What day is it?

Thank you all for the sweet congratulations! You continuously make me blush :)

And THANK YOU for understanding our need to hunker down for a while and establish attachment. It's such an important part of this process.
  
I remember a few days into our orphanage visits seeing the way she looked at me, thinking "She loves me! She knows I'm her mama!".  And then I saw her look at every other person who held her the same way. She's sweet as pie, but this little girl has no idea what a Mama and Daddy are. We have to teach her, to show her. In order to do that, we have start with the basics including holding her, feeding her, changing her, bathing her and minimizing confusion.

We're still baby-mooning!

I keep thinking the excitement will wear off or it will get harder at some point.
It's only been four days, but I'm still waiting....

Don't get me wrong, we are All-American sitcom over here.  Tripping over a toy while trying to make dinner and answer the phone while answering homework questions over a screaming baby. Just the way it's supposed to be!



So far, the hardest part has been adjusting to the time difference. AG and I have woken up between 3-4am every day, ready to party. The first couple of days, she mostly slept to get caught up. I didn't have that luxury of course, so I'm struggling to keep my eyes open by dinner time.

The last couple of days she's had MUCH longer periods of wakefulness and we sort of started easing our way into a schedule (maybe?).

She's eating great. She transitioned from Ukrainian formula to American Similac quite easily and hasn't had a problem with any of the bottles we're using (Still spitting up though...). She's eating mostly baby food, with a few other soft options (yogurt, applesauce, oatmeal) thrown in. She even had her first taste of ice cream last night! That's been the only thing that she didn't mind being cold (EVERYTHING else has to be warm or she is not happy!).

Update: She actually ate some bananas at room temperature this afternoon! That's a first :)

Layla is holding on tight to her "Best Big Sister Ever" title. She has to because Brynn is giving her a run for her money. Their roles have actually surprised me! When Layla is into it, she's all over Anna Gray. She coos and sings and kisses. But the rest of the time, she's doing her own thing. If AG starts crying when Layla is holding her, she'll typically offer to give her up.

Not Brynn. No matter who has her, Brynn constantly says, "Just give her to me." Screaming or not.  She wants to do everything for her! Brynn is our wild child, so I've been a little surprised by her desire to just sit and hold her. She has been so, so precious with her though.  She asked me why AG doesn't look like "us". I wasn't sure which "us" she meant, but she said none of us. A little bit like Sissy, but not. Before I could answer she said, "We are all different and God put us all together in a family! That's cool. I like that."  She also told me she wants to teach Annie to "feak Fanish like Dora" haha

We knew Cale would have the hardest time. He has a lot of anxiety about change.  But really, he's been awesome. The first full day, he barely left my side. He had a meltdown or two about being away from me (even chose to go run some :"boring" errands ALL day just to be with me). He got very upset about going to bed because he didn't want to leave me. But since then, he's been fine!  He loves to make Anna Gray laugh and he is so gentle and tender with her. He just stares at her.

They all do, really. If I'm feeding her, they all just stand around and watch. If she's playing on her mat, they all just stand around and watch. If she's getting dressed... they watch. They are in awe!

Nathan thinks she hung the moon. I mean it, he may actually believe that. He's worked all but one day since we got home and he wants to know every single thing she's doing :) I've gotten "send more pics!" every day lol. He's a GOOD daddy.

She's a perfect fit.

She just wiggled into our little family so easily. It doesn't feel overwhelming or any more busy. She's just here. Finally. Maybe God is giving us a little break after everything we just went thru!

I get a lot of messages about what we're doing/did.  I guess from the outside it looks like this huge thing, but for us it's very simple: God showed us our daughter and told us to go get her. That's it. She happened to be on the other side of the world and happened to have DS. It happened to take a lot of work and money to get there. But really... all WE did was bring our daughter home :)