Day 6 - inspection

We were told that the kid wasn't used to sleeping during the day, and this held true the first two days: He stayed up all day and slept all night.

On Wednesdy he fell asleep at 20:45 h and slept until 06:50 h. This morning he woke up at 6:55 h, after having fallen asleep at 19:55 h last evening (after the incident at the hotel restaurant), and we felt lucky to have a child who slept so well.

But tonight we could not get him to sleep until 21:30 h, even though he was in bed by 19:45 h. And we know why.

Today we had an inspection by a social worker, the same lady who attended the meeting on Wednesday and who had been keeping an eye on the foster family that our son lived in. Jelena could feel the boy's fear and stress when he saw the social worker again. Perhaps he thought she was coming to take him away from us. But far from it, she was very pleased with the way things had worked out from the start, and she assured us that all the little problems we're having are completely normal and are in part his way of gradually testing our limits as he starts to feel more and more secure.

(Like one of the other adoptive parents said to us this morning while we were relating yesterday's events to him: There is an old, Italian saying that goes: Well, you wanted a bicycle — now you'd better start pedaling!)

During the interview, the boy was completely silent, and five minutes into the interview he simply fell fast asleep on mami's lap (she's no longer "mamá", now she is "mami"), which has never happened before. He slept for two solid hours and missed lunch. (Lunch was steak with rice, and daddy brought a bowl of rice back to the room for the boy, and when he finally woke up, he was hungry and did eat that.)

Afterwards we went swimming, and then our interpreter accompanied us to the city to get some documents notarized.

Who wants to be a millionaire?

One of the last things we did before leaving Norway was to watch a beautiful movie called "Slumdog Millionaire" together with our good friends BG and H. Today we experienced becoming millionaires ourselves! We exchanged US dollars for Colombian pesos, and it felt weird (and a little unsafe) walking around with over two million pesos (in 20 000 pesos bills) in our pockets! But once again we experienced that the rumors about how dangerous this city is, are very exaggerated. Everyone we meet tries to help us even though we can't communicate well verbally.

It is obvious to anyone that we are not the child's biological parents. But people who see our little family on the street, always smile and wave, and one lady came up to us and told us (as far as we could guess) how fortunate the boy was to be adopted by us. Or maybe she meant that we are fortunate? Either way, we got her blessing!

We didn't go back to the hotel until almost 7 PM. After parting with the interpreter downtown, we went to a big shopping mall where we stayed long. They have a nice yard in the center, with dozens of kiddie rides and fun things for kids to do — very neat and modern. We bought a big box of lego blocks for him, and what a success that was! He loves to play with it, and he loves to put it neatly away in the box afterwards!

We had already noticed his obsession with tidiness, because he always insists on putting all the crayons back in the box after use (all facing the same way — that's very important!), and although the puzzle his grandparents had bought him turned out to be too difficult (age 4+), he loves putting all the pieces back in the box and stowing it away in his closet!

Supper was slightly better than last time; he still spat out everything after having chewed it to mush, but at least this time most of it ended up on his plate and not all over the table and floor. When he didn't eat his pitaya (an absolutely delicious cactus fruit) we asked a nice waitress if she could bring him some other type of fruit, and when she asked what kind, he shouted "Banana!". He ate a whole
banana then.

We expected him to fall asleep after pooping, brushing his teeth, and reading, but not so tonight! Of course not, when he had slept two hours in the middle of the day! He didn't cry, but he refused to lie down and close his eyes. We had to lie next to him and hold him for almost two hours before he finally gave in and fell asleep.

Someone said we'd better get used to being tired all the time. We're only just beginning to understand what they meant. Good night!