Blog Comments

At the moment I am emailing updates to my blog, as I can't get my
actual blog page to load over here (the dial up internet connection is
just too slow). I have managed to get onto our home email's webmail
system, and can see that many, many people have commented on my blog -
but the webmail system won't let me see the actual comments!! So I
just wanted everyone to know that I'm not ignoring you - I just can't
respond at the moment!!!

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. 

Birth Certificate Collection (Monday 1st June)

We decided that it was my turn to experience part of the Ethiopian process today, so when our driver arrived it was me that left with him, much to Little Prince's disgust!!  We drove for about an hour in the heat to get to the Registry Office as the traffic was so bad.  When we arrived at the Offices both me and the driver had to get out of the car, he got searched but I didn't, although they did search my bag and took my camera from me and gave me a reclaim ticket.  We parked the car, and the driver took me to somewhere to wait, he even found me a chair and dusted it off for me!!  We only waited about 10 minutes for Assistant to arrive, and she was all out of breath when she did arrive!!  She took me over to one of the buildings, and she told me to wait at one side of the narrow courtyard in the shade while she went to sort things out at one of the four numbered windows on the other side of the courtyard.  There were many people clustered around the windows and I don't know how they worked out where everyone was in the queue, but it seemed amicable enough and there did seem to be some sort of recognised order to who was served when.  Once Assistant had done what she had to do at one window, she moved to a different window and waited again.  Eventually she came back over to me, and she HAD BABY'S BIRTH CERTIFICATE :-)  She said that the office shouldn't have given the certificate to her and she should have needed me to go over and collect it, but they had given it to her without needing me :-)  She also had two other children's birth certificates who are going to be adopted soon (Umm R - Baby F is one of them :-) ).  Assistant had me read through the information on the certificate and check it was all correct and spelled correctly, and once that was confirmed we went back over to the car.  Assistant came back to the orphanage in the car with us, so I'm not sure how she travelled to the Registry Office!!  I picked up my camera on the way out, I had been panicking that I would forget lol. 

 

Once we had dropped Assistant back off at the orphanage the driver took me over to our Guest House, we had already arranged that he would return at 1.30pm to pick up Mr Messy and new baby to go and apply for her Ethiopian Passport.  We packed up supplies for Mr Messy to look after new baby for goodness knows how long!!  They went over to the orphanage to pick up Assistant, however, she was busy with the other UK families who are currently in Addis, so a different member of staff accompanied Mr Messy to the Passport Office.  He was taken to three or four different buildings where New Assistant would march straight to the front of the queue to be dealt with quickly and efficiently.  Mr Messy's only contribution to the whole process was to sign one form when requested.  The whole thing took about an hour, and he ws told that he could pick the completed Passport on Wednesday at 3pm.  It would have been the next day, but there was a planned power cut so it would not be possible to issue it tomorrow unfortunately. 

 

During the afternoon and evening Guest House Manager once again wound up Little Prince to such a pitch that when I put him to bed, he just wouldn't settle.  Thinking that he was eventually settling down I left him in our room.  Unfortunately he didn't settle, he raided his sister's room got hold of her DS and played on it.  He got frustrated that he couldn't manage one of her games and unfortunatly used the DS stylus to stab a hole in his blow up bed!!!  By the time this was discovered the Guest House Owner and Manager had both gone to bed, so we had to put Little Prince to sleep on our room's chair cushions for the night.

 

As well as our excitement in getting new baby's Birth Certificate, we also got to witness the first meeting of the American family's Mum and their new child (older child adoption).  The Dad and their oldest child had gone off with their agency driver in the morning, and returned in the afternoon with their new child.  It was very touching seeing the child run to their new mother and give her a huge hug :-)  The Mum had still been too ill to go to with the rest of her family in the morning so she had to wait at the Guest House for them to return before she could meet her newest child.  

