Trip journal - Day 4

Wednesday, June 23, 2010, 9:16 pm

I keep falling asleep in the evening when Abel does -- must be the lingering effects of jet lag.  Then I wake up for a little while to go back to sleep around 9:30.  Melatonin has helped quite a lot to get a full night's sleep. -- It has also helped Patricia and Christy!

We stayed here at the guest house this morning, and the task was paperwork for our visa appointment tomorrow.  Abel woke up at 6:00 am, instead of his usual 7:00, and was still tired and grumpy.  We tried playing and gave him a bath (5 minutes of him screaming while I washed him), then he fell asleep in Scott's arms and took a 45-minute nap!  He was still grumpy after breakfast, but finally after 10:00 this morning, he went into the play room with me, and started really opening up.  Strangely enough, much of our play was with my chap stick tube!

He was just starving by 11:45, so we gave him a lunch of baby cereal and got him down for a nap by 12:15.  He slept until 2:45, when it was time to get ready for the Cultural Museum.  During lunch, Tseguy and Almaz (the House of Hope director and his wife) came by.  Scott and I separately got to talk with them a little about Abel (since we did not get to when we picked him up).  Almaz described him as serious, but gentle.  Tseguy let me know that he takes two naps (morning short, afternoon long).

The staff did our laundry.  What an ordeal!  They have to manually turn each cycle on the washer and sweep the water out of the court yard each time it reaches the drain cycle.  I think there were at least three staff members involved in the washing process.  They then put all our clothes out on the clothes lines in the courtyard to dry -- underwear and all -- for everyone to see!  (As Evan said, "Hey, we're all just looking at this like a camping trip.  And there are different rules!")

The Cultural Museum is at the Addis Ababa University campus.  What a beautifully manicured campus!  The museum is far more professional than the National Museum.  The displays have more variety and explanation.  Ficker, again, gave us great descriptions of the displays, which were largely about the tribal customs and ways of living throughout Ethiopia.

Abel stayed in the front of the Ergo carrier the majority of the time, and we had such a fun bonding time.  He played with the chap stick tube again with me.  We made a game of holding the tube with our mouths and pretending to put the tube in our ears.  (I put it in his ear the first time, and he quickly picked up on it).  Then I started leaning him upside down, and got so many smiles out of him (finally saw his top teeth!).  I was even blessed a step further when I tickled under his chin while he was upside down.  What a beautiful sound his laughter was to my ears!  Oh, how I've longed to hear that!  I couldn't help doing it again and again and again!  Too bad we weren't allowed to take video in the museum!

We returned just in time for dinner.  Abel loves the homemade soups that the diligent housekeepers make.  So far, they have had a different one with dinner each night, and Abel hasn't met one he doesn't like.  The housekeepers showed us how they break the bread in little pieces and put it into the soup.  He likes that, too.

Interestingly, up until last night, Abel fell asleep in our arms within minutes.  Tonight, it took him almost 45 minutes to fall asleep, and he even went over to the crib, to indicate that he wanted to just get in.  He tried that for a few minutes and then wanted to be held longer.  It was back and forth until he finally fell asleep in the bed.  Scott had gone upstairs during that time, and I don't know if Abel was looking for him, because he said, "D" several times, which in general seems his word for "Dad."

Writing in darkness is a little hard, and mostly said it all, so goodnight.