a pile of thoughts

No photos to accompany this post because it is just a collection of random things to share.

First a quick story about my awesome friend Shari who is really like a sister since she is Bertali's mom, and our agency thought we were sisters, and we never corrected them since it helped to convince them to allow Shari & family to adopt Bertali even though they had other families waiting for referrals. All that is beside the point right now, but I wanted to share that Shari and her nine year old daughter just returned home from a medical mission trip to Guatemala. Shari and the Guatemalan doctor saw 700 patients in four days! They were an eight hour bus ride outside of Guatemala City in the middle of nowhere and there was no clinic so they set up their stuff, which was also really limited, in a building that has just been built to open as an orphanage soon. Lots of people walked for many, many miles to come see them for medical help. Most complained of stomach pains and most had parasites. My favorite story from what I've heard so far about her trip was about one man who started walking at 3:30 in the morning and walked for six hours to come see this medical team. His complaint? Sore legs!

On that note, Cupcake has been loaded with ailments lately. The imaginary or blown way out of proportion kind. Her communicative language is still so limited that she doesn't have a very complete repertoire of adjectives yet, so she tells me "My knee full." And I say, "Your knee is full?" And she says, "Yeah, my knee full. Hurt lot." Then she runs or skips on her merry way to climb up our playset or the like. It reminds me of The Spark whose favorite descriptor is "burning." As in "I'm burnin' hungry" and "I'm burnin' tired."

I think we've decided to stay here for the next few fall semesters since we really love our Montessori school, and if we give up Cupcake's spot (still crossing our fingers that Princess Eee will have a spot by next fall), we won't get it back. It is an amazing all day kindergarden program, and the kids all leave there ahead of their peers, so we want to make sure Cupcake and Princess Eee, if possible, go through the whole program there. So, unless the lead teacher retires before then which is possible, but we are really hoping she waits a few more years, or we come up with such an amazing opportunity that we cannot pass up and makes it worth paying for the spots to hold them til we return, we'll be here for the most part until Cupcake heads to first grade. That doesn't mean we are not planning a shorter term adventure, however. Like maybe the month of December.

I am gathering some thoughts on Princess Eee and her transition, etc. since tomorrow marks six months home together. I will try to post about all of that then.