The first two days with Bereket...

So Friday night, after I updated the blog, it was time to tuck the kids in.  Bereket is sleeping with us, so I laid down with him.  He cuddled right up to me, and fell asleep in about 5 minutes flat!  I couldn't believe it!  I guess we had missed his nap, and he had been yawning since about 4. lol.  He slept really well; I thought maybe he would be disorientated when he woke up, but he seems really content with us.  He was pretty surprised to find that Faith and Thomas had joined us in the bed during the night!  Good thing it's a king!

Saturday, we got up early and played for a bit in the suite until it was late enough to go outside and play without waking people up.  The kids had fun playing basketball and skipping for a few hours.  At one point, Faith was bored, so she went up to our suite and played on the balcony with her littlest petshops.  I was sort of surprised that she was willing to do that by herself; she is getting more independent all the time!  Around 10, we walked with Karen, Paul and Ibssa to the grocery store, and then had lunch at Kaldi's.  Faith called this "Ethiopian Starbucks" except they also server burgers and fries, and ice cream!  It was very yummy and we will be back regularly, I'm sure!

Bereket is pretty happy, especially if he is in our arms!  He loves to be carried and would hardly ever walk if it was up to him! haha.  Considering I doubt he had been to a restaurant very often, if ever, he was very calm and at ease with the whole thing.  He likes everything we have offered him to eat so far, although he "only" had two pieces of pizza today, so maybe he wasn't as crazy about that...  He is a good eater and I can only imagine how quickly he will grow... If he doesn't, he must have parasites or something!  

It's tough... He *seems* pretty content and not scared, and yet I can't help wondering if it is a false calm.  I mean, his life just got turned completely upside down, for the second time in less than a year!  I'm sure once we really know him, we will look back on these early days and see signs of any difficulties he is having...

Saturday afternoon, Bereket and I had a nap, and then he played with Faith and Thomas for a while before supper.  He likes Beyblades, though he and Thomas sometimes squabble about who gets which one, etc.  He also like playing with cars, coloring, and playing on our phones.  Oh, how he loves the phones!  "Game?"  If we say no, he asks, "One??" (meaning, just one?).  If we still say no ;) he pouts a little but handles it pretty well.  We actually haven't seen any big displays of emotion/upset from him yet.  Now, Faith and Thomas, on the other hand... lol. They are showing signs of being pretty tired and overstimulated.

Saturday night, we read stories, includng our chapter book, and Bereket sat very well during those, which is pretty amazing considering it must just sound like an absolute sea of words!  Faith and Thomas fell asleep in no time, but Bereket took longer, probably over an hour.  I think it was the nap!  We will see how long that lasts in our routine... I'm a pretty big fan of early bedtimes for kids!

This morning, we had made plans to go to the International Evangelical Church with Karen, Paul and Ibssa.  Their driver friend picked us up around 10, and we made it to church around 10:15... which was perfect timing for the French service! lol.  English wasn't until 11:15, so we had a bit of a wait.  That was fine, except we used up a lot of the kids patience before we even got in the door! Church was nice, very similar to home, although Faith was disappointed that they didn't sing the EXACT same songs! The kids did really well for the first 30 minutes, started to gradually fall apart during the sermon, and Dave took them out during the last 15 minutes.   They were starving, as we had had breakfast at 7:30 and it was after 12.

After church, we had a yummy lunch at a restaurant near the church.  We had pizza, but everything that came out of the kitchen looked so good, I definitely want to go back!

By the time we got home, it was after 2, so we skipped the nap for today.  We watched a movie and the kids played, mostly happily.  Near supper time, Faith and Thomas started melting down over a game.  It was pretty ridiculous, because they didn't want to quit, and both were insisting it WAS still fun, with tears streaming down their cheeks!  Bereket had fun sorting the SkipBo cards into piles by number and lining up the dominos.  And stickers!  Oh my!  He covered 4 pieces of paper with stickers, and would have kept going except I cut him off! lol.  He seems pretty good at finding ways to play with stuff, even if it's not the original purpose.

Oh - I forgot to say... On the way to church, we picked up a young man who is a friend of Karen and Paul.  It turns out he knows Bereket!  He volunteers at KVI 3 days per week!  He taught the kids the amharic and english alphabets.  He said Bereket is very smart (which we have also observed!).  It was fun to see them interacting, and ever since then, Bereket has been singing and talking to himself much more.  He is also a whistler... if we ever can't find him in the apartment, we listen for the whistle.  This is especially fun, since Thomas also likes to whistle.  They have so much in common.

So, two days in, and things are going pretty well.  Tomorrow we go visit Ayantu, our Compassion International child.  I am very excited about that, though a little concerned at what Bereket will make of it!  Thankfully our host will be able to explain it to him in Amharic, because I have no idea how to begin!

Also tomorrow, our friends Candy and Rob from Afroland are moving over to GT!  We have officially staged a coup and taken over the whole place!  It will be great to see them again and for all three families to be in the same place!

I do have pictures... But they take forever and I am tired, so once again, they have to wait... One of these days I'll do a big picture update!

Heather