We have 2 Pizza Chefs!! August 23, 2008

Today, we decided to venture out into Bogota. Since it is Saturday, the streets are not as busy with traffic. I have never seen anything like the traffic here in Bogota. We tried to take photos, but they just don't do it justice. Let's just say that when you cross the street, you are putting you life in your own hands. Another interesting feature, is that in the middle of the 2 lanes going each way, there is a bicycle path, and there are people on bicycles pulling advertising signs.

We have no idea what it says, but we found it very unique.

We met a family from North Carolina, about a week ago, and they are staying about 3 blocks away in another Zuetana hotel. We decided to stop by and say hello. They have adopted a 7 year old girl, and are the only other family that we have met from the United States. We had a great chat with them.

We then headed over to a Pizza place called Archie's Gourmet Pizza. We had heard about this place from another family who had previously travelled to Bogota for adoption. It was a great place, and we all had fun here. They have a small room for children to make their own pizza. They start by having the children wash their hands, and then they put a chef hat, and apron on them. Then they begin to have the children make their own pizza. After adding flour to their hands and the table, they are given a small ball of dough, and then they direct the children to flatten it out, and pound it, and then make it round. Next, each child gets a small cup of pizza sauce, followed by cheese, ham and pineapple to top the pizza with. Then they take the pizza's to be baked, and when they are baked, each child gets his pizza back to eat. I think Eric and Joyce had as much fun watching as the children did making the pizza's. Jeferson and Diego had huge smiles on their faces the whole time they were making the pizza. Since we couldn't choose which photos were the cutest, we thought we would include them all. (Yes, we are very proud parents!!!)

After a fun afternoon, we walked back to Zuetana. The boys played a little before dinner, and then after dinner it was time for bed. We listened to a few kids songs and colored. Eric is sooo amazed at how many kids songs Joyce knows the words to. When Eric was surprised that there were only 8 songs on each of the CD's, Joyce reminded him that technology has advanced, because when she was a child, she had all the songs on "45 records" and each side had only 1 song, so having 8 songs before having to change the CD is advancement.

Another very busy day, but the boys were very well behaved on our venture.

There appears to be some type of employee issues here at this hotel. When we went down for dinner tonight, we discovered that there was only 1 staff member here, and that was the maid/server. She doesn't speak any English, but from what we understood, she was handling the front desk and also serving dinner. This is very unusual, so we tend to think that there is something going on. We were told that one of the desk hosts will be leaving Zuetana next week.

Around 9PM a desk hostess did arrive, but doesn't speak English, so we are not sure what happened to the regular staff member.

Another family arrived tonight as well. They are from the country of Norway. The dad was originally adopted from Colombia many many years ago, and he and his wife have now returned to adopt a second child from Colombia. Surprisingly they speak only Norwegian and English, and no Spanish. Since all of the other families here are from the Scandinavian Countries, they tend to communicate with each other in the Danish/Norwegian language.

We want to Thank everyone for their emails and comments. It brings us closer to home.

Another exhausting day for Mami and Papi.

Adios from Eric, Joyce, Jeferson and Diego.

One Week with the Boys. August 22, 2008

Wow, it is hard to believe that the boys have been with us now for one week. On second thought, it maybe seems like a lot longer than that.

Yesterday, August 21, was our 15th Wedding Anniversary. Not like any other anniversary we have celebrated over the past 15 years. Although you could say that we travelled a long way to celebrate 15 years. Our present to each other, was 2 beautiful and healthy boys.

We tried to stay active throughout the day, as this is what the boys really need. We went to the park after breakfast, and then took a long walk around the business district. We stopped at a small shop called Fres y Chocolate. They had many different treats, and the boys loved the chocolate covered strawberries, which were served 3 on a stick. Joyce had a slice of strawberry cheesecake, and we are not sure what Eric had, as he made a mistake in ordering. Diego was kind enough to share one of his 3 strawberries with Papi. Jefferson was not willing to share at all.

When we returned late in the afternoon, Zuetana was hosting a small party for a new child that was presented to her parents today. The couple is from Norway, and the little girl is very cute. She is 14 months old, and very small for her age. But she has the cutest little smile.

