We've Gone to the Birds!

Our day started early here as we decided to head to Montecasino (an elaborate—bordering on ridiculous—entertainment resort complex) with our daughter. We had been to the bird park there twice on our last visit and it seemed a perfect day to go. Despite being in the mid-70s, we saw many people dressed in long sleeves and even heavy jackets! Sort of like when it hits 65° in southwest Florida.

Tisetso feeding the ducks.

Upon entering the park, we fed the ducks, which our son and daughter particularly liked. We walked all around in the sunshine and saw monkeys not longer than 1’, lemurs, birds from all around the world and snakes. Brian loved the snakes! Ha! (Where are their arms and legs?!)

Kookaburra landing on the trainer’s hat as planned.

We attended a bird demonstration in which a Kookaburra landed on an audience member’s head, unplanned (after landing on the hat of a trainer which was planned). That was exciting. I decided that the Kookaburra is probably the cutest bird ever and may be my new favorite bird. We watched a crow named “Russell Crow” pick up aluminum cans and put them in the recycling bin. Apparently he took to the trick quickly “because he likes shiny things.”

Peacock baby

After the show, we decided to get dessert first, before lunch. We each picked out a snack and ate next to the park by the flamingos. After the sugar was consumed, we played a little tag at the park. Well, I half-heartedly ran because I didn’t want to get overly sweaty. Call me mother of the year! Then we walked around the inside of the complex and found a place for lunch. It’s a huge place and has shops and restaurants. I wanted to eat at the place that puts your pasta in a round of cheese and then lets it melt the cheese, but NO! they didn’t have hot dogs for the kids. Kids ruin everything. I’m just kidding…only sort of. :)

During lunch, we began preparing our daughter that tomorrow she will begin sleeping at our flat after court. We are calling it “her sleep-over” and asked her what she wanted to do and she said watch a movie. We said you can’t have a movie without sweets and popcorn! We found a shop with just that and let her and Tisetso walk around and pick out their favorites and drinks.

When we returned to our daughter’s care home, they were having a party. It was a birthday party for one of the house mamas and a good-bye party for our daughter. At one point, the woman who runs the care home had the children say why they would miss her. Here are a few highlights from those given:

• They will miss her love and her kindness.

• They will miss her jokes and her silliness.

• They will miss that she draws, swims, and plays dolls with others.

• They will miss her because she is her best friend.

At this point, I was trying not to cry as 20 children told our daughter why they would miss her. After the party, we had a meeting with our lawyer and social worker from Cape Town who had flown in for court tomorrow. They came to our flat and we sat outside by the VERY green (closed for the season) pool. When we arrived at the flat, we found out that we had no running water, which was fun. Anyway, the meeting went well and we felt reassured and ready for court.

We took our daughter back to the care home for dinner and we felt a brevity in saying good-bye to her for the last time. We were excited that tomorrow we wouldn’t have to say good-bye anymore.

Fun signage.

Because we had no running water, we went to the mall to use the loo (fun word for bathroom), pick up some needed items, and get dinner. After dinner, we headed back to the flat in the dark, something we do try to avoid. Thankfully we didn’t run into any issues and came back to running water. Yay!

I have been trying to get a picture of this sign for days! What does it even mean?!

If you think about it, please pray for us tomorrow. We will be in court at 9:00 am, which is 2:00 am Central Daylight Time. Apparently there may be a protest about a political leader who attacked a police officer at a funeral at this court building. It won’t make things easier, that’s for sure. Either way, we just pray that the adoption is finalized and everything is clear for the lawyer and magistrate (judge). Thank you for walking with us on this journey. We can’t wait to introduce you to our daughter!

Tic-Tac-Toe and Hugs All Around

Breakfast, Tea, & Coffee at Manaka Coffee

This morning started early as we wanted to get to Manaka Coffee to try it out before going to meet up with our daughter. It was a great coffee shop with a lovely tea selection. (Ha!) Brian also had coffee. We had a great breakfast of flap jacks, eggs Benedict, and steel-cut oats. After a few “friendly waves” (what we call it when Brian accidentally hits the windshield wipers instead of the turn signal—which is on the opposite side of the steering wheel), we made it to the care home.

Our first stop of the day was to the flat to show our daughter her dress for adooption finalization at court (which is happening Thursday morning for all of you who like to pray for us). We showed it to her and she loved it. She said she felt like a princess. I’ve had that dress since we were matched with her—over two years ago!

