Day 1 Continued

Ok, I think I have a few minutes to finish day one first!
I stayed at the apartment to unpack and the rest of the kids played very nicely. About 10 minutes before Brent came back they all started getting wound up! Jumping on beds and furniture and driving each other around in the stroller! They are adorable! Cindy is hysterical! She has the funniest sense of humor! I was reading Ferdinand the Bull book to her (en espanol) and it said something about him sitting in the flowers and she covered her mouth and snickered- el bano!!!!!!!!! She thinks potty talk is funny! LOL! What a riot!

We went to the pool later and they love it! It was kind of cold but they played for a long while!  We came back to the apartment for dinner of hot dogs (again!). Brent and I were hurrying trying to get them fed before chaos reigned so I threw bunch of hot dogs in the microwave. Brent got them out in a few minutes and he realized that they have plastic wrapped around them like a sausage. We melted the plastic into the hot dog! HA! We started pulling the plastic off even though the hot dogs looked pretty gross by then. Luisa came into the kitchen and started helping slice the rolls and she gave us the funniest look about the hot dogs! Like- you gringos have no clue what you are doing, do you? LOL! She was patient with us and even ate the food! She is amazing in the kitchen, cutting the rolls, slicing fruit, etc! This is awesome!

Everyone was really tired so we had a quick devotion time (they have no clue what we were doing) reading from the Bilingual Jesus Bible Storybook both in Spanish and English. They seemed to like it and sat pretty well. Brent tucked the boys in bed and I did the girls. At one point, Luisa asked me if she could call her foster mom. We had been prepped by ICBF that this was possible and we have to say no. They are allowed no contact. Poor thing. That is so hard. So scary to fall asleep with strangers in a strange house with strange clothes...
Jonathan fell asleep right away, but the girls had problems. Cindy whimpered so I rocked her on the bed until she konked out. We have a trundle under the twin bed so I put her on the trundle. Luisa was still bouncing around trying to distract herself from falling asleep by coloring, playing with Pollys, changing clothes, etc. I sent Cait out to the living room since there was no way she was going to get to sleep with all Luisa's restlessness. I could tell she was so sad and missing her foster mom. She wouldn't smile or even look at me. I was doing my best to whisper comforting words (Don't worry. I understand you are sad. You will always be my little girl. We are so thankful you are in our family...and a few other phrases I know.) to her but nothing seemed to help. Finally I asked her if I could hold her and we laid on the bed and she clung to me with a death grip. Broke my heart...After about 20-30 minutes she rolled over and fell asleep.

Brent, Cait and I chilled with the computers for another half hour or so, but when Cait tried to lay down in bed, Luisa woke up. She came out and was all smiles and wide awake. Uh oh! We showed her the photos on the computer from the morning and she seemed happy. We asked her if she wanted to sleep in bed with us and she looked grateful that we offered that! She was super restless and had a hard time staying asleep. I think she woke every hour or so. But at least she would squeeze me tight and not tantrum!

So that's all for Gotcha Day/ Day 1! I'm sorry it took so long to get it all down. I keep getting interrupted or we have to change activities. We are trying to keep them on a very busy schedule so they are worn out by the end of the day!
Caio!