Another family from Germany who had adopted in another area in Colombia, already received Sentencia, the final adoption approval, and were just waiting for their flight home today. They adopted a little boy about the age of Jefferson, and have another daughter who was about the age of Diego. We enjoyed our time with them. There is another couple in the hotel from Denmark who adopted 2 girls, ages 18 months and 3 yrs, and a couple arrived today from Germany. Since the new couple speaks very little English, we are not sure when they will be receiving their child.

Our children are by far the noisiest children in the house. Of course we had to have at least one tantrum for the day, and this was after the party, as the children watched a movie, before dinner, and when the movie was over, Diego wanted to watch another movie. Boy, did he get upset when we told him it was time to eat, and no more movies. He ended up falling asleep on the couch in the living area, and never even got to eat dinner.

Friday, August 22.

Cecilia called us this morning to let us know that we will be meeting with the boys therapist at 4:00 PM today, at Ayudame. We decided that since it was not raining this morning, that we better get to the park before it starts to rain, as it rains every day here. This morning was actually very warm for this area, around 70 degrees, when the sun shined through the clouds. However, when the sun goes behind the clouds, the temp is more like 65 degrees.

We made it to the park, but were there about an hour when it started to sprinkle a little bit. Since the boys had already found a puddle to play in, we figured, what is a little sprinkle going to hurt. After about 10 minutes, the sun was shining once again through the clouds.

Since we had promised Diego a movie this afternoon, after we returned from the park, the hostess put in a movie for the boys. We decided this would be a great opportunity to sneak away to the store to pick up some items. Diego is becoming quite the juggler, so we wanted to buy some small balls for him to be able to juggle.













We were also looking for kite string. We purchased a special toy for each of the boys at the shop yesterday, so they have now tranformed from Superman to Spiderman, as we purchased each one a small Spiderman. Mami attached a long (mucho grande) piece of thread to each one, so now each of their Spidermans do great stunts from the upstairs balcony. However with all the stunts, the string broke many times, and is now mangled into a little ball of thread. We didnt find any string, so we settled on ribbon instead. As long as it is Mucho Grande, the boys are happy.





























Joyce also wanted to purchase a water bottle that you could not see through, so she could be discreet when she enjoys her COKE Light-We have been unable to purchase Diet Coke here in Bogata. If the boys see a bottle for soda, they immediately want to have some as well. It is amazing how many tricks we are learning. The staff at Zuetana, agreed to watch the boys while we went to the store. Since the movie was on the entire time, the boys were little angels.

After about an hour at EXITO, we became frustrated, with all the people, and not finding what we were looking for, so we returned back to the hotel. We ate lunch, and then went to meet with the boys therapist. We were meeting her and Cecilia back at the orphanage where the boys lived, so we were not quite sure how they would react. They didnt seem to be concerned with being back there. We truely think that they were treated well at the orphanage, and enjoyed the other children and staff.

What did we learn from the therapist? both boys love to manipulate!!! Not a surprise to us! We discussed how our first week went; and the actions of the boys. We have decided that it is best for Diego to have more structure in his day, so he will be going back to school here in Colombia, for 4 hours each afternoon. Since the 2 boys were used to being in school (Jefferson in the morning and Diego in the afternoon), they never really had the opportunity to antagonize each other the way they do now. We think that this will be the best for Diego, and Jefferson will spend the time with mami, without having to compete with his brother. We didnt feel that
Jefferson needs to return to school, here in Colombia, as he is easily entertained. Mami will be working with him on his English during this time. However, once we return home, both boys will immediately be enrolled in school, so they have the structure and exposure to English that they need. The therapist also told us that we need to be direct when speaking to both of them, as they need to have discipline. Since communication is a barrier, she said to really show our emotions in our eyes, as the boys understand that, and looks are universal. The therapist also spoke to Jefferson and Diego, and reported that the boys seem happy, and feel that we are very warm and patient parents.