UKEA Meeting (Sunday 31st May)

We again had a quiet morning just lazing around at the Guest House, enjoying learning about our gorgeous new daughter/sister.  Then at lunchtime we walked over to Kaldi's to meet up with three other UK families that are in Addis on either their first or second trips for their adoptions.  We were the first to arrive and pulled two tables together so that we would hopefully all have somewhere to sit together.  We ordered drinks while we were waiting, and didn't wait long before the first couple B&M arrived.  I had been in touch with them before they flew out and they had brought emergency supplies of Sudocreme - thank you sooooooooo much.  We had brought a travel size tub and we were almost to the bottom of it, so the new GIANT tub was very much appreciated :-)  Also very much appreciated was the lovely gift of a pair of hand knitted booties in the style of little shoes with straps, they are gorgeous :-)  Soon afterwards another of the families arrived and then there was a phone call from the last family asking where we all were, we had forgotten when we made the arrangements that there are quite a few different branches of Kaldi's dotted around the city!!  Luckily Mr Messy knew which one they were at and was able to direct them to the one we were all at, and they arrived not long afterwards.  We had a great few hours talking and comparing notes on each of our processes so far!!  And of course we showed off our new little one, as we are the only family that has (so far) been through Court and got custody of our child.  When we had (finally lol) finished chatting the other families all decided to go to Shromayda weaving co-operative and sovenier market.  By this time Little Prince wasn't coping and was very hyped up about new baby getting all the attention and having to sit still for so long, so we decided to miss this trip (although I would have loved to have gone) and take him back to the Guest House for some quiet, calming down time.  The trouble is no one had told the Guest House Manager that Little Prince needed to calm down and he proceeded to provoke and encourage Little Prince to get more and more naughty all afternoon/evening!  It didn't seem to matter how many times I told the Manager to stop, he wouldn't and it was getting very aggravating!!!  Eventually we managed to get Little Prince in bed and settled down, and hopefully tomorrow will be a calmer day!!! 

 

During the afternoon Mr Messy managed to squeeze in a mini photoshoot with the American couple and their new child.  He will process the pictures once we get home and we have a note of the familiy's address to post them a CD of all the photos once they are ready.  Sadly it was the family's last day in Addis and so they spent the rest of the afternoon packing ready to leave.  Then at 6pm the wife announced she was going to go over to the Boston Day Spa to have her hair done before flying!!  So the husband finished packing and getting him and thier new baby ready.  At about 7pm their driver arrived to go collect the family and take them to the airport (via the Spa to pick the Mum up).  It was quite sad seeing them go as they are a lovely couple and their new child is gorgeous and watching baby's personality emerge from the scared shut down child she had been the day baby arrived, to the happy smiley child that left was nothing short of miraculous.  We wish them all the best as for that long journey home and for their new life as a family of five (they had two young other young children who didn't travel with them).

 

Me and Mr Messy stayed up to give new baby her last bottle before going to bed.  Which meant we met the newest Guests, another American family.  Unfortunately the Mum of this family had been violently ill on the journey to Addis and was feeling very much the worse for wear when she arrived.  Although she was full of praise for the way their airline had helped them and whisked them through Customs at the Airport and straight to a doctor, where she had an injection that made her feel much better.  Despite their late arrival they ordered food and as we were still waiting for new baby to wake up for her last bottle, we got chatting.  We couldn't believe it when they told us where they live!!  CABBAGE QUEEN - they live in the South part of your city home!!!!  We discussed different Malls and places we were both familiar with, and were all blown away by the coincidence!!!  It definitely IS a Small World!!!! 

Quiet Day (Saturday 30th May)

I had gone to bed early feeling pretty rought, and didn't feel much better when I woke up.  Baby had woken up for two feeds during the night and all my mozzie bites woke me up as they are sooooo itchy now!!  I stayed in bed for a bit of a rest and felt a little better afterwards.  The Guest House owner has a stash of medicines left behind be previous guests and she searched through it to find some bite cream for me, which is helping a little and I am so grateful.  She also got the ladies to bug spray our bed and put clean bed clothes on.  And that wasn't all, she even arranged to put a mosquito net up over our bed, so I should (fingers crossed!!) be ok from now on :-)  The Guest House owner is so kind and her and her staff really want to help as much as they can.  We all went over to the Lime Tree Cafe for lunch, to take advantage of their free internet, but unfortunately Mr Messy couldn't get his comptuer to connect to their router, despite checking the password they had given them.  We all had a lovely meal, apart from Mr Messy as baby woke up in the sling just as his food arrived and just wouldn't settle down, so he couldn't eat.  When I paid the bil the waiter offered to either parcel up the uneaten meal or to give us free take away desserts instead, but Mr Messy just wanted to get back to the Guest House so we declined.  During the afternoon I read one of my books upstairs in our room for a while, Little Prince kept coming up to join me and colour in his colouring books.  Mr Messy brought baby up as she was asleep, she woke up after a while wanting her next bottle and after she'd finished I put her in my sling and she seemed to settle down really well in there.  Its a HotSling and it cradles her like a newborn and holds her very close to me, and she slept quietly for ages in there.  While I was looking after baby Mr Messy took Little Prince to the Bole Mini Cafe for juice and ice cream, Little Prince was very impressed by the stripy juice and multicoloured ice cream :-)

