the good, the bad, & the ugly

I know some of you are hoping we will give you a detailed update on our trip and our kids, but I honestly wouldn't know where to start. So much has happened in the past 2 weeks, and we haven't had a chance to process any of it. I thought that I would instead share some stream of consciousness random bits of information starting with the most recent and ending when Joshua and Patience interrupt me more than 20 times.

The kids and I were just out in the yard playing football (i.e. soccer). Joshua is very respectful of my tulips without my even mentioning it. Today that respect extended to every dandelion in the yard (and there are many). It's pretty tough to play football that way. * A little while ago Joshua and Patience became completely wild as they were running away from Daddy (more frequently known as Pa or Papa or Papa-o) and I while we attempted to tickle them. They were laughing so hard that the heater repairman heard them while he was out at his truck. He also nearly got run over by them when he returned. Peter commented, "Now this is what I signed up for." * Joshua and Patience love scrambled eggs and insisted on watching them cook this morning. Every time I would pick them up to see them, they would laugh. * Both Garty and Joshua have nearly lost their voices from crying (Garty) and wailing (Joshua) for too long in the dry air.* The orphanage staff told us that they had tried to get Garty to eat food, but he was completely disinterested in anything but his bottles. We now realize that he's just insanely lazy. If you put a Cheerio (or in our case, a Trader Joe's O) on his tray, he'll ignore it. However, if you put it in his mouth, he loves to eat them. * This morning Patience woke up at 5am screaming for Mama-o. I got in bed with her and had her back to sleep in a few minutes. Unfortunately, my back was hurting so badly that I couldn't fall back to sleep. I ended up sitting on their floor checking email for the next hour until Garty woke up, followed by Patience and Joshua. It was a precious, happy, quiet moment as each one slowly (and did I mention quietly??) joined me on the floor to sit for a bit in the dark before starting our day. * All 3 kids are fascinated by Baby Einstein's Baby McDonald DVD. I wanted to show them Baby Einstein once or twice a day to get them caught up on learning without overwhelming them with TV. They are completely unfamiliar with US farm animals, so they are learning many words for the first time. The older 2 love the song "Old McDonald," but they don't really know anything but the tune. As a result, Joshua will randomly burst into song, but he makes up the words. * Joshua threw a very loud tantrum for almost 2 hours yesterday when we told him he had to stay in his bed for a while (i.e. take a nap, but we didn't want to say that). All the kids at the orphanage take naps in the afternoon without complaint, and we're not about to give up on such a good routine no matter how old he is or how much he wails. * When Joshua finally fell asleep, he was so exhausted from screaming that we eventually had to go wake him up. In all the chaos surrounding nap time, I had forgotten to put a Pull-Up on him. Peter was holding him and trying to revive him as we discussed how fortunate we were that he didn't wet the bed and force us to change the sheets when our mostly unconscious boy started peeing all over the mattress that we had brought into their room so we could be with them the first few nights. Wouldn't you know, it was the only mattress in the house without a mattress pad.

I need to go figure out what we're going to eat for lunch, but that pretty much sums up yesterday and today.