Upon leaving the orphanage, we started our new discipline technique, and the boys were very good during dinner. With a few reminders, they sat nicely, ate all of their food, and even got to enjoy some extra time watching the NASCAR race on TV with papi.

The boys sleep so well at night. We are very thankful for this. They go to sleep around 8 PM, and sleep until about 7 AM. We love when they wake up in the morning, as they are both little angels. They love our family time.

We are going to look into taking the boys swimming sometime this weekend, at a local fitness club. We think they would really enjoy it, as they love to play in water. By the time they finish washing their hands and brushing their teeth, the bathroom floor is like a swimming pool.

We hope everyone is enjoying our daily blog. We try to update daily, but this is sometimes difficult.

We hope everyone is doing well.

Chow!!!!

Eric, Joyce, Diego and Jefferson

TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS, AUGUST 20, 2008

Hi Folks

Today I start with a bit of a warning . . . there will be much boasting on our part, there will be much humor with the boys actions, and YES - we are the the most frustrated we have ever been in our life!

However, in our opinion, we still have the best match of two children ever in the history of adoption. Consider yourself warned, and read on if you like.

First, let me start by saying what an absolute treasure JOSE PABLO is with his visit. We totally believe his ability to speak Spanish was the reason the first three days were so WONDERFUL, and the last two - well, are we are getting tested! Just yet another example of how blessed we are to know him - and don't forget the 8 hours travel overnight on a crowed bus just to visit - ONE WAY. Boggles our mind. We hope that all our exchange students know we would also travel to the moon for them if need be. It is special we were able to share this MUCHO IMPORTANTE experience with him as well.

Our plan with Jose was to expose the boys to as much as we felt they could handle. We wanted to see them react to various situations. We did just that, based on the boys behavior, and they handled everything with much more patience and love than we could ever have hoped for. But, we were able to communicate totally with them about any situation that came up. Please read on if you dare.

First, a brief update on Monday (of which was a holiday here in Bogota - they have so many!). We went to a placed called Moloca (http://www.maloka.org/ if interested, Hispaniol only). This is sort of a childrens hands on experience with a museum. It is geared a little older than children 3 and 5 years old, but the kids had great fun anyway. A few of our favorite exhibits were the Electricity and Space exhibits.

First the electricity exhibit. This was very similiar to what you would find at that Tommy Bartetts Robot World place in The Wisconsin Dells. They had a generator that would run electricity from "someplace" through your body and have it do "something" at the tips of your fingers, feet, elbows. It was absolute magic to the kids. We must have heard "magico" 100 times, but once Papi was volunteered by the show host, the kids were transformed into paranoid schizophrenics as they were obviously interested in what was going on, as long as it did not hurt Papi. We assure you (and the boys several times) that Papi was just fine, but there was very slight pain, and weird sensations running through his body - nothing like a tazer from the police, but guarateed you do not want to go through that. The only part we did not like is the flash of the digital camera did not go far enough, and the pics without the fash are just too blurry for anyone to recognize unless you were there. Thus, sorry no pics of that portion. But the looks of concern on the boys faces, and Diego giving the "business" to the show host about hurting Papi, really made this portion of Moloca worth writing about. Diego must have given a two minute lecture to the show host on "several occasions". He had the people in "stitches" around us during the lecture. Although we could not understand at the time what he was saying, Jose was trying to interpret, and was not being able to translate quick enough. Upon finally hearing what he was saying, and what he was going to do about it if Papi was hurt. . . well, honestly, this made Papi so proud he wanted to run around like a Gorilla thumping his chest!!!!!!! Ever get lectured by a 5 year old????

We were able to get photos from a portion of the Electricity exhibit. They may also be blurry. Not because of the lighting, but because the kids run so fast. It was this sort of spinning circle type "thingy" - much like you would picture a horse walking around in circles tied to the little pole in front of it, and having no place to go but in a circle. Using this analogy VERY playfully

we have found two horses. OH MY GOD, did they run around in circles! The diameter of the circle is barely 5 feet, so they also got very dizzy. It was hillarious to watch them run, then want Mami and Papi (Jose too) hold them up by the hands so they would not fall to the ground (dizzyness). Boys will be boys - they would not quit! Diego's face never really did change in looks, but Jefersons face was so contorted, I bet you could have opened a bottle of coke in the folds of his cheeks, chin, eyes, and all other facial parts - I would have to think about it, but I bet even his ears were involved!

