More from Matt in Addis

I have pasted below parts of two emails I got this morning from Matt.  There more info than some (most!) of you would want to know, but for anyone who wants to know every detail, I've decided to post it all.  The kids and I are doing pretty well here.  Weyni had her first doctor appointment today.  We go back on Friday for some follow up work.  Overall she is very healthy, but there are a few minor things that need treatment.  We are anxious to soon be together as a family of six!  Hopefully Matt will be able to come home as scheduled on Saturday.

First, a couple pictures of the girls.  If only they always got along this well.

From Matt:

The embassy appointment this morning was fine.  I had the same agent you did: he said something like, "Your wife was here recently, wasn'tshe?" after looking at the file, and I wanted to say something like, "Yes, and she was in Ethiopia 4 extra days because you guys messed up on the visa" but I didn't.  Thankfully the first thing he asked me was whether or not I had met Alazar before and he was expecting a yes, and several times he confirmed that Alazar would be receiving an IR-3 visa.  He even said something about how Alazar would become a US citizen as soon as he stepped on US soil, so hopefully they'll get it right the first time.

OK, I'll try to answer your questions.  I combed his hair with the lice comb pretty well, but I don't think I got every bit of hair because he was thrashing around a lot.  The outfit he wore on Tuesday was a gray long-sleeved shirt with cars on it and a pair of jeans, and I had to roll up the jeans and the sleeves because they were so long on him.  The smaller brown shoes fit him well, and that's what he's been wearing.  He wore the smaller yellow polo and khakis to the embassy appointment today, and the khakis were a little too long but the shirt fit perfectly.  I don't think he's a whole lot bigger than Kai, but it's hard to tell when they're not side by side.

With food I've basically resigned to just letting him eat the three things that he'll eat unless something else comes up while we're here... glad to hear Weyni's eating better and that she likes waffles now!  I tried out the carrier with Alazar for a little while this afternoon and he really likes it, so hopefully he still likes it in the airports on the way home.  He also had his first kid songs experience today and he loved it.  His hair is pretty curly and reminds me a lot of Weyni's now: I'll try to send pics of I can get to that Surf place, I've got some good ones.  I think his legs are pretty short.  Did I tell you he slept from 8:15 to 7:00 last night without waking up at all (and I woke him up at 7:00 to get ready for the embassy appointment)?  He only cried for a couple minutes and then he was out, and today he took a nap on the couch for an hour and a half. (Tigest had put him there to sleep while I was at the internet cafe).

As far as Alazar being a hitter, he might be because he slaps cars and other toys sometimes and likes to watch them fly around.  The kid loves real cars, it's crazy.  The word that he says most is the kid version of "car" ("be'e", he doesn't say "makina"), and he spends a good bit of the day pointing towards the gate and saying "be'e" (sounds like bee-uh).