Day 4
Today we got to spend the morning at Webitu's school. When she saw us she came running and jumped into my arms and gave me a huge hug!!! Then we went to the Bible story rooms where the children take their shoes off and sit on mats arranged on each wall of the room. There were 4 teachers for the 20 or so children. We had a great time listening to the dramatic story telling of Zaccheus in Amharic. We even sang "Zaccheus was a wee little man" in Amharic. Then the teachers called a few boys up one by one to sing Amharic songs. One little boy's voice took our breath away. He was 3 or 4 but sounded like a grown man with an incredible voice. One boy screamed the words to the song and everyone had a good laugh! The entire time Webitu was
making silly faces while I copied them. She is so silly! She was still a little timid around Torrey but he had plenty of little ones who wanted his attention. When the story was over the children waited for their turn to leave the room and put their shoes back on. When I
didn't stand up right away she patted my chest and gave me a grumpy look. We waited a little longer and went to find her shoes, but she couldn't find the ones she wanted to wear (shoes are basically interchanged by all of the kids). The nanny put a pair on her and she went completely limp and threw a fit. I picked her up and calmed her but she was clearly very upset still. The nannies found the shoes she wanted and exchanged then for her…shoes are very important to
Webitu. Next we had snack time. All of the children rinsed their hands in a
large concrete wash area with about 5 faucets then everyone had a seat. The snacks (a croissant filled with cheese and broccoli) were served in Tupperware dishes and each child had a thermos full of juice. When Webitu finished her juice she put her hand in it to get every last bit out and licked her hand (the next time we came we brought her a bottle of water because she was clearly very thirty). Then the children played on the playground. Webitu wanted me to hold
her the entire time while she did silly things with my sunglasses. She would call at each of the nannies and teachers names so they would look at her in her glasses….she is a bit of a show off! Then the most awesome thing happened…she told me she had to go potty and took me to
it! She is completely and totally potty trained!! She says shenet or sheet to tell you she has to go and doesn't have any accidents! Then we played some more and Daddy decided to get out the bubbles. Webitu said "Daddy bubbles!" (heart melter). Torrey blew some for awhile and then the 3 year old broke out in Webitu and she insisted that she do it herself. She did a great job and told her friend Nita "coy, coy" which means "wait, wait" when she tried to grab then from
her. The van then came to pick us up and we had to leave. They had to tear Webitu from Torrey's arms and she screamed and kicked because she did not want us to leave. It was heart breaking but we couldn't take her with us because we had several meetings scheduled for the
day. The first meeting went over general schedule and reminders aboutEthiopian culture. Then we came back to the guest house for lunch. We waited then for our appointment with our adoption team where we watched Webitu's background video and talked to her doctor. For all
of you CHSFS people out there or those considering agencies, this video is priceless. It includes actual footage of your child in their home before coming into care and interviews with important people in your child's life. This video was incredible and really helped me to
completely feel comfortable that adoption was the best option for our daughter. After the video we spoke with Dr. Ferohewit who had treated Webitu several times during her stay at the Care Center. As of right now her ear infections are clear…praise the Lord! We were cautioned
though that every time Webitu has a high fever we need to have her screened for malaria. Apparently one other time that she had an ear infection she had a recurrence of malaria and had to be treated again. Please pray for her health and that we can get our insurance to cover
her. After the meeting we were bummed because we were told that we could not meet Webitu for the rest of the day but 5 minutes later they came back out to say that they would take us to see her. When we arrived she ran and jumped into my arms immediately. We decided it was definatley time to take her to the Guest House with us because we couldn't handle another hard goodbye when she was 100% perfectly happy with us. We had to call and explain to the social worker the situation since they like families to wait until Tuesday to take full custody of the children. They approved us and we climbed into the Makeena (car) to the Guest House. Webitu was very happy and copied the words we said like bump. When we arrived she was so excited to
see the push toys and riding toys in the courtyard but had no idea how to use them. She was very interested but very wary of the Cozy Coupe "Makeena." We had fun swinging on the porch swing together and jumping off things into Daddies arms. She quickly became Daddy's
little girl. At dinner time she didn't like any of the food so the cooks gave her some Dabbo (bread) and she had fun feeding it to mommy. Webitu is very energetic and had a great time sliding off the arm of the couch and throwing blocks. She didn't know how to play with the
baby doll stroller but had fun shoving the stroller back and forth to daddy. At bed time she showed off her skill of opening a banana with her teeth, it was quite impressive!! We were very worried that she would freak out at bed time but everything went really well. Daddy rockedher to sleep in about 5 minutes and laid her down beside us. She is a very restless sleeper. She tossed and turned, and rubbed her hands together like she was washing then throughout the night. She doesn't like blankets and kicked them off every time we covered her. She woke
up smiling and giggling (at 5:30am)!!! We played lights on and off for awhile and read her some books. When it was time to get dressed she was ecstatic about her very first pair of shoes and white headband. She would not take them off for anything. We are so very excited that things are going so well! She is so much fun!