Our first day together with the twins seems like a blur now. Thank goodness for all the pictures we took to capture our precious first moments together -- our first gotcha day. When we walked into the care center, we were greeted right away by Sadie. She was happy to have us pick her up, cuddle her, and give her lots of love. Samuel was sleeping when we arrived. That gave us some special time alone with our little girl.
Sadie was comfortable with us from the moment we walked into the care center. Since she was walking around with a bottle in hand, we scooped her up and tried to feed it to her. She was more interested in just carrying it around with it tucked into her cheek. She still likes this now and falls asleep best with her bottle tucked into her cheek.
Sammy slept soundly through all the commotion of our arrival. He and Sadie both sleep very hard. This is great for us because Michael and Liliana are still learning to be quiet during rest times. :)
Sadie is a very affectionate little girl. She loves giving kisses to Mommy and Daddy. She gave kisses to Matt right away. It took a few days for her to give kisses to me when I asked. Just a few days ago she started giving me unsolicited kisses. Nothing sweeter than receiving love from my little girl.
When Samuel woke up, he wasn't very excited to see us. I tried to pick him up and comfort him, but he wasn't interested in my affection. He wiggled out of my arms and sought comfort in one of his nannies. After a few minutes he started to warm up to us, though he preferred to come to us on his terms.
The four of us together again! It was a hard two and a half months away from these sweet littles, but we are so grateful for all God taught us in the wait. And for His perfect timing. He is so faithful.
I finally won Sammy over by giving him lots of treats. He loved all the snacks I brought for him. Sadie, on the other hand, wanted nothing to do with the snacks we brought. Our entire week in Ethiopia all she ate was rice cereal and bottles. Okay, that isn't entirely true. One night she had some pasta, but promptly threw that up.
We spent about an hour and a half or so at the care center before heading back to the guesthouse. It was hard to manage the kids at the care center. Plus, I think it was confusing to the twins to be there, with their nannies, and with us.
Before we left, we gave the care center some donations, had a coffee ceremony (Ethiopian tradition), and changed the kids into some new clothes.
It was a sunny day so we brought the kids their sunglasses. Neither of them cared to wear them, but it was cute to see them try them on for a few brief moments.
Once we got back to the guesthouse, it was time for a nap. We made the kids a bottle and rocked them to sleep. They went down for their nap very easily that day. I think they were so scared and in shock by all the commotion that they were easily persuaded to sleep.
They both took a nice long nap -- probably about 3 hours. This has been a consistent nap for them.
We set up the pack-n-plays at the end of each bed in our room. This worked out quite nicely. Although, most of the time they ended up sleeping on one of the beds because it was easier for us to transfer them from our arms into the bed than the pack-n-play.
On our first day together, Sammy woke up from his nap first. That meant we were able to spend some special time with him alone as well on our first day. He was very sweet ... and very hungry!
After nap time, we attempted to have dinner together with the family we traveled with and the 18-month old boy they were adopting in the shared dining room. It was a fail. All three of the kids didn't want to sit or eat. We ended up feeding the twins, putting them to bed and then eating a cold dinner.
Overall it was a great first day with the twins. It was the day we'd been waiting 10 months to have. We are so grateful to finally have them in our family. Even in the tough moments when they wake up every 2 hours at night, I am grateful. They are precious gifts from God to our family and I wouldn't trade anything for them. Not even an uninterrupted night's sleep. :)
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