Happy Easter and bad news

My sweet Easter bunny.



We received a letter from the agency today. Anxiously we opened the envelope to find a letter from Lilli's first Mom. She wrote that she wanted to give us some space in the next months because our next update isn't due until Lilli's first birthday. But she wrote that she had a problem and has lost her apartment with everything in it - her clothes and all the pictures of Lilli. My heart hurts for her. I can't even comprehend what she must be going through.

Fortunately we had sent copies of our pictures to the agency and they will send her the copies. I am relieved that Lilli doesn't have to go through losing a home. She might have moved a little to often for her age, but at least she has a home.

Also we will write her and send some updated pictures of our little angel. She signed "Milk" today for the first time. Every day I am so grateful to be her Mom.

Bad news from my Dad. They found another tumor in his lung area. Just last month they said his X-ray looked better than ever. He needs chemotherapy again. I bet having us there for a couple of weeks will help him go through this. Last week we had our one year anniversary of his diagnosis. We are just glad that he is still alive and doing relatively well.

Please keep him and Lilli's birthmom in your prayers.

What a party!

Yesterday Lilli and I went with some friends to a Easter party. The playgroups here are not really institutionalized. They are much more informal meetings with a mailing list. Because there are not many places to go with young children, people just host the playgroups in their houses. There is one playgroup that is international and this is the one we visited.

After driving around for more than an hour (have I mentioned that Caracas traffic is horrible?) and trying to find the location, we finally made it. We took the elevator to the penthouse and walked up the stairs to the terrace. What an experience! There were about 30 Moms with about 40 children. Most of the Moms had brought their nannies with them so that they could chat in calm while their nannies where watching and taking care of the kids.

They had a huge buffet with fingerfood. Meatballs with a noodle as a stick, chicken nuggets, hummus, other sauces, breadsticks,... There was a hot dog stand. They even had a jumping castle. The terrace was full of children playing with the different cars and toys that were available to drive around. There was a table with playdough and some other mass to make some crafts. There was a huge Easter bunny at the wall where children had to put eggs on with a blindfold. They even had an Easter egg hunt. I was incredibly impressed. I wouldn't be surprised if that would have been a birthday party or something... But that was just a random Wednesday afternoon before Easter.

Today we had a coffee with some friends on the terrace of a nice coffee place. First a kid approached and wanted money. We just send him away. When a guy approached us from the street, he showed us a letter and told my friend he was collecting money for a dead police officer. I couldn't read the letter that he had in hand. I usually would have just told him "No" and wouldn't have cared about it any more.

But my friend actually grabbed some money out of her wallet and gave it to him. I was surprised and asked her why she had given him money. She was nearly trembling and said she gave him money because he had a gun in his pocket. I hadn't even noticed that. She was concerned that if she wouldn't give him anything, he would just pull out the gun and ask for her whole purse. It seems to be better not to sit on terraces that can be approached from the street.

First sign!

I am so happy for my blog friend Bri. She and her husband just adopted a baby girl. I can't wait to see pictures and get her update on the whole story. I am especially happy, because she really had a hard time recently. Her baby sister is pregnant from a one night stand with twins and her SIL has just given birth to twins. How fantastic that her little girl will be able to grow up with all the children in Bri's life.

Lilli made her first sign yesterday. It is unbelievable how fast she picked it up, especially because I haven't really been that consistent with it. When I was changing her diaper and I made the "change diaper" sign with my hands, Lilli made the sign as well. It looked more like the "all done" sign to me, but I guess she is still practising. But I was very impressed that she actually answered with a sign.

I also have good news from the port. After our stuff was packed out in October and shipped in January and has been cruising around the Carribean for a while, it finally made it to the port last week. Now it will be only a matter of weeks until we get it, maybe even before Easter. We haven't seen it for 6 months and I don't even remember what we have. I realized how little you actually need in the past couple of months. But I tell you moving with a baby and without all the baby things (swings, exersaucers, etc.) isn't easy. Fortunately it seems like it is all coming together now.

I also received a new job. Will work part time as a Special Project Coordinator. They basically call me when they need me. The only thing I have to take care of is childcare. I wonder how difficult it is going to be. We want to ask our maid whether she wants to move in with us. That would be perfect because then we would also have a babysitter...