The other cool exhibit was the Space portion. This was also what you would expect from a normal childrens space exhibit. Alignment of the planets, the solar system, asteroids and what not. The kids were so enamorred with it, and spent a lot of time there, we decided late in the afternoon to catch an IMAX film there. It was titled "Fly Me To The Moon". It was not what we expected! In fact, we never knew that a fly (just a general house fly) was tucked inside of Neil Armstrongs suit when man first landed on the moon. We know now. It was animated, and in 3d like an IMAX movie would be (wrapped all around you practically 360), and had some great special effects. Diego loved it! It was a bit too old for Jeferson (or he ran around in circles too much) because he was not that intersted in the movie, and fell asleep on Madre's lap during 80% of the movie. TOTALLY OK WITH MAMI as she loves to hold him, and even better when sleeping (all you moms out there can relate!). Jose, Eric, and Diego were glued to the screen above. Did not even notice that Jeferson AND Madre were sleeping (Oh, the cuddling feeling with a new parent and their children). Did not find that out till after the movie. GOTTA LOVE IT!

Tuesday, we woke up to mucho Mucho MUCHO different children. The morning ritual was virtually the same, no problemo, but throughout the day the kids just got more and more wild. They would not listen to us very well, the limited Spanish we speak only seemed to make things worse. At lunch, Papi was siting with Diego. Madre was chasing Jeferson trying to get him to sit and eat. He would not, despite the wonderful people fluent in Spanish speaking to him as well. He simply would not sit much less eat. Well in the mean time, with Papi sitting with Diego, Papi noticed that Diego simply kept on chewing and chewing, despite hardly ever putting food in his mouth. All of a sudden Papi notices Diego is only using one hand to put food in his mouth. Papi asked him what was in his hand. Diego promptly showed him a pack of Chicklets Gum. Neither Madre or Padre know where this came from - we did not give it to him. Papi asked for it, which turned into disaster number one. After a bit of quite non forceful removing the pack of gum from his hand, Diego started pouting. And Pouting, crying a fake cry, and pouting some more. You swear that Papi would have stolen his livlihood, but we guess in some ways he did. Here is where the real problem came in.

Papi noticed in the pouting that Diego still had two pieces of the gum in his other hand. We may have a "slight of hand" artist in our midst. No clue how that happened. Well, through an interpreter, simply because Papi would not be listened too, Diego finally gave up one of the pieces of gum to James, the wonderful front desk clerk here at Zuetana. Papi informed James that he was looking for TWO pieces of gum and not one, as I had seen two in his hand. Diego absolutely lied and lied and lied about this. Papi held strong - and told James to tell Diego that I am not angry with what happened to the gum, but MUCHO NO FELIZE that he is not telling the truth. Diego hung to his story, until Papi started "lecturing James" about what he wanted James to tell him about telling the truth has virtually no consequences, but NOT TELLING THE TRUTH IS MUCH WORSE! While Lecuring with Diego compaining at lot, all of a sudden Diego told James that he now wanted to tell the truth. Diego came clean with James in that he chewed the second piece of gum while Papi was talking to James, but that is the reason why there is no second piece of gum.

WE SWEAR WE COULD HARDLY STOP FROM CRYING BECAUSE HE HAD GOTTEN PAPI'S MESSAGE AND CAME CLEAN. BRAVO DIEGO!

Upon recollection of this, hours after, this may have been a milestone, the first baby step if you will, but none-the-less, MUCHO IMPORTANTE!

Lunch really did not continue, but that was OK.

