Falling into routines...

Hi Everyone! Chad here. We've had a pretty uneventful day. We ran out of diapers and wipes, so we needed to visit the supermarket up the street. It's about 3 blocks away. Josh sure loves this Baby Bjourn thing. I don't think he's spent much time outside and it seems like he just loves the sun and wind in his face. We are starting to get our routines figured out. Josh sleeps a lot! His naps are about 2-3 hours, and then he's up for 45 minutes to an hour. We're not quite sure why he's sleeping so much, but he seems pretty content and healthy. We've been feeding him every four hours except at night he is sleeping through. So his current feeding schedule is 6am, 10am, 2pm, 6pm, and 10pm. It seems like he gets really hungry about 30 minutes prior to his feeding, so we've been trying to pacify him for that time in order to keep him on a schedule. When he is hungry, HE LETS US KNOW! We were trying to figure out if we are feeding him enough, but the instructions on the container are all in spanish. We've been feeding him what the baby home recommended. We may attempt to feed him a bit more and see if he makes it the whole 4 hours. I had no idea how expensive this formula was. At 5 feedings a day we are going to visit the supermarket about once every three days. The Colombian peso is about 2,200 per $1.00. So it's kind of strange to see things like diapers for $16,000 and formula for around $26,000.

I changed my first "Fully Loaded" diaper today. That stuff is toxic! I don't know how you Mom's (and Dad's) did it.

Unfortunately, I got pretty sick last night and today. I've been confined to the room today due to the proximity of el bano. The staff here are wonderful, and while Kristin ate lunch downstairs, tea and toast arrived at my door. I was asleep and they opened the door and slid a tray in. We are well-taken care of!

Speaking of lunch, meals are really an adventure. There are 4 tables in the dining room. There are usually new people every day or so, but right now there are 2 American families, 2 French families, and an Italian family. We are 'assigned' seats, which change with no reason, and right now we are sitting with the family from Italy. Their son is 3 years old, speaks the cutest Spanish, and makes us laugh at every meal. The mom and dad do speak Spanish, sort of, and so we attempt to communicate at each meal. He is a Pizza chef in Italy. I think next week he's going to be making us Pizza. That will be fun! We have been bringing Josh along, and he sits in a swing while we eat. Meals take at least an hour, if not an hour and a half, and for Kristin, it is the people time that she REALLY needs. Last night we had pizza, strange pizza. One had salami on it and it was so spicy that we were grabbing for water! It wasn't our favorite meal here at Hotel Paris but we have heard that good pizza is just down the street at Archie's. They have been serving us 4 course meals for Lunch and Dinner. They serve everything on what appears to be real silver. It's very fancy and not at all what we had expected.

Staying at the Hotel Paris has been a very humbling experience. They have been doing our laundry (some of it by hand), pressing our clothes, making us meals, cleaning our room, sterilizing our bottles, and anything else we ask for.

We have heard that wait times in Colombia are still quite long. Families here are right around the 6 week mark, with one family being here 8 weeks. I sure hope we can get done in under 6 weeks. It all depends on which court system we get. Some are fast while others like to drag the process out.

Well, I'm running out of things to write.

Hope everyone is doing well,

Chad, Kristin & Josh