Day 3 - Friday

With yesterday being cooler a bit, sleeping was also a little bit cooler.  I say a “little” bit.  We all got good sleep I think today with the boys sleeping until nearly 8am.  Cold shower for Sarah and then me, leaving the boys to their stickiness for a few more days.  For about 15 minutes with a new clean shirt I wasn’t sticky.

Rosmani with the boys

We ate a nice breakfast prepared by the same Haitian women who have been cooking our breakfast and lunch.  They made French toast this morning.  Shortly after breakfast we headed over to the Hope house.  Roni and Steph had a last minute meeting so it was just the nannies there.  One of them is the one that recognized both Sarah and Wedly and is a very sweet lady (her name is Rosmani).  She said she remembered Wedly sleeping on his stomach and that he slept noisily. 

Somehow we started talking with the kids about what
animals we had.  Anderlin was very interested.  Fritz said that Anderlin is scared of dogs (most Haitians are).  Anderlin kept asking if he had a leash.  I showed him pictures of Cooper (our dog) and our 2 goats and the goats (thanks google photos for a search tool that could bring these up in 10 or seconds).  He was giggling pretty good at the goat pictures.  He kept asking for a picture of our house, though that I didn’t find and we must have gotten distracted from it.  Probably when Fritzlin said something to the affect of “When Anderlin’s papers are done I think he will be going with you” or maybe even that “Anderlin thinks you are his parents”.  So the cat is out of the bag it seems – though our answer is as directed – “We’re here as friends to spend some time with Roni and Steph and all of you.”  Frizlin is almost 7 and very sharp, nothing gets by him.  So I think he is a big part of spilling our secret.  In the end – it is probably not a huge deal.  The key is that we don’t want to really build attachment acting like parents to him and then “leave”.  Or for our sakes as well – the more attached we get now the more difficult the next months will be.  So in some ways kind of neat that he is pretty sure of what is going on and who we are.  But if something were to not work out it wouldn’t be the end of the world.

Bonett doing his head stand

When Roni and Steph returned we continued chatting with them and interacting with the Kids as they play.  One of the kids is a 3 year old boy named Bonnet with pretty severe Hydrocephalus.  He has such a large head that he has to wear a helmet.  He is beginning to grow into his head a bit, but because his head is so large (and heavy) he wears a helmet since his head causes him to lose his balance.  Actually he just started walking in the last 6 months apparently and is still getting that down.  He is pretty developmentally delayed (~1.5years) – but pretty sweet and cute.  He was the first to give us a hug (all of us) and since then has given many hugs.  He has a cool trick he does with his helmet – doing a head stand!  He’s kind of like one of those blow up toys that have a weight at the bottom to stay upright – when in the head stand position.  And the helmet helps too!  (hope this isn’t mean to say!)

We were waiting for our first IBESR meeting – waiting for the rep to show up.  As it approached lunch we headed back to our house where lunch was ready.  Fried chicken, fried plantains, mash potatoes with a layer of ham inside, & tomatoes.  Very good again and the kids did pretty good except for limited tomato consumption.

Just after we finished lunch Antonio (adoption worker) came up and mentioned that the IBESR representative (from Cap Haitien) had arrived and that Roni would be bringing over a few kids to the playground for us to interact with and for the IBESR rep to observe us. 

Sarah and I were helping Calvin and Anderlin on the Teeter Totter and Antonio and rep came up probably 50’ away.  I noticed they were there and then 5 minutes or so later they were gone.  That was the extent of this “meeting” just to observe our interaction with Anderlin, or more like observing that we were with him – because he couldn’t have gleaned much of anything from his observations.  We joked that now they know that we are great parents.  Apparently the next meeting will involve some actual questions – we scheduled it for the day before we leave.

As it was nap time everyone went back to their homes.

After nap our kids spent some time drawing and playing on the tablet.  At 4 Roni, Anderlin, Fritzlin, and Fanelson came up to the Volunteer house.  Roni brought play dough and coloring supplies.  Sarah

had play dough as well and all the kids spent time playing with it.  The kids then also worked with the balloons that Sarah had making animals, swords, etc (Thanks Uncle Jeff and Aunt Brooke for the awesome Christmas gift, and Aunt Heidi for the loan of the balloon book since ours is currently MIA).  They had a blast with those and at one point there was a 5 way Ninja Turtle sword fight on the balcony. 

This ended at some point as the balloons seem to have aged and kept popping and eventually we ran out of balloons.   Some coloring took place (Calvin and Roni).  Roni spent some time coloring a very nice piece from scratch which Wedly said was probably worth $100, though he said he wasn’t going to buy it.

Side note: Calvin’s nose has been running all day so we’re constantly breaking out the tissue – thankfully he complies.  We were going to go to dinner at Nick and Nikki’s but their kids are all sick.  L  Hopefully something they get through quickly.

While the kids and I played on the playground Sarah drummed up Tuna helper and toast.  Was good stuff.

More playground and then bed time as we’re planning on going to the Citadel first thing in the morning with one of the families that is moving back to the states next week.  Kids went down pretty nice today – though Calvin really wants his phone (Leap Frog) – we found it yesterday afternoon but then he apparently lost it again today.

Dan