(Maureen's Post)
Hello James fans! Yes - I said James fans. We're not so naive to think that you guys check this site for our benefit; you all just want to see new pics of James! Sorry that the posts haven't been coming more regularly. As I've said before, things here are not like things back home in the U.S., and that includes internet access. Sometimes I'm lucky and can get through. Most times it's a crap shoot and takes multiple attempts to dial in. For example, it took me at least 14 attempts to sign onto the internet just so I could post this. And it's past 1:00AM here, so I figured that maybe fewer people would be on the internet. So much for that idea. Plus, I try to post at night because James is asleep (I know I really should be sleeping when he's sleeping and maybe I won't be adding to the sleep deprivation), but also because the rates for dial-up access are cheapest late at night.

Didn't post yesterday because, frankly, there wasn't a whole lot to post. It pretty much went the same as today. Spending the day in the apartment - James waking, eating, pooping/peeing, playing, sleeping then repeat. The second night with us James slept a lot longer, still waking up around 3AM, though. He slept from about 9PM to 9AM - gave us a false sense of security, for sure. But last night was rough. He must have woken up at least 4 times, and I finally got up with him about 5:30AM. He did take some longer naps today, though. Getting him down to sleep for both naps and bedtime is such a challenge. He totally fights it every time and will not sleep unless one of us is holding him close, something he didn't really get until we came along (so we're not sure why he fights it; or perhaps it just seems that way). So, we hold him and calmly rock him while he's kicking and screaming and thrashing around until he finally calms himself down enough to sleep. Once he's in a deep enough sleep, then we can put him down and then he's fine. It's kind of bizarre to us, as we're sure that the caregivers in the hospital didn't have time to rock every single baby to sleep, and we wouldn't be surprised if they actually just left him in his crib to cry it out back at the hospital. But the "crying it out" method is not an option for us. We're still trying to get him to trust us and attach to us, which I'm sure is working slowly but surely, so leaving him alone in a crib to cry it out until he's exhausted would just totally undo everything we're trying to build with him. We finally consulted Dr. Schwarzwald, our international adoption pediatrician from the IA Center at Texas Children's Hospital and are trying a couple of strategies for him. Hopefully after a week or so we'll see improvements. Even though we know every parent has had sleep issues with their infants at one time or another we hesitate to ask for advice , since not all parents have had to deal with issues from their child being in an institutional setting. As I said previously, we continue to see improvements with James and his comfort level with us, and each day has gotten better, little by little.

We got a little respite from being cooped up in the apartment today because we were invited over to the Mechem's apartment for a playdate with Owen Mechem this afternoon. Even though Bob and Jodi's apartment is only a block away we still had to get bundled up, as today's high temperature was only in the teens, and it was snowing quite a bit. As cute as James looks all bundled up, he absolutely hates to get put into his snowsuit and lets me know it once I start coming at him with the gear to put on before putting on the snowsuit - booties, hat, and mittens, which are hard to put on a baby who's clenching his fists and yelling. Unfortunately, we forgot to take our camera, so no pics of the playdate. Jodi took some, though, so I'll try to get copies of them. Owen and James share the same birthday, with James being about 4 hours older than Owen. Owen is quite adorable and looks to be taller/longer than James. He's also into exploring which means grabbing at things, people, whatever. I thought it was kind of funny, but James didn't at one point when I think Owen grabbed James' hair or ear and pulled on it. It was so cute, as Jodi kept trying to teach Owen the concept of "playing nice." In any case, it was nice to have a change of scenery, if even for a few hours. By the way, the upcoming weather this weekend is going to be brutal here - in the negatives for both highs and lows - and we're talking in Fahrenheit, people!

Nothing else exciting to report. Sean made red beans and rice with chopped bell peppers and sauteed onions last night for dinner, and it was so good. He even added some leftover roasted chicken to the pot. We had gotten a whole roasted chicken the other night. It comes with Armenian flatbread and it was all so good, too. We've been fortunate that other than my initial stomach illness when we first arrived that we haven't had any issues with food since. This is new for us, having to come up with new dishes to prepare on the fly with what's available here. When we buy food, we only buy 2-3 days' worth, max, as nothing here really has preservatives. I think we've both lost some weight since we've been here. It's not because we're starving; in fact, I think that I eat more here in a day than I do at home. However, I definitely don't each as much junk food here as I do at home (like swinging by Micky D's for an order of fries on the way home from work). We can't really use our clothes to gauge it, either. Since the clothes are line-dried they really don't shrink back to their normal size like when we use a clothes dryer at home. Speaking of clothes dryers, that is one thing I do miss a little bit - your clothes just don't feel the same after being line-dried, even after using fabric softener. There's nothing quite like the sensation of slipping into a nice, crunchy pair of jeans, you know?

That's our report for today! Paka and love to all!