Moses is no longer a quiet child

Dustin says that in the last few days Moses left his quieter ways. He is now talking and singing constantly. And he's often quite LOUD. Moses can now pull himself up using furniture and can stand up in his crib. I gather that he likes to climb things. Dustin says that Moses is a very happy boy who always crawls over to greet the women who work at the orphanage when they enter the room. He gets a lot of love from Sister Santa, the Italian nun in charge of the orphanage. He really sees her as a mother figure, though they don't get a lot of time together.

The latest news on the adoption is that we are still waiting to hear back from the judge. Our lawyer put in a petition requesting a new court hearing. That was two weeks ago. Usually a judge responds in just a few days. We're hoping this delay isn't indicative of the judge's feelings toward the case... At the end of last week, Dustin spoke with the lawyer's assistant (she actually answers her phone while he never does) and she said something that made us think the lawyer was not giving our case enough attention. She mentioned something about the possibility of her taking over. That made us curious and nervous.

Dustin talked to the assistant today and she said that the lawyer agreed that she should oversee things from here on out. We hope this is a good idea. Today, she went to file some other kind of legal document at the court. Apparently if the judge hasn't responded to a petition in a reasonable amount of time, the lawyer files this other "thing" that urges the judge to give us a court date ASAP. We expect to hear something by the end of the week.

I forgot to mention that Moses has impetigo, a skin infection. Dustin says Moses looks horrible and is hoping he won't have any scarring from it. It's highly contagious and Dustin's starting to get it too. The orphanage is giving Moses some neon purple topical medicine to take care of it, so hopefully it'll clear up soon.

Meanwhile, Dustin is getting in awesome shape. He's riding his bike at least two hours a day, uphill a majority of the time (in over 100 degree, humid weather). Though, of course, I wish I were with Dustin and Moses in Malawi, I don't particularly mind that I don't have to make that trek regularly.

Dustin sent me these pictures about 2 weeks ago. Moses just turned 10 months old. And as usual, he's wearing pink.