Day 11 – Clothes Shopping

Another relatively quiet day today. Nicol slept through until about 2AM, at which point I gave her a bottle and changed her. She seemed to settle down again quite well and only woke briefly around 6AM before going back to sleep. We all had a bit of a sleep-in this morning –  obviously the disturbed nights are getting to us a bit.

After breakfast this morning, Magnolia came and picked up Leanne to take her shopping for supplies and clothes for the Chiquitines orphanage. Last visit, we brought a lot of donated clothing with us, collected from a variety of sources. This time, we felt we might do things a little differently and buy things for the orphanage while here in Cali. This has two benefits – firstly, we didn’t require extra luggage to carry all of the gear with us from Australia (although we may still require extra luggage to take everything home that Leanne wants to buy for ourselves while here!).

The second benefit is that by buying locally here, we help stimulate the local economy in a small way – we were also able to ask for a specific list of current requirements the orphanage has and focus on what they really need right now. We were able to buy nappies and wipes in bulk from a local supplier, plus Leanne and Magnolia had some fun buying a heap of clothing at one of the local stores. I reckon the sales docket they came back with is nearly 80cm long – Leanne felt a bit bad for the other customers forced to wait behind them at the checkout queue!

At the end of the day, Chiquitines are grateful for whatever they can get and would be more than happy with clothing and things brought from Australia – we just decided to do things differently second time around.

After lunch we all had a long sleep and then late afternoon, Andres decided he wanted to go for a swim. The weather hasn’t been that warm here in Cali – especially compared to our last stay, so I was dreading going in the pool, which doesn’t get enough direct sunlight due to the tall buildings on one side and the mountain on the other side. I did promise Andres I would take him for a swim though, so we ventured to the pool.

I decided to give my GoPro cameras a test underwater – the supplied casings are supposedly waterproof, so this was a good chance to check them out.

The water really was quite cold and after a while Andres was shivering quite badly, so I suggested we get out and get warm, which he fortunately agreed was a good idea.

For the second night in a row, dinner was just Andres and myself. Nicol has been getting a bit grumpy during dinner, so we thought we would feed her a bottle and put her to bed before we go for dinner – which means that one of us has to stay here with her. The kitchen staff take a tray with food on it to our room for Leanne, while Andres and I go and sit in the dining room and eat together. Funnily enough, I do think he is a little better behaved when it is just the two of us. Not sure why that is. Perhaps he just appreciates having his Papa all to himself for a while?

Leanne uses the opportunity while Nicol is asleep and Andres out of the room with me, to tidy up and prepare bottles and formula and such – and gets to eat a quiet dinner in front of whatever show she is watching on the computer, so there are other benefits too.

Tonight we’re going to try feeding a bottle to Nicol by about 11PM, even if she hasn’t specifically woken up and demanded one. Hopefully that will see her through until closer to a reasonable waking up time.