After she approved the dress, we needed shoes, so we headed to Woolworths. I let her pick out shoes and she picked out tennis shoes. I suggested we get those and pick out some dress shoes for court. Then I took her over to the girls clothes and let her walk around and pick out anything that she liked. She picked out a pink sweatpants and zipper sweatshirt combo because pink is her favorite color. She seemed overwhelmed, so I suggested a few more things that she approved.

We then met Tisetso and Brian at a place for lunch. It’s the same restaurant where we had our sixth anniversary dinner back in 2016! It was delicious and our daughter was able to get her favorite meal—macaroni and cheese. Tisetso showed off his new purchase: a pair of low-top dark green tennis shoes, which he is adding to his “collection”. While we waited for our lunch, I taught our daughter how to play tic-tac-toe. It was so much fun playing with her and seeing her confidence rise with each game. She even beat me fairly a couple of times! Once we had finished lunch, we picked out cake for one of the house mamas whose birthday is tomorrow. We hope she likes rainbow velvet (our daughter’s choice).

The garden where our daughter has undoubtedly spent many hours.

We headed to our daughter’s previous care home facility in the organization (she had just been moved to a new home six weeks ago). Today was hard, as it was a lot of good-byes to house mamas and many of the friends and peers that she loves. One of the teachers at the preschool started to tear up and said, “We are so happy, but it’s so hard.” There were a few moments like that, but most everyone said good-bye with joy for our daughter and were happy to meet us.

After we had said many good-byes, our daughter indicated she was ready to return to her (current) home. When we got there, we assembled the older kids and introduced them to three American candies—Dots, Pez, and Pop Rocks. The kids all agreed the grape Pez tasted like medicine and they all loved (and were sufficiently weirded out by) the Pop Rocks. After the sugar had been consumed, we headed upstairs to play some games and decorate some cards for the house mama’s birthday tomorrow. The girls especially loved the idea of having cards to give to her. We then said good-bye to our daughter for the night and promised to be back the next morning.

CARB CITY!

We had to head back to the mall for some supplies and additional groceries. We made a mistake and went to the grocery store hungry. We ended up coming home with a lot of carbs (insert eye roll here for knowing better). We left the carbs at home and went to The Codfather across the street for dinner. Tisetso still would not try a Cape gooseberry. Maybe next time.

One huge thing we all received today was a hug from our daughter / sister. When we went to say good-bye, we offered to give her a high five (a common thing we offer to kids in case they are uncomfortable with physical affection), and she said no, then hugged us all in turn. It was really beautiful and unexpected. We hope and pray for more victories and milestones like that in the coming days as we show up and do what we promised to do.

Krispy Kreme and some snails...YUM!

A really neat typographical use of the South African flag (“Y”) and colorway

Today started off with Tisetso and I turning up our noses to plain yogurt at a restaurant. We are so used to flavored yogurt that it was startling to taste plain anything. Brian isn’t overly fond of yogurt in any form. After an amended breakfast, we headed to go see our daughter for the day.

Seeing as it was the second rainy day in a row, which apparently is unheard of, the woman who runs the organization suggested we take our daughter and a friend to the mall for the day and catch a movie. This was a surprise to us as we had planned to spend most of the day with her at the home and then take her on a small outing in the afternoon. Everyone belted in, we backed our little Quest Love out and headed for Sandton City (the nicest mall you ever did see).

Once at the mall, we headed to the cinema to see what and when movies were playing. Unfortunately for us, the girls wanted to see Encanto, which stated at 1:15, and it was 9:30. If you know Brian or I, you know that staying at the mall for that long is not a dream come true. So, we made other plans. We headed to the food court and got some Krispy Kreme donuts (the girls’ choice), a Cinnabon cinnamon roll, more coffee for Brian, and sodas. After sugar was consumed, our daughter’s friend pulled me aside and asked if she could get our daughter something to remember her and the other girls by. I was so touched that our daughter is so loved by these girls and will be so missed.

We went to the toy store next and the friend and I went on a secret mission. Brian, Tisetso, and our daughter walked around while the friend and I tried to sneakily purchase a baby doll and some accessories. I think we were successful. We had the doll double-bagged before our daughter could see what was up. Bag in hand, we went to Click’s (like Walgreens) and the girls got to pick out two snacks each.

After that we headed back to our flat. We showed our daughter around and her room when she would be staying with us, which hopefully will be in just a few short days! Tour over, we busted out the snacks and put Encanto on the TV. It’s such a good movie and we had a good time watching it. When we were done, we went BACK TO THE MALL (ugh) for lunch because everything is in the mall.

