Guest House Visit

Tamene was with us for the afternoon. Trent went with the group to pick up the kids after lunch. Jamie and I waited back at the guest house. Trent arrived with Tamene later, he had been sleeping and was just waking for Trent to bring him back to us. He arrived without shoes (because of being taken directly from a nap). I brought 3 pairs of shoes not knowing what size his feet were. The 6 1/2 were too small, the 6/7 were crocks and he decided those were fun to kick off... pair three, 7 1/2 perfect fit.

We had a lot of fun with Tamene. I purchased a water bottle that had a "sports top" on it for him to drink from. He really enjoyed carrying it around and taking big drinks. Then he saw Jamie drinking from her "wide mouth" water bottle and decided he wanted some of hers... he took a huge drink and then let it drip out onto his shirt. We all laughed and he continued to become more dramatic with the drinking and spitting until he was taking a mouthful and spitting back into Jamie's drink. Jamie has a phobia around sharing germs with anyone, especially as it relates to food or drink. I don't know that she thought it was as funny as I did. Shortly thereafter she was sterilizing the bottle to reuse later. (And I am the crazy one???)

Tamene enjoyed riding around in one of those little red car riding toys... you know them, you see them at EVERY garage sale and Goodwill everywhere. It's like a Flinstone car where you make it move by scrambling your feet like Fred and Barney. Anyway, he decided it was his and he wasn't really interested in sharing. We had to pull him out a couple of times so that other children could play. He cried, hard... poor baby. I brought him in the house and put him in "the peanut shell" (if you don't know what a peanut shell is you can hunt down a description in a different blog - or use Google :-) He liked being carried in the peanut shell, I thought that was great since he is so active, I didn't know how we would contain him in the airport.

There is a an outdoor lawn swing that he snuggled into me with and let me hold him while he rested and drank from his water bottle. He wrapped his little hand around my finger and Jamie brought his blanket and he was so content and peaceful. Did I mention how in love with this kid I am?

They brought snacks for the kids, the older kids were to get cookies and the younger ones some other concoction that I wasn't going to be part of. Anyway I offered to let Tamene pick which ONE cookie he wanted and he attempted to grab all of them. So he ate that and I wrangled up a banana, this seemed to keep him content.

Also during all the play and running around the guard here at the house was very helpful, he was telling Tamene what we were saying and helping to translate to him. It was so nice, he really does follow directions well, but he is also very strong willed.

Eventually it was time to take him back to the care center. We got back on the bus and as we pulled into the care center he grabbed on tighter to me. I thought it was going to be too hard to take him in. I managed to flag down a nanny who came out a back door as Tamene was waving at her. I handed him over while he still had a smile on his face. We departed quickly and I am so excited to go get him tomorrow.

We went to eat at a traditional Ethiopian restaurant, we got to see dancing and we ate traditional food. It was fun, too much to explain all in this post, but it was fun.

More later!