August 9th

Not much news today. We thought for sure we were going to court but no such luck. Apparently the woman from ICBF (the Colombian agency that oversees adoptions) who needs to sign our papers has proven to be an elusive foe. Our lawyer camped out at the court today until she was asked to leave for bothering everyone so much. She then sat outside stalking the front of the courthouse. Or at least that's the story we are getting, we can only take Magnolia's word for it (don't get me wrong, we have no reason to doubt her). It boggles the mind how this works. Do they not have appointments here?

To get something done, anything done, we walked to the mall this morning to get Xander's visa and passport photos taken. The government specifies that the subject must be wearing a dark shirt and be placed on a white background so he's wearing his Beatles "onezie". The girl that worked at the photo place way trying to speak to me in Spanish but I really only get about 4% of what anyone is saying. She kept asking, "Uno, dos, tres...?" while pointing to the credit card reader. Finally it dawned on me, the same thing happened yesterday when we went to lunch with Magnolia. Here in Colombia you can have merchants spread out the total price of your purchases over several months so the entire thing doesn't show up all at once on your monthly credit card statement. The photos cost 25.000 pesos (which is 25 thousand, they use "." instead of "," in their numbering system). This may sound like a lot but the exchange rate is 2000:1, so that equaled about $12.50. Yeah, I should be able to swing that, put it all on next month... :) Of course, with the way little Xander is eating maybe not!

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We waited all afternoon to hear about court but nothing happened. Xander got restless so I took him swimming. We played in the baby pool but I got bored and took him into the big pool. He loved it! Some young kids from about 8-11 were playing in the pool as well and he kept paddling his hands trying to get over to them. He really likes any place where there are a lot of people and noise. We're guessing that is because he was in an orphanage with so many other children and adult staff members around all the time.

After we got out of the pool Kristin stripped his bathing suit and diaper off and wrapped him in a beach towel. We were standing talking with one of the other adoptive mothers, Cecilia from Sweden, and Kristin said she smelled something. We went up to the room to find that baby left a present in the towel. This is the third time something like this has happened when he's naked. Mommy and daddy haven't learned their lesson yet. It's like a game show, get baby's diaper on within 30 seconds or you win a prize that you don't necessary want!

Hopefully court will happen tomorrow...