Snail #1

When we were done with lunch and everyone was sufficiently re-sugared up from milkshakes and bottomless lemonades, we headed back to the home. We played games and introduced a new game called Tenzi to the girls (we started by usiung only five dice, while the game calls for ten). They seemed to love it and enjoyed playing with us. We played a few more games and gave our daughter a couple of American candies to try. Then the girls wanted to head outside with all of the other kids. Brian and I went outside with them and were inundated with children!

We were immediately separated and were asked a million questions. “Are you married?” (Yes. Who do you think to?) “Why do your hands look like this?” (They’re dry. Thanks, kid. Ha!) “Are you ****’s mom?” (Yes! I am!) “Is **** your mom?” (Now how would that work?!) “Are you Father Christmas?” (That one, thankfully, was directed at Brian.) “Have you ever been to the North Pole?” (No, that sounds too cold for me.) “Let me touch your beard!” (Also directed at Brian.) “Let me touch your beard!” (I don’t have a beard!) You get the picture. It was pretty funny and overwhelming. During this interrogation, we were directed to the garden snails that live in the palm fronds. At one point, they grabbed three and had a race. It was pretty fun.

Snail #2

After saying goodbye to our daughter for the night, we headed home. I took a nap as it’s emotionally and mentally draining for me to be “on” all day. At this point in the process, when you’re looking to build connections wherever you can, you are on. One beautiful moment of today was when our daughter grabbed my hand and held on. She started out by holding my arm then slid her hand down to my wrist. I held my hand out and she took it. It was such a small, but huge thing. She is getting more comfortable with us little by little. We are so, so thankful for every victory and look forward to the next one.

Meeting our Daughter and Sister

Her hands drawing a picture for us. 💗

Today was the day. We met our daughter and Tisetso met his sister. It was a lot less fanfare than when we met Tisetso, which was okay by us. We pulled up to the house and there she was—standing at the door waiting for us. It was a bit rainy so we ran inside and she had her brightest, shyest smile on. We got high fives as a greeting and then we were off getting the tour with her as our tour guide.

One of her friends drew us a family portrait (L–R: Heidi, Brian, Tisetso, and our daughter)

We got to spend almost the whole day with her and her friends. The morning was spent coloring and using stickers to make lovely pictures. One of the girls even drew our family (see above). It was fun as we spent the time asking random questions such as favorite color, food, snack, subject, etc. It gave our shy daughter a chance to speak without having to be at the center of attention, which would have possibly made her uncomfortable. At one point, she put a sticker of a present on her paper and when I asked what was inside, she said, “Clothes and a dollie.” My heart melted.

After drawing and lunch, we headed upstairs for the TV room / lounge area. The girls all wanted to watch The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl which was a real…treat… It was rough. Brian and I were left to sit on bean bag chairs and the movie was so bad. (How bad was it?) I contemplated taking a nap, but worried I’d snore and alert all the girls to the fact I wasn’t paying attention. I also stayed off my phone as much as possible. It was difficult.

After 93 long minutes, the movie ended, and so did my trial. (Ha!) We headed back downstairs to begin the most difficult game of memory match of my life. The game was based off of a show called Sparkle & Shine, I think, and all of the characters look the same except for different hair colors. But sometimes the same hair color girl would have a slight variation of pose. To add to the fun, the lines of the game kept getting mixed up into a big random pile, so I couldn’t ever remember where something was. To top it all off, we were playing with a bunch of cheaters—our daughter included! When the game had taken too long for their liking, the girls flipped all of the cards over and began a free-for-all to get matches. It was hilarious!

We ended the day by watching an episode of Teen Titans Go! during which, our daughter came out of her shell and started really showing herself to be a funny and silly kid who loves her friends. When we said goodbye, we promised to come back tomorrow and she said that would be alright. Success!

Headed back to the flat after a long but fantastic day

We’re now home and processing our day. It was so different from our first day with Tisetso, and yet similar in many ways. You’re strangers who are also family. You’re expected to hit it off and be great right away. Thankfully, we were able to make good connections with her today. Tomorrow will be different as all her friends go back to school (they’ve been on a week-long autumn break here), so we will have her to ourselves. We are excited and nervous to see how it will go.

Please continue to pray that new and lasting bonds would form between her and us. We love her so much and want her to love us just as much, but know these things take time. We are excited to see what tomorrow brings.