Well, we’ve made it a week… 1 down, 6 to go J I’ve decided to break the time here down into smaller increments:
9 days until court and move to Warsaw
2 weeks until Papaw arrives
4 weeks until Tracy arrives
I’m hoping this provides some relief from the homesickness…also, we’ve been told that Warsaw will have far more to do… more distractions equal less free time to dwell on home!! We’re still not sure where we’re staying, but there is another family here from Florida adopting a little girl from the same orphanage. They will be staying at the Residence 1898 in Warsaw and it sounds WONDERFUL!! All the comforts of home, plus privileges at the Hyatt pool. That would be a really nice change for Hayden. He misses swimming (and Maddie and Roxy, so he’s stalking every dog we come across… and there are plenty of them!).

So, for as much as I’m whining, Czestochowa is actually not that bad… our apartment is across the street from a wonderful, enormous park where Hayden plays every morning and evening. The park surrounds Jasna Gora, and they are having events almost every evening leading up to the August 15 Pilgrimage… concerts, etc. On Thursday they had a choir and marching band – Hayden was ecstatic, Paulina was a little overwhelmed. It’s hard to remember that so much is new to her, so things like marching bands are probably terrifying. She is such a good baby… she sleeps every night from 9pm – 7 or 8am, naps a good 2-3 hours around noon, very rarely fusses at all and if she does, she just wants to be held. We’ve been using the backpack to carry her around town and it seems to make her quite happy. We can literally walk around for a couple of hours and she just babbles away, no complaints. Hayden on the other hand has started wanting to be carried also… probably a little jealousy, totally understandable, but he’s a Big ‘Un and a little too big to haul around for very long. But as long as he gets a few hours every morning and evening to explore, he’s pretty happy also, especially for a 2 year old!! However, we are rapidly running out of things to do that will entertain the whole clan – there are a few museums that look interesting, but I can only imagine Hayden’s reaction!! Speaking of which, I really, really must know what these Europeans do to have such well-behaved, quiet children. Seriously, they’re all so damn GOOD. Even the other 2 year old boys… they just walk along with their parents, they don’t run yelling into the streets, they sit quietly at the cafes as their parents eat and drink. As if it wasn’t painfully evident already, our little banshee lets everyone within earshot know we’re American!!!! Ugh!

We broke down and ate at KFC last night – it’s at the end of the pedestrian mall, about a 25 minute walk from the apartment. So Hayden played in the playground along the way and then chased pigeons. Then we all ate a well-balanced meal of fried chicken, coleslaw and fries (no biscuits, sniff sniff). Paulina will eat the sweet jar food from a spoon once a day… this is an improvement over no jar food and no spoon at all. They were fed everything via bottle with a giant hole in the nipple. So soup, cereal, whatever, through a bottle. The fact that she’ll let us feed her anything with a spoon already is pretty good. We’re going to work on some of the veggie jar food next… although I can’t really blame her for not wanting it, it’s gross. Maybe we’ll cross that bridge once home in Texas, armed with a high chair.

That’s all for now, here are a couple of photos from the apt. Another note about Hayden... he's completely dependent on the bottle again - undoubtedly because he's seeing Paulina with it, so we're just indulging him while we're here. This is a lot for a 2 year old to handle, so if he needs the bottle, the bottle he gets. We keep forgetting to take the camera on the evening walks but will try to take some photos tonight of the park and pedestrian mall… it’s pretty neat.