on without sterilising and once we are home use a microwave/steam steriliser with no chemicals and hope that it helps her keep more milk down and gain much needed weight.  Her nappy rash has responded very well to our having nappies changed every feed and within minutes of noticing a poo smell, and of course the wonderful Sudocreme (no I don't work for them I just love how effective it is). 

 

The power finally came back on at 9pm tonight (it went off before baby's first feed at 6.30am) so we can now recharge our mobiles and laptop - and I can update my blog again!!!  Sorry to disappear like that, but you just have to go with the flow here and take things as they come.  Once you get into that mindset its quite relaxing, but its taken Mr Messy a little longer to "let go" than it did me lol.