SLEEP!!!!!!!!

I have titled this blog "sleep" because I just woke up.... and I want more of it. haha.  Abriel is really not a fan of proper sleep as of late.... well, proper sleep at-least.  Since we have been here it has been a battle to have a full night of sleep.  I guess since we had a baby that pretty much slept through the night at 2 months we were not expecting this lack of sleep.  Since we have been here Abriel wakes up every 3 hours on average every night.  A couple nights a week she wakes up every 2 hours.  Always to eat and go back to sleep.  We tried three nights of only feeding her every four hours and simply rocking her back to sleep in between feedings but it didn't stick as well as we would have liked it to. I am okay with this, as I know feeding is good for her, but I am more worried that she isn't getting proper sleep. Oh, and a full night of sleep wouldn't hurt us either. haha.

Anyways, life here is really starting to feel normal. It doesn't feel like our permanent home but it is starting to feel like one of our homes.  We have had a lot of people asking us if we will be coming back down here to live permanently and as of right now we don't feel that a permanent stay is in the near future but we do feel like our time here is preparing us for something.  We have always been looking for some "reasons" or the "purpose" of why we are down here now.  We have had some great and big moments that have shown us "this is why you are here".  Even though it's been challenging to be away from our friends and family it's good to know we are being used.

For us right now the biggest thing on our brain is our sponsor girl, Maria. Due to her home life we have decided to try and hang out with her as much as possible.  The situation is delicate and we are trying to avoid ostracizing her from her family. The details are upsetting and frustrating. Maria and I will be meeting at-least once a week with the help of our translator, Jessica, just to give her an opportunity to talk about things and share.  After our meeting last week she said she felt better talking about her problems. I have decided not to share those details as it is not my life to share.  Maybe after asking permission, one day, it will be shared.  I know some of the things are just normal Dominican life situations for a certain class of people but it doesn't make it right to me. On Saturday we brought her over to our house to swim in the pool.  We had to buy her a bathing suit first since she didn't own one.  We then found out that it was her first time in a pool.  She is 11 and very sweet.  We then found out she had only been to the beach once in her life...... crazy!  We then brought her to the grocery store and cooked dinner (side note: be prepared to move outside your comfort zone when you allow others to pick the food you are going to eat. We said we wanted chicken and she could pick any vegetable she wanted. She wanted eggplant.).  We then taught her the game Uno with our very limited and broken Spanish.  It was a special day!!

Earlier in the week, after I met with Maria and gathered some information, I came back and shared the info with Chris and Donna.  Donna said, "do you want to adopt her?"  Our first instinct is to just pull her out of the situation but it's complicated and that's not necessarily the best thing to do. That's why we have decided to just hang out with her as often as possible and pour as much love into her life as we can.  After hearing the word "adoption" Chris and I have been talking about it a lot.  Now, don't start the rumor mills that we are adopting. At this point we are not adopting but we have talked about it in the past and we are open to it in the future.  It's so crazy to me and it would change our lives!

Silly us! Forgot to talk pictures of our hang out time last week but here is a picture from a few weeks ago!