We went to the park with the boys. We felt they needed to blow off a little energy. The trip to the Park was horrible as well. Jeferson was now playing off Diego's emotion (as expected) and they each fed off each other. Well this ended up with Papi holding Diego's hand the entire way to the park with Diego eventually throwing a temper tantrum on the way. Jeferson was great once he got away from Diego a bit walking ahead with Madre. A good "old fashion temper tantrum" erupted - just like the ones your mom told you about! Lots of throwing himself to the ground, not walking, crying a fake cry, kicking etc, etc, etc, the entire walk to the park.

Oh, I forgot to mention this was because Diego threw the soccer ball into the street and it was Papi's turn to carry the ball.

Once at the park, Papi kicked the ball into the park which always ended up with Jeferson and Diego chasing the ball at breakneck speed. Off went Jeferson! Diego too, but in the opposite direction, the temper tantrum continued.

Finally Papi got to Diego, and picked him up, walked to a rock and sat holding Diego screaming and crying for about 1/2 hour. Seemed like 5 hours - the entire time holding Diego firmly whispering anytthing he could think of. Eventually it ended up in a bit of a tickling issue. When Papi was certain this was "over" this time, Diego ran off to the swing set where Madre was playing with Jeferson, but with that watchful Eagle Eye on both kids that mothers are so good at.

After the park, we returned to the Casa, and a movie was in order. We hate the idea of using a movie to babysit a child - this was needed for all parties. Two hours of simply staring at Shrek saving the Kingdom. Absolute joy! Diego and Jeferson were enjoyable (really for the rest of the night) and went to sleep without further serious incident.

This brings us to the end of the day, which brings us to the next day (Wednesday). Same thing but this time it was Madre's turn to deal with the same temper tantrums over nothing. As was with Papi, Madre was pushed to the brink of a nervous breakdown. Jeferson too got in the tantrum mood, but he is either not as strong willed as Diego, or is simply younger - with a shorter attention span - as they seem less severe and not as long. Diego's "attention to detail" is going to be legendary - at least in this category - hope it transfers to math!

Although these temper tantrums described above seem dramatic and they are, the love and joy these boys bring to our lives really shadows these moments. We believe most of these stem from our lack of communication directly with the boys!

As an example - look below:

Keep on praying for us, send the all the encouragement you can. We live for the blog replies.

MUCHO GRACIAS

Eric, Joyce, Diego, and Jeferson

GOTCHA DAY PLUS UNO August, 16, 2008

Hola! we are still a day behind in posting the blogs, but the 2 boys are keeping us very busy.

The first night with the boys went fantastic. The boys went to bed at 8:30 and slept until 7 AM the next morning. In fact, they went down very easily. The beds were dry and, well, everything was normal. Much to our suprise! Joyce and Eric did not sleep very well at all. Joyce did manage to get a brief sleep in during the night. Eric - Nada.

For those of you who may not know us that well, previously we sponsored three Foreign Exchange Students in our lives. They each lived with us for approximately one year. One is from the great Country of Colombia! Our Mucho, Mucho, moy moy moy bien AMIGO Jose Pablo, arrived around 8AM (this morning) Saturday morning- of course in Colombian time. He was initially due at 12:00 midnight, then 2:00 am, then 6:00 am. I think the listening to every breath, snort, rollover, fart!!!!! (Oh my God!) of the kids, coupled with the the anxiousness to see Jose created a "non-sleeping" atmosphere. Jose travelled from his home town of Buccaramanga, Colombia 8 hours overnight via a packed full bus just to come and see us and help in any way he can. He also WANTED VERY MUCH to met the children. He says he is certain of how great parents we will be due to his experience with us. We pray this will be true. It is great to see him again, and he has been a tremendous help in our transition, mainly to understand what the boys are saying. But we are slowly learning, and also teaching them the words in English. They are both very bright, and will repeat words that we say in English. The communication is difficult, and it breaks our heart many times when we can't understand what they are asking of us. Especially when they end their question with "por favor", as we know that means "please". We do tell them "no comprende mi amigo" meaning that we do not know what they are saying. Often we say "repeate por favor no rapido" and they do. They will sometimes take our hands and direct us to show us what they want. Otherwise they get Primo (cousin Jose) to translate.