Tomorrow I will book my flight to Europe for Lilli and me. Dh unfortunately will have to work while we are there. I am very excited to see my family.

8 months old!!

Today is Lilli's 8 month birthday! It is hard to believe that our little sweetheart is already 8 months old.

Her personality is amazing. She is a lot of fun to hang out with and to play with. But she also has started little temper tantrums if she doesn't get what she wants. Usually it involves her trying to bite me. If my arm is not available she uses her own arm...

Her single tooth has some company now. The other tooth right next to it is coming as well. It doesn't seem to bother her.

Last Friday we received a walker from some colleagues of dh. It took Lilli about 5 seconds to figure out how she can walk in it. She is very mobile with it and I have to keep running behind her to make sure that she doesn't open the drawers or fall down the stairs. It would be time to babyproof the apartment.

Unfortunately we still don't have our stuff. It was shipped in Mid January. The trip from Miami to here only takes about 4 days. But the port here is not able to unload more than one ship at a time. Therefore our stuff has been cruising around the Carribean and was probably send to Aruba for a while to hang out. It might come back here this week, but who knows? It will then probably take another month until we finally get it. But then we will be able to babyproof everything.

MA-MA and Baby Sign Language

This morning Lilli said Ma-Ma for the very first time. I had been practising with her for quite a while, repeating "MA-MA" over and over, but she was always only smiling at me when I repeated myself over and over again. It was so nice to hear her say it for the first time today.

Lilli has also learned to get from a sitting position into a laying position. She loves to eat the corner pieces of her playmat (I don't like that, who knows what is in it). She can't sit up by herself yet, but I guess it will be just a question of weeks. When we hold down her legs she is able to go from a lying to a sitting position (love those abs).

I also started baby sign language with her. I hope it will help her as she is growing up trilingual (we think). Dh speaks English, I speak German and we hope she will pick up some Spanish on the way (from our maid or daycare or people on the street). The book we have says it is easier for them to learn different languages when the same signs are used in both languages. I have started signing "Milk", "Sleep", "More", "All done", and "Diaper change". I wonder whether you guys are signing, too, or will be signing in the future, so please feel free to share any comments or experiences you have made with signing.

First tooth is here!

I was right about my post about teething. Lilli really was teething. Her first tooth appeared this morning. DH couldn't feel it. But I can feel and see it. She even already tried to bite me with it when I was trying to put her seatbelt back on after I had taken her out of her stroller for a while.

It is wonderful to see her development and I think I might send a letter to her birthmother to let her know. She has sent us this beautiful blanket and bunny for Christmas and I had thought it was a present from the agency. They didn't write anything with it, so I just assumed they send out presents to all the babies. Was I wrong. We had received another letter from Lilli's birthmom and only then I realized that those presents were from her. She really is amazing and I really hope that Lilli will be able to meet her some day. She is writing beautiful letters and still is at peace with her adoption plan. I am so grateful for that.

Finally an end

So this weird cycle has finally come to an end. Yesterday AF came to visit. It was the first time for a very, very long time that I was kind of relieved to see her. As an infertile it is so hard to have her visit. You are always waiting on her being late and hope that she might not come at all for a couple of months. But then as soon as you have taken a pregnancy test, just an hour later she is ringing your door bell.

This was the weirdest cycle ever. I have now started again with my BCP. I walked this morning with Lilli and two friends about 3 miles. Afterwards I swam some laps in the pool (our maid was watching Lilli) with one of my friends here in the house. And now I feel like I want to go back to bed. Instead I will have to get some lunch ready for me and Lilli. She is just taking a nap as I am writing this.

Good news on my dad. He is back from the hospital and seems to be doing much better. He had 3 liters of fluids in his lung. I am so excited that we are going to visit my family in April for a couple of days... They will be so excited about everything Lilli is doing now.

I am so glad that we finally have our car. And now I have to confess something. We had bought an SUV (Nissan Pathfinder) for here. Our tank was empty on Saturday. We had it filled for 6,60 Bolivares Fuertes. That is about $1,25. Have I told you that Venezuela is one of the countries with the cheapest gas in the world?