Day 12: Archie's and Friends

Last night was a rough night for Amaya Fernanda.  She cried and kept us up for a better part of the night.  We changed her diaper thinking that was what was keeping her up and she still kept crying.  Eventually she fell asleep and we were able to piece together a couple of hours of rest.  We woke up and got ourselves ready to head out to Unicentro and meet up with friends at Archie's Pizza.

We took our whole crew on our walk and of course Amaya Fernanda fell asleep in the stroller.  Our big girl Alejandra was complaining of a tummy ache so she asked to be picked up and carried ;)  We told her that if her tummy hurt she surely couldn't have pizza at Archie's pizza and she ended up making a miraculous recovery.  We followed the psychologist's advice today and made sure to spend some extra time with Alejandra and have her be a helper with her sister when she could.  There was a little improvement in her behavior.  But, of course this relationship will improve with time.

We met up with another adoptive family and their 3 beautiful kiddos.  It was wonderful to get to talk with another adoptive family about ALL things related to adoption (the amazing, the wonderful, the good, the bad, and the ugly).  Alejandra was happy to have other older kiddos to take part in the pizza making fun again! Alejandra was a big eater today and she ate her entire pizza in one sitting.  She proclaimed that she was a great chef!  Amaya ate her weight in chicken ravioli and bread....seriously this kid can eat!  She eats more than Alejandra!  Amaya did well for the 2 hours we were there, but towards the end she was ready to take another nap. 

Off we went back to our apartment and gray clouds kept getting closer over head.  Amaya cried herself to sleep because I was not pushing the stroller and her dad was.  We ended up getting a Juan Valdez Coffee as we went up over our bridge into El Batan.  Thank goodness we got that coffee because we needed it in order to take on the 2.5 hour tantrum that began once we got home.  But, before we headed inside we stopped off at the park and let Alejandra play until the light sprinkle turned into showers.  We ried to stay outside but the rain wouldn't stop....off we went into the apartment and the longest tantrum to date.

Amaya cried for so many different reasons tonight that we lost track.  She was completely tired and exhausted by the time bedtime hit.  Mark tried to ease her for a couple of hours and he was successful and getting her to calm down for a little while but then the crying would start again.  Mark and I are starting to get stronger with these tantrums and our ability to cope with them.  On the other hand, my aunt and mom are newcomers to the tantrums....We are all taking it lightly and we know that once we get home real life and routines will begin.  This time in Colombia is just a very small part of the memories our family will make tomorrow...

Until tomorrow!