Laugh Attack

We had a real downpour this afternoon. The rainwater came rushing down the block. Thunder, lightning , the whole bit. But now it has cleared and the internet is functioning again and it has allowed me to upload this very happy video. Mariana was in fine spirits last night as you'll see here.

Each day gets a little easier as we fall into a routine. It's hard to believe its only been 5 days. Tomorrow we go to meet "The Defender of Minors" here in Bogota at 7:30 am (ugh). Sounds intimidating huh? She will ask us a few questions and assign us a court where our Sentencia will take place. The Sentencia is sort of the last major hurdle for us becoming Marianas legal parents and being able to take her home to the USA. Apparently each court operates at a different speed and depending on which one we get we'll know roughly how much longer we need to stay here. fingers crossed...

We've been spending a lot of time with a Dutch family. They have an adopted Colombian daughter that's 6 who is also named Mariana. They are here because they just adopted another wee one who's 8 months. They are really nice and good company and Mariana just loves to be around the children. Sadly they leave on wednesday. I wonder who else will come to entertain my daughter appropriately?

Another accomplishment for Hilary yesterday in a long line of accomplishments was the fact that she cut Marianas nails - while she was sleeping no less. Maybe some of you more experienced parents just yawned but I thought that was amazing. Todays feat: Mariana fell asleep downstairs and Hilary carried her up the stairs and put her in the crib. She's been laying there comfortably now for the last 1.5 hrs. Sweet revelation! We actually had a few minutes to ourselves. Hey, you have to celebrate the small victories.

2 nights ago I managed to get Mariana to sleep and then lay her on her back. At the time it was a 1st. I was so excited about it that I spent the rest of the night trying not to move because she had me shoved to a side of the bed just barely wide enough to lay down. By the next morning my back felt crippled and I was completely exhausted. Fortunately Hilary was able to sleep uninterupted for the 1st night since we got Mariana and slept like a rock. As a result she was Superwoman. She took charge and let me be a zombie all day. We are so happy that we've been able to trade off those zombie days. We make a pretty derned good team.