Anna Claire's Apple Cart

....is very sensitive. That child will get in one comfortable position, or engaged in one activity, or linked to one person, and if you change it at all....here come the waterworks. We had the longest period of a comfortable position tonight with her. It was lying sideways in my arms with one of her arms and legs over mine, and one arm and leg hanging down the other side of my arms. As soon as we got into that position, she got quiet. She relaxed. And she started passing gas.

I've got to get better at reading these signs. Yesterday, I kept thinking she was teething. This morning, she must have been hungry. Then tonight....it was definitely gas.

Addie wasn't quite herself tonight. She wasn't ill or anything. Just quiet and clingy. She wouldn't let Joe put her down hardly at all. She was laying the same way Anna Claire was. And she would clap her hands, with some difficulty with one over Joe's massive arm and one under, and she would make little noises that sounded like she was singing or humming. It was too cute. So we stood, the four of us, for a while just looking at each other. We rocked back and forth, made silly sounds and faces with the girls, and just let them learn to grow comfortable laying there in our arms.

What I'm hoping for on this trip is for Anna Claire to look forward to coming to us, rather than looking forward to going back to the caretaker. For her sake, I want to know she trusts us and will be happy with us. I don't want to start our relationship with her out of coercion: "Well, kid. You're ours now. Might as well get used to it. You're stuck with us." I wish we could communicate better so I could know exactly what she wants when she starts crying like that. Is she hurting, scared, hot, hungry?

How do you people do it?

For the next day of this trip

• Continue to pray that we'll recover from the time change, and that we stay physically feeling well the whole time. We slept a decent number of hours last night - 7. But we didn't sleep the right ones. We got up at 4am. And now, Joe's taking a nap, and my logic says to fight the nap and just stay awake until 9pm so I can sleep all the way through the night. Joe's plan is to wake up at 8pm from his nap, eat a little ramen soup in the room for supper, then go back down around 11pm. I tried this last time and when it came time to lay down for real, I couldn't fall asleep.
• Pray for bonding to continue and intensify with both girls, especially Anna Claire. Pray that we'll know how to move her around so she's comfortable and can respond to us positively.
• Pray that we don't say anything stupid during our court visit tomorrow. There are only a couple of questions that we need to carefully word our answers to. One of them is: Do you attend church? What kind? Are you a fanatical believer, or moderate? Well, in American terms - moderate I guess. But our moderate would be over the top fanatical here, because of the lack of spiritually minded people. Still, I really wrestled with this question when it was asked by our court coach at lunch today. I have always heard pastors use that invitation quote - "If you were put on trial for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?" I just never thought it would actually happen! The other questions will be to judge if we have adequately weighed the consequences of adopting a special needs child, and mainly the question - "Why?"

Okay. No more fighting it. I'm going down for a 50 minute nap. Cross your fingers.