Day 7 - Quality time

This morning our boy learned that glass breaks if dropped on a stone floor, and daddy learned that not all three-year olds know this.

The proof that daddy had learned his lesson, came already at suppertime, when the boy's water glass was cleverly replaced by a plastic cup. And guess what fell on the floor during the meal? Yup, the cup.

While mommy went shopping in the morning, daddy had the easy job of looking after the kid back at the hotel/pension. Most of the time they stayed on the patio, playing with the other families. (This was the scene of the glass-breaking incident.) At one point they had to go back to the room so they both could go to the toilet. When it was daddy's turn to pee and he therefore had his back turned to the boy for a few seconds, the kid managed to remove his own shorts and underpants and put on the swimtrunks from yesterday (backwards). Daddy had promised mommy that we wouldn't go in the pool again until the kid's cold was gone, but our son did not listen to this. He ran to the pool and jumped in, still wearing his T-shirt. It took nearly 20 minutes before daddy could extract him without causing a crying scene.

He still has that cold.

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One of the Italian families got their court case finalized yesterday, so they are leaving in the morning. It will be a little sad to see them leave just as we are beginning to get to know them.

We got to know them and the other three families at Pension Stein much better today, first by having all the adopted kids playing together all morning — they play together so well! — and then when we all went to a petting zoo for three hours in the afternoon.



Our boy doesn't seem very secure around animals of any kind (even insects), and the trip to the petting zoo where he could see all kinds of farm animals up close (he didn't want to touch any of them) was probably very good for him. He doesn't have any allergies, though, so when he comes home to Norway, he'll soon get used to being around dogs all day long!


The weather has been very hot and quite dry all the time since we arrived in Cali, as you can see. The weather forecast has said rain, rain, rain every day since we got here. I am from Bergen and know that weather prognoses can seldom be trusted 100%, but this is ridiculous!

The petting zoo we went to also contains a big pond for fishing carp, which they do in an interesting manner here: You cast the hook and the float in the water, and then throw a handful of fish food out around it. The carps come up to eat, and one unlucky fish will bite the hook instead of the fish food! You reel him in and drop him in a bucket of water. When you are finished, you release the fish into the pond again.

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Once again our kid has worn us out. You'd think he would be as tired as us, but he got his siesta today by falling asleep at the table again (this time at lunch). Also, he likes being carried much more than he likes walking on his own feet. Even so, he ran and played a lot with the other children today, and must have been physically tired when it was bedtime, but still he was wide awake and only wanted to play. It took us a little over one hour of reading and cuddling before he started to listen to his own body telling him that he needed sleep.

Every evening, we read to him after putting him to bed (in our bed — we move him to his own bed when he's fast asleep). It doesn't look like he has ever seen a book before, but he really loves reading and can't get enough of it now. His favorite book is a small one which his second cousin Maria asked us to give to him from her. It is a Spanish picture book which he for some reason always prefers to read upside down.

It also does not seem like he has been read to before. We asked the social worker to find out what his favorite fairy tales were (so we might buy the books and read them to him), but as it turns out his foster mom had at least four young children at the same time, and they weren't used to being told stories at all. So one can readily understand how much he appreciates the attention he is getting now!

Tomorrow is Sunday and we'll have a special programme: lunch out and a trip to the Museum of Transportation. We hope it'll be fun.