Freakish Gurgling

I love the freakish gurgling noises this child comes up with. It seems like every day she discovers something new. She loves to mimic the sounds of lip smacking blubbering back to her Mommy. Another new feat in the past day or so is that she is showing signs of crawling. She got up on all fours twice today for a just a few seconds but you can see the crawling position forming there. Pretty exciting. She is also almost totally able to sit up on her own without the aid of a pillow sandwich. I had a dream last night that her legs were long and that she could walk. Think I'm getting ahead of myself? She better not start walking too quickly. Our house is not at all baby proofed.

The hotel is starting to empty out again. Most of the folks that have been here the past few weeks have gotten their Sentencia and are leaving in a few days. We did get a call from Helena saying not to make any travel plans to the Carribean just yet. She says there is a chance our Sentencia could come through before Easter because our case is already past step 2 out of 3 steps. We're crossing our fingers and kicking ourselves at the same time for hesitating on the beach trip. We'll see in the next few days if she says it's still possible but obviously we want to be in Bogota when the call comes for the Sentencia.

There is a new Swedish couple who just today brought home a 6 yr old boy and his 3 yr old sister so they'll be here for a while. I can see their wide eyed expressions and I remember just how difficult and exciting that first day was. It's amazing to think of how far we've come in just 3 weeks with Mariana. They are facing an enormous challenge in the years ahead and it makes me realize for the 5 millionth time how lucky we are. Certainly we have huge challenges too but when I look at Mariana it doesn't feel that way. She is so incredibly beautiful and has a way of melting us into 2 little puddles. Only now can I understand how people think their baby is the cutest in the world only in our case it happens to be true.

Now that its a little more quiet we are going to cook dinner tomorrow night for everyone here including the staff. On the menu: Fresh spaghetti with marinara sauce, Grandma Lospinuso's meatballs, a side salad of arugula with pears and shaved parmagiano and for desert Nestle toll house cookies with ice cream. I've never cooked for this many people so it could be an enormous failure but what the hell, I'll give it a shot.

On a side note both KISS and Motorhead are playing here in Bogota in April. If we end up staying here that long those will be 2 consolation prizes. Well, at least for me. Here are also a couple random shots for those of you not on Facebook.