Day 5 - Getting to know one another

Today our son stole the only set of keys we have to our room and locked himself in the bathroom. All our threats and promises only made him laugh loudly from in there. We were about to call hotel security when the bathroom door opened and a smiling face beamed out at us, visibly proud of his achievement! Boy, is he a handful! But a truly wonderful one!

We have spent today going to various shopping malls but coming back to the hotel for every meal and for playing with toys and swimming in the pool. The weather has remained very nice, and we have seen nothing of the rain from the weather forecast.

We are getting to know the boy fast, and we're trying to decide what we are going to call him. We will keep his Colombian first name, but we think we want to give him a Norwegian name as well.

The little translator in the left margin of this blog (together with a little grammar) has been our best friend today, both for figuring out what to say to him in Spanish, and for interpreting his Spanish, which became much easier once we understood that he can't say the letters 'c', 's' or 'z', which he replaces with 't' or 'p' or sometimes nothing at all. But the language is actually not such a big problem. He talks to us all the time now, and most of the time he doesn't seem to care that we hardly understand a word he is saying. Body language is alpha and omega.

Nevertheless, we taught him his first word in Norwegian today, while we were out walking: Motorsykkel. He loves everything that has an engine, and picked the racing car every time when we let him ride the kiddie rides at the mall. (Later in the day he also learned to say nese.)

We put diapers on him on the first shopping trip this morning, but that turned out to be unnecessary. He warns us when he needs to go. But during lunch he did not wear diapers, and he did not like the food, so we took turns holding him and walking around with him while the other one ate, and he got a little angry when we refused to go play in the pool then, so he decided to pee without warning in papá's lap! The outcome was not pleasant for anyone, so he has wisely gone back to using the bathroom after that.

We still think he eats very little. We don't know where he gets the energy from! Unlike what they told us when we picked him up, he seems very picky when it comes to food.

For supper today he again did not eat his food, even though we had intentionally laid off the sweets and crackers since lunchtime. He just chewed on it and spat it back out. But then someone suggested that we try to give him boiled rice. That really hit the spot! He ate it as fast as he could stuff his mouth, and then we got him seconds. But halfway into the second portion, all of a sudden he fell asleep, the spoon in his hand (on the way to his mouth) dropping to the tiled floor with a loud noise (and the rice flying out and around)! We both had to laugh. We had finally managed to wear him out! Hooray!

We got him to open his eyes and eat one more mouthful of rice, and then we left the restaurant and took him straight to bed. When we got to our room he suddenly looked very sad and confused about his whereabouts, but it only lasted a few seconds. Jelena thinks the taste of a type of food he likes may have triggered some memory of his life before us.

His favorite sleeping position is fetus-like, on his knees with his head resting on his hands. He still snores because his nose is blocked, but we don't have to wipe his nose for him during the daytime anymore, he does that by himself (although sometimes he gets a little eager and uses a few more kleenexes than are necessary for the job)!



He loves to do everything himself during the day: opening the doors when we are entering somewhere, locking and unlocking our room when we leave and come back, filling his water glass from the dispenser, taking pictures of us (he took both of these), changing (and choosing) his own clothes, putting on his (or sometimes our) shoes, and lots more. His physical skills lack nothing. But in the evening, when he's tired, he becomes more baby-like and affectionate, clinging to mamá and papá like plastic wrap. We have to admit that we enjoy those moments!