Day 9 – Follow the Cow

Ahh, the joys of parenthood. Nicol decided that she preferred her old routine of being woken up in the middle of the night for a bottle, so we were all roused from our slumber by her wailing.

She woke around 4AM and we fed her a bottle, but she refused to go back to sleep. I decided to sit up and do a bit of work, so I sat her on my lap and she chatted happily to herself while trying continually to thump the keyboard.

I tried putting her down in her cot just after 5AM and she did go back to sleep for a while – but woke up again before 6AM. I hope we can get her out of this middle-of-the-night routine soon, it’s going to be difficult with a girl who won’t sleep all night if we also have a boy who won’t sleep during the day anymore – so no chance for us to have an afternoon nap either!

Being Sunday, breakfast was a little more relaxed anyway, with a buffet breakfast rather than the usual offering. The kitchen staff have Sunday off, so Enrique usually takes the families out somewhere for lunch. Over breakfast, he told us he was planning on taking us somewhere the kids could swim – he just needed to see what the weather was doing before deciding where.

We managed to give Nicol a quick bath after breakfast, she really enjoys sitting in the baby bath, kicking her legs and splashing with her arms. She’s quite good at sitting herself up and holding herself there, so bathtime is a bit easier than it was with Andres at that age.

At around 11AM, we all climbed into another mini-bus and were driven for about an hour out to a restaurant near the town of Rozo, north east of Cali. The restaurant was called Siga la Vaca, which translates to Follow the Cow – they specialise in Argentinean BBQ.

After sleeping part of the way there, Andres was a little grumpy when we first arrived, but I was able to convince him to come and play on the playground for bit – he enjoyed the trampoline.

Nicol had been quite fussy all day, whingeing a bit and not very settled – we’re not sure whether it is her teeth bothering her (she does keep chewing on things and sucking two fingers), or if it is something else. She didn’t drink either bottle we offered her during then day – we wonder whether she was feeling a bit hot, it was a very hot and humid day.

The staff brought out some Colombian empanadas (made from cornmeal and deep fried, rather than from flour and baked), which Andres quite liked. When Leanne was eating some empanadas, Nicol seemed very interested, so she got some of the filling on her finger and offered it to Nicol – she took to it with gusto! So, looks like Leanne is going to need to speak to some of our friends back in Sydney who we know have a good Colombian empanada recipe.

I managed to convince Andres to come into the swimming pool and we soon started this game where he would stand at the edge, jump in and swim to me. Then he would stand on my bent leg and jump back and swim to the edge of the pool. We did this over and over without him seeming to tire at all – his swimming is getting quite good and can easily go a couple of metres before losing momentum. I had to drag him out of the water once lunch was served. Fortunately, they had a kids serve of chicken nuggets waiting for him, so he was okay once I got him to the lunch table. My meal was a large steak, not particularly well cooked (a little rare for my liking), but it tasted very nice.

After lunch, Andres found some friends to play with at the playground and enjoyed himself until they all disappeared to have lunch themselves. So I offered to take him back in the pool and we spent the rest of the afternoon there until it was time to go home.

Both Nicol and Andres slept on the way home, so I didn’t get much of an opportunity to take photos. One thing that struck me this trip was just how quiet the streets of Cali are on a Sunday! The normally crowded and busy streets were almost deserted – one of the locals with us commented that everyone goes out in the countryside with their family on a Sunday.

We had showers and relaxed for a while before dinner, Nicol finally drank a bottle so we seem to be back on track there. Dinner was pizza, which was delicious although I had to turn down a second helping because I was too full from lunch still, despite all the swimming I did in the pool with Andres. Andres did have a second helping of his pizza though – he loved it.

An early bedtime for everyone, although I stayed up a little while to catch up with some things on the computer.