Please pray

Thanks again for all the congratulatory notes. Caleb is just a cutie-bug, there is no way around it. He has a great giggle, likes to tease and be tickled, and it's adorable the way he imitates me sometimes--like when I'm sitting with terrible posture on the couch and he sits exactly the same way. We got his passport pictures taken today.

My first concern has to do with getting him to eat and drink enough. I know other adoptive parents have faced this difficulty, too. I'm most concerned about liquids. When I give him a cup, he drinks a little but then either starts playing and spitting or just drowns his shirt. When I tried a cup with a sippy lid he holds the cups absolutely upside down and most of the liquid goes on his shirt. (The sippy cup I got is free-flowing) I tried just giving him a water bottle but he tried to put his mouth over the entire end of the bottle and ends of soaking himself or the floor. I finally got about a third of a cup of tea down him spoonful by spoonful. He liked the tea but that is such a slow method. I've got to ask what kind of cup he is used to. I wonder if he could use a straw? As far as food goes, he's had bananas, fruit loops, yogurt and bread and a cookie--wouldn't eat rice or potatoes or cheese or bologna. When Dima picked us up he was asking how Caleb had done, how he slept, how he was eating. He was insistent that he needs to have meat. Then he gave me the daily schedule from the orphanage with the list of kinds of foods he eats at what times and says he needs to eat more than bananas and yogurt. I said, 'Dima, I know that.' Probably if I weren't feeling so emotionally vulnerable right now, it wouldn't have been a big deal but I am just ready to be home where I can easily get the foods and supplies I want, where I can actually read the directions on labels for how to prepare foods (like the hot cereal that I bought) and where I'll be with my family and my friends and my supports. Do you know what I mean? I'm not usually such a basket case but tears kept rolling down my cheeks there in the back seat of the car and I kept trying to duck down and hide them.

And then Dima said we've run into a potential problem--well, he says he's pretty sure it WILL be a problem. On some vital computer form, Caleb's name is one letter too long to fit in the space (so it comes out Caleb Alexande, I guess) Without this problem, we would have Caleb's passport by Friday which I think would be just right for me to go home on Tuesday. With the problem, another government office has to get involved and Dima doesn't know how long it will take to resolve the problem. (I think Donna ran into a similar situation.) Please pray that either this won't turn out to be a big deal at all or that the Lord will give me strength and endurance to face a longer time away from home.

Thanks for your love and prayers.