 

The Guest House guard was watering the garden, and Little Prince couldn't resist joining in!!  At first he was quite helpful, but after a while the lure of getting soggy was too much for a 6 year old boy to resist!!  He started to run in and out of the water spray, the guard tried to stop him getting wet, but wasn't too successful.  Then Mr Messy got hold of the hosepipe and drenched Little Prince - which he LOVED lol.  Once the guard had seen that we weren't worried about Little Prince getting wet, he sprayed Little Prince too.  The rest of the staff came to watch the mad English boy getting drenched, until at last one of them called a halt to the game and said it wasn't good for Little Prince to get so wet, when it was so cold!!!!  We tried to explain that, for us, it is sweltering here, but she insisted that they stop.  I took Little Prince for a bath, but think he would have prefered to be given some soap and a hose down in the garden lol. 

 

During the evening the young Guest House manager started a wild game of throwing Lego bricks with Little Prince!!  I don't think the Guest House Manager realises how wild Little Prince gets and we had to call a halt to that game too!!  The manager also tried to get Little Prince to let him play on his DS, but Little Prince was having none of that and wouldn't let him have a turn, which then escalated into another wild game between them!!!  BOYS!!!!!!  Little Prince finally calmed down when the manager found an Arabic kids channel on the TV, although Little Prince couldn't understand anything that was said, the sight of familiar cartoons seemed to calm him back down thankfully.  After his exciting and tiring day Little Prince settled down in bed with no problems, and Drama Teen wasn't far behind them!!  Me and Mr Messy stayed up to give baby her late feed, so that hopefully she won't wake up more than once in the night!! 

Back to Official Paperwork (Friday 29th May)

Mr Messy had arranged to meet Assistant at the orphanage at 9am, so being woken early by baby gave him chance to have a shower and a leisurely breakfast before the driver arrived to pick him up.  I gave him the list of children to check up on at the orphanage, the questions for the orphanage nurse (she said on my last trip that once baby was officially adopted we could have her weight and vaccination records) and sent him on his way.  About 15 minutes later the driver pulled up back in the courtyard!!  Apparently we needed 8 passport size photos of baby before we can get the birth certificate.  We knew we needed the photos, but thought they were for her passport and British Visa, so I was going to get them this afternoon when Mr Messy was out.  I dashed upstairs dressed baby in her whitest outfit (picture is supposed to be in a white outfit on a white background) rounded up Little Prince and set off to the Friendship Mall to get the photographs done.  Baby managed fairly well for her photographs, but once they were over started to scream and wouldnt be calmed down at all.  One of the shop assistants asked if I needed to breastfeed her!!  No, but she did need feeding urgently!!  I took baby and Little Prince back to the Guest House to feed her, while Mr Messy waited at the shop for the photographs.  Once he was back he and the driver headed straight back to the orphanage, however, the birth certificate office was now closed for its long lunch, and Mr Messy was asked to come back at 1.30pm.  When he was back at the Guest House again, he said he felt like he had been driving round in circles all day lol. 

 

We took advantage of the "down time" to get baby bathed again.  She was MUCH happier about the process this time, laughing and splashing with her feet.  Perhaps its because she's more settled or perhaps its because her bottom isn't so sore now!  I managed to work on a couple of the matted parts of the back of her hair, and she only has a few left now.  We also used the Body Shop Shea Butter on her skin after her bath and her skin is lovely and soft and smells beautiful now :-)  After her bath we let her play and kick on her changing mat for a while to let her bottom get some fresh air.  She seemed to enjoy this, until she got tired again and is now sleeping peacefully in her cot.  Drama Teen and Little Prince are playing less peacefully on our bed with their DSs.  They seem to play nicely for a while then they fall out again, then they make up and start the process over again!!! 