They both drink a lot of water, and now carry water bottles they are constantly refilling with 'agua". By the way, DID I MENTION THEY TALK A LOT! I think I did but in a previous post, but we had no idea of how often the sing. AND THEY SING LOUDLY AND OFTEN. Possibly future American Idol winners - they do get enough practice in now.

Sometime after breakfast, Deido and Jefferson managed to change in the phonebooth (somewhere-we still have not found the phone both yet) and became Supeman. We never even saw it!. They just came down stairs, with their blankets tied around their necks and walla - the caped cruisader is alive and living in Bogota. The superheros are leaping tall couches in a single bound, seeing EVERYTHING with their expert vision, moving faster than a speeding bullet! How LUCKY everyone here at Zuetana is - especially the staff!

The boys are such big eaters, they eat like there is no next meal, and very rapido. We have to be careful about how much we give to them since they will eat everything and anything. In our meeting with the director of the orphanage on Friday, we were given recommendations for their schedule, eating habits, etc, and we are trying to follow it very closely trying to avoid any disruptions to their daily routines and eating habits.

Sometime after breakfast, the doctor who does house calls, came to the hotel to check on Diego's stitches. The wound is healing well - may not even end up with a scar. She will be back on August 21 to remove the stitches. Diego is being so brave about them. He did cry when the bandage finally came off. Eric initially was not impressed with the removal of the bandage. The wound side of the gauze bandage was stuck to the wound so we could not even replace the bandaid on the stitches the initial night due to this. The doctor quickly put our medical supplies to great use, but after about 15 minutes of attempting to slowly remove the stuck bandage, she just tore the thing off. Luckily it worked perfectly and did not disturbe the wound at all. Diego did break out into a horrific cry when this first hapened, but Papi was there with the doctor to make it all better. Maybe she did know what was doing after all, but you should have seen the look on her face when we pulled our "Pharmacia" out of the closet. She realized we are traveling ready for anything: sprains, strains, colds, flu, cuts, bruises, bumps, scratches. Possibly even a fracture or an amputation, but lets not talk about that - I just want to point out that Madre is ready for anything!

We have determined that Jeffersons clothes fit Diego. Shopping was certainly in order as Jefferson. They are all so big, as are the size 8 clothes that we brought for Diego are MUCHO Grande. So , we took a trip to the local mall to buy some clothes. Size 3T is a better size for Jeferson, and size 6/7 is a better size for Diego. We purchased a couple of outfits for Jeferson, and also a jacket for Diego. He was so funny in his new jacket. He put it on and then put on his sunglasses and baseball cap, and started singing and strutting around the store with them. We may have a rockstar on our hands.

I have to say that both nino's are suffering in the clothes category. I swear, the clothes sizes in compairison are 1.5 sizes off. As an example, in my opinion, a Colombian 4/5 is the equivalent of a 3T in Colombian. The Boys were fantastic in the stores - and this mall is HUGE. They were very patient, and just took in all the sights of the mall. They didn't ask for a single thing. They really are good boys, but don't get me wrong, they are still boys.

They have lots of ENERGY.

As you might remember from our internet meeting with them a few weeks ago, they talk alot, and we have learned that they talk very loud as well. They sing all the time. They really are happy boys, and are very curious about so many things. We are not able to leave Jeferson alone for a moment, without him getting into something that he shouldn't be. As an example, yesterday, I missed him for a couple moments, and found him in the bathroom, with the soap dispenser in his hand, and pumping soap onto him, and all over the floor. He is very quick and bright!! It is also very funny when they start chatting with each other in Spanish, as we think they are scheming their next moves.

For dinner we went out to dinner to an authentic Colombian restaurant, and met Jose's mother and her friend. It was very nice to finally meet Jose's mom. Although we can not communicate directly, we had a great time, and the food was fantastic. The boys sat and ate so good. We were so very pleased with their behavior, as this was our first dinner out, so we made no guarantees. They both ate A LOT, and then both fell asleep in our arms, as we continued to chat with everyone. Once back at the hotel, they were out for the night.

What an exhausting day. What great problems to have.

Adios Amigos

Eric and Joyce