Thanksgiving Visit (Jack)

After a solid 24 hours of flying and waiting in airports, we arrived in Guatemala City last Wednesday for our first visit with Kit (I want to write about Guatemala City, but it'll have to wait). When we got to our hotel, we called D, the director of Kit's hogar and waited for her to bring him over. It was an anxious wait down in the lobby, made more awkward by the fact that we didn't know what D looked like and four foster mothers showed up with babies before she did. They must of thought we were just really friendly people with all the eager smiles and greetings we kept giving them.

D was in the middle of moving the hogar and unfortunately didn't have much time to stay and visit. She filled us in about Kit's feeding schedule and had to run off. We brought him up to our room and spent time getting to know each other. Kit is a very happy, beautiful baby. He was very interested in all the new sights in the hotel and these two new people that were taking care of him. He was also quick to smile at a friendly face or word.

I had gotten maybe two hours of sleep in the last day of traveling and Jill hadn't gotten much more, so we decided to go to bed early. However, when we went to put Kit in the crib the hotel had given us he fussed and started to cry. He didn't want to be put down. We tried to calm him down in the crib, but he'd get upset as soon as we left his sight. I manage to rock him to sleep in my arms, but he woke right back up when I put him down in the crib. We ended up taking turns sitting up and holding him all night. We didn't get much sleep, but he did. The second night was more of the same, but by the third night we figured out how to get him to sleep safely on the bed with us and we all managed to get more sleep.

Kit's feeding schedule normally required a bottle of formula every three hours or so for most of the day, but he seemed to be fighting off a cold so we fed him more often to get liquids in his body. I have to say, I think we did a good job taking care of him for the three days we had him. He only got upset to the point of loud crying twice and we were able to calm him down quickly both times. He loved looking at new things and would stare intently out the window or at the bathroom mirror when we changed him or the toys and board books we brought along.

While I was glad to leave the hotel (I'm more of a self-serve, home-body person) at the end of the trip, it was hard to say goodbye to Kit. It made it easier to know that we'll see him again in December, but I got the feeling I used to get when I would drop Jill back off at her college after spending the weekend together back when we weren't married. I just can't wait to get him home.

Halloween and Waiting (Jack)

We had a pretty quiet Halloween. We live on a pretty quiet road in a small town and we only had a handful of groups of trick-or-treaters stop by. I can't help but think that Halloween will be more fun again when Kit is old enough to get dressed up and go out.

Jill and I were talking to our next door neighbor in the afternoon before the kids started coming by. He has two little boys at home, and I asked if the older one would be going trick-or-treating. He told us that yes he was, though he had several different costumes and wasn't sure what he'd be going as yet. Then as he was heading off, he said "You'll find out about that soon enough. You're kid may be foreign, but he'll learn the American customs pretty quick." Jill and I didn't say anything. We didn't really know what to say. Our neighbor's a nice guy and has been really well, neighborly to us so I think we wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it was an awkward attempt at saying something like "All kids love Halloween". I think we need to make up a game plan for dealing with these sort of comments in the future.

The blog has been kinda slow lately. Jill has been good about doing updates, but I haven't had much to write about. We're in the middle of the long wait between the mad paper rush and bringing Kit home, so mostly we're trying to kill time right now.

The good news is that in about three weeks, we'll be visiting Kit for Thanksgiving! This trip has seemed off in the distance for so long, but now it's almost upon us. We're both anxiously awaiting it! And I imagine that when we get back, we'll have plenty to write about.