 

At 1.30pm the driver turned up to collect Mr Messy, to try again at the Birth Certificate Offices.  He was out for AGES!!  He was taken to the orphanage to pick up Assistant and together they went to the Central Registry for Births, Marriages and Deaths.  He needed a photocopy of both of our Passport ID pages, which we didn't know so they had to get that done on the way there.  When you arrive you take a ticket with a number on and wait your turn to be called.  Luckily Assistant had a ticket from an earlier visit to correct a different child's certificate so they were able to jump the queue quite a bit!!  The ticket is Amharic and they call the numbers in Amharic, so Assistant was definitely needed for this part of the process.  When their number was called they went to the first room and presented the papers to the man behind the desk, he checks everything is in order and creates a file.  They then went to the next office where they paid the fee (300 birr - already included in the donation to the orphanage), they then took the file and receipt back to the first office where it was put at the bottom of a big pile to be turned into a birth certificate once the clerk reaches the file.  As there were so many files ahead of ours it wasn't possible to get the certificate on this first trip and Mr Messy and Assistant will return to the Central Registry on Monday to collect it.  Mr Messy said it was all fairly orderly but everyone was crowded together, which might make young children uncomfortable.  Once they have the certificate on Monday, then Mr Messy and Assistant are going straight round to the Passport Offices to apply for baby's Ethiopian Passport, which Assistant says can be issued there and then if all the paperwork is in order - keep your fingers crossed that it is!!!

 

National Holiday (Thursday 28th May)

It was the anniversary of the fall of the DERG yesterday, so it was a National Holiday, which meant we could not get any adoption paperwork done.  We had planned to have some time sightseeing and maybe visit Bilo's Pastry Shop, but as Drama Teen was ill we, once again, hung around the Guest House.  Little Prince is struggling with the fact that Ethiopians touch him and take his hand all the time, he finds that too threatening and doesn't react well to it, but it is part of the Ethiopian way with children and I'm afraid he'll just have to get used to it.  Drama Teen was feeling well enough to be left resting in her room, so me, Mr Messy, Little Prince and baby went for a walk round to Kaldi's Coffee Shop.  Little Prince only wanted a cake, and as he hadn't eaten at all the day before to try and get rid of his upset tummy, we decided to indulge him.  I had a cheese omlette and Mr Messy had a burger and fries.  Little Prince decided to share all our meals, although he didn't like the spicy vegetables in the omlette lol.  He didn't finish his cake, and I couldn't resist it so I finished it for him and it was lovely :-)  Little Prince then decided he would like an ice cream, and for that he was happy to walk off to the ice cream counter holding the waitresses hand!!  He didn't finish his ice cream either, so Mr Messy finished it for him and said it was very yummy.

 

Back at the Guest House we hung around some more.  We chatted to the American couple for a while, in between trips that their agency has organised for them.  They are not allowed to take their baby out and about, so their agency sends a caregiver to look after the baby for them.  Their baby was seen by their agency doctor a few days ago and now seems a lot happier and more alert, although the constant changing of caregivers does seem to be confusing and upsetting her.  She is passed from the Guest House caregiver (when the agency caregiver isn't here in time), to the agency caregiver then back to her new parents each and every day, poor little mite.  Her new parents are probably going to find it quite challenging on the flights home, as that will be the first extended period of time she will have spent with them!!

 

During the afternoon Mr Messy came down with the tummy bug too!  And made quite a few dashes to the loo!!  He didn't seem as ill with it as either Drama Teen or Little Prince had been, luckily.  We think we have worked out that it could be the Kaldi's ice cream that is making everyone ill, as I'm the only one who hasn't had any ice cream and the only one who hasn't been ill!!  Which was confirmed when Little Prince threw up in the night again!!  He didn't get to the loo in time, and got it all over his bed, so ended up sleeping with us again.  Luckily baby only woke up once at about 2am, so we didn't have too bad a night.  It seems that she only wakes up the once during the night (at around 2am) no matter what time she has her last bottle!!  She woke up again at 6am and was very loud and shouty so we all ended up awake.