Can we say Legal Guardianship?

Rest Day #2

I hope everyone enjoyed the picture. Isn’t she a doll?

After a great night’s sleep, ZG woke up ready for the day at 7am.  As usual, I had my breakfast date with ZG, and we talked about all the things that we could do today. Should we play outside? Should we take a nap? How about crawl around the living room of the B&B?  I know, let’s just enjoy our day off and hang on to every moment that we can spend with each other!

We are learning so much about our little girl. We know that she prefers a cozy homelike setting over the hustle and bustle of the city. We know that she loves to laugh and smile.  She has also shown us her love for people. She loves everybody; and it seems that everybody loves her.  She is also destined to be a great American because she loves to eat.  Potatoes, rice, soup, cookies, and just about anything that is palatable, and some things that aren’t; like our bathroom rug-Gross ZG!

Mommy took over at about 10am while I stayed in the room and caught up the blog.  Mommy and ZG played outside and covered every inch of the B&B by 12pm and by that time we were all ready to eat.  After making a complete mess of the living room, ZG did her business and took a nap.

Parenting Tip- If you feed them, they will poop. Every ounce of every one piece of food that is placed in her mouth is accelerated through her digestive system faster than a Porsche 911 on the Autobahn.  The result is a smell so bad that it doesn’t matter how big she grins, I still look at her and just say, “why”?  The stare she sends back says, “you know why, you know why”.

I have been a hold out on the dirty diapers until now and Carla has had enough.  She basically forced me to change her poop diaper today while she recorded the whole thing on her Iphone.  I did successfully change the spoiled Pamper, but not without some dramatics.  Like a horse that knows when you are scared, ZG must have smelt the fear in my bones, or maybe it was the loaf in her diaper, and kicked and squirmed making changing her diaper harder than Chinese Arithmetic.  Literally after five minutes I changed my first dirty diaper in the thirty years of my meaningless existence.  Maybe I can go another thirty years before I change the next one!

After ZG’s nap we played some more and took a bath because she was sweating so much.  I swear the kid is an oven.  She doesn’t have a fever and never complains about feeling hot; she just sweats so much.  It reminds me of Pedro form Napoleon Dynamite.  Carla stays worried, so continually I remind her that we are sitting on the equator in Africa and it’s hot!  ZG enjoyed the cool water, but wasn’t a fan of the bathing.  The struggle ensued with Mommy winning the 4 minute bout of the wills.  Daddy got her dried off and Mommy combed her hair while she sat still like a perfect doll.

One of the girls on staff at the B&B gave us a break for about an hour and took ZG with her.  We appreciated the break and let our minds relax to about 10% of what we are used to. The remaining  10% is that worry that every parent has for their child.  No matter how old they are or how safe they are, I have discovered that a parent will always worry for their children.  It is not a burden; but a responsibility that I gladly accept.

The chef made us a beef fillet for supper that we shared. We washed it down with our new addiction, Fanta.  The soft drinks are different here. Today we concluded that the Fanta is made from Meth, the Mt. Dew tastes like Sprite, and I enjoy a bitter soda called Krest.  ZG drank her milk and cerelac and laid down at 8pm.  We all need our rest because we have our court ruling tomorrow.  I pray that the judge will find no fault in our petition and grant us full legal guardianship tomorrow. 

And the verdict is…

Up at 5am after waking up for about an hour at 1am.  Like I said, sleep really is overrated; that’s why God invented Red Bull and its midget twin brother, 5-Hour Energy.  All three of us got ready and had breakfast on the terrace with the orphanage director, one of the nannies, and, of course, Patrick, who could eat Bill Gates out of house and home.  Patrick finished his second cup of tea and third piece of toast and fired up our grey Japanese made chariot. 

Our facilitator told us that it would be nice to visit the King’s Palace and have a photo made there as a memory of ZG’s heritage. 

Well we finished the tour with the guide issuing a challenge to Carla. He said that if she could lift the hitch of the WWII canon abandoned by Amin’s regime that she could have a free painting.  Crossfit Uganda! Carla was pumped and sure that she would win the canvas. Wrong! She strained and pulled to no avail, genuinely mad that she could not lift the mass of metal.  I had to see what all the fuss was about and, with some struggle, lifted the end of the canon waist high as Carla huffed and puffed in frustration of my superior strength!  The guide informed us that only seven women had ever successfully lifted the canon.  That just made Carla that much more furious. In her defense, we estimated the deadlift weight to be around 350 pounds.  Where’s Annie Thorisdottir when you need her.

With the heritage portion of our day over, I demanded we eat before court. At work I am usually the boss and have some say in most everything that pertains to my work unit.  Two weeks of not being the boss has taken its toll on me, and I am catching myself being more and more pushy with everyone.  So we headed to the shopping center with the food court and ate at Wok 2, our Ugandan Chinese restaurant.  My emotions are high which doesn’t always result in the best me.  I need to remember that the enemy is always on the attack looking for any opening in which he can steal our joy or break the bonds we’ve established thus far.  We speak and pray against his attempts knowing we are children of the King.

Court was scheduled to start at 2:30pm and I really wanted to arrive at least thirty minutes early.  We could have driven to Kenya and still been on time. Our case began at 4pm after the straight talking judge dismissed an inheritance case on the grounds of insufficient evidence.

The applicants, Joshua Clint Hamner and Carla Denise Archibald Hamner, petition for the legal guardianship of above mentioned child is hereby GRANTED.

Praise the Lord. His plan will be fulfilled for this child!

Now that we have the ruling out of the way and have given all the praise to God for all that has been done, now we have to keep praying for continued favor from the Ugandan and US administrative functions to be expeditious.

Our bonding is really progressing great with ZG, and now that we are her legal guardians, we can set our minds at ease about the legal aspects and focus more on the relationship with her.

We got home about 6pm and had supper and played for a while before going to bed. ZG was up with cold symptoms at 3am and we gave her some medicine before she went back to sleep around 4am and slept good until 7:30am. 

What a day and how thankful we are. Please pray for our weary minds and tempers. Pray for the remainder of the paperwork to be completed quickly. Pray for our continued bonding with ZG. Pray for our ability to round up the biological parents one more time. We are so excited about the journey that God has taken us on so far and can’t wait to take His direction.

Thankful,

Two Legal Guardian Parents