A rough night, a rough afternoon

Well, last night L went to bed early - like just after 7. My friend Elena asked me if L ever gets up in the middle of the night if she goes to bed early.

Thanks Elena - you jinxed me! L was up from 2 to 4 a.m. What a night. I finally had to just move her into the big bed with me to fall asleep. She still roused at 6, but I got her to go back to sleep until about 7:45.

The other rough patch of the day was when L. awoke from an hour-long nap with a horrible stomach ache. The poor child was writhing in pain. I rubbed her tummy, put a cool compress on her head and neck, tried to give her a little water.

She spit up, not much thank goodness (and we got to the toilet this time). I took her temperature - no fever. But I still gave her some children's Tylenol.

She fell back asleep about an hour later. An hour after that, I gently woke her up on the advice of my sister, Jacqui. Just so she would at least get to sleep at some point tonight.

L was her cheerful old self when she awoke, if a little groggy. Took her quite some time to want to get out of the crib and try a few plain cookies to try and settle her stomach.

The cookies and water were sitting well, so I ordered chicken broth and rice for her from the restaurant downstairs. That all seemed to sit well. Let's hope it stays down tonight!

Bed time was late, of course. She finally fell asleep a bit after 9 - after talking on the phone with her tias, Jennie and Jacqui, and her daddy.

There were a few highlights in between the rough patches. Like L running around between two fountains at our home-away-from-home, Fontabella Plaza.

I had intentions, once again, to find the playground in Oakland Colonia. But the sky couldn't decide if it was going to rain or not. I figured I should stay closer to home, hence we ended up at Fontabella.

There, I met another mother, Paméla, with her 9- or 10-month-old son. She was very nice and gave me her number. Both L and the little boy were enjoying the fountains, and of course yelling and carrying on.

Another highlight - I bought some play-dough and some molds and we had fun with those. L pretended to make tortillas and gave me a whole stack.

Also, before bed we had fun making faces in the mirror that hangs above the crib. L's favorite is what I call the "cara de muerte." Megan witnessed L's "cara de muerte" when she was here. It is akin to what we called the "idiot brow" that my niece, Alyssa, used to give everyone when she was a toddler.

So, I'm pretty worn out but one more day closer to coming home. Don't know when that will be. But hoping next week.

OH - the other highlight: The lab in the US that is processing L's DNA sample e-mailed me to say some of the tests are done, others are pending. Let's hope and pray they are ALL done tomorrow and they can ship those results to the US Embassy here.

If the Embassy gets the DNA results on Friday, I am certain we will have our visa appointment next week!