Home For a Week Now

One week ago, we were arriving at the final airport. Whew! What a week. Gracelynn is adjusting just fine to our home. She's quite comfortable with our family, as a matter of fact. She just goes with the flow and does whatever we're doing. She sleeps in her bed just fine (and now has learned to leave the bed when she awakens... not sure that's a good thing just yet...LOL), she naps each day in the afternoon, she finds food when she's hungry (which is ALWAYS), and she loves to explore. Grace eats so much these days (mostly fruit)... I'm having a hard time keeping up with the pull-up changings. The orphanage workers assured us that she is indeed potty-trained, but I'm not sure their definition meets my definition. She will "go potty" whenever we set her on the potty. However, two and a half weeks later, she is still not telling us when she needs to go. I've tried signing and teaching her the English words and even commented on the fact that Tommy goes whenever he needs to, but so far to no avail. So, although Mommy was so ecstatic thinking that she had all children potty-trained, but sure enough, it's not quite true. We're blowing through Pull-ups these days, considering how much she eats! Hopefully we'll get there soon enough.

When she is in the mood, she'll repeat all sorts of words for me. Her favorite three words now (which she can and does say often on her own) are "Tommy", "Mama", and "Reagan".... with surprising clarity too! We've been working on colors and names and other words, and although she can repeat them, so far they aren't committed to memory yet.

Grace has had three days of meeting all sorts of people! On Wednesday, she was met by lots of preschool moms and kids at Tommy's school, and then all of the Brownies after Reagan's meeting. On Thursday, Tommy and Grace rode up in the double stroller to the school to wait

for Reagan and Ben. (BTW, they LOVED that, especially when I had to lift the front wheel to turn... it was like a roller-coaster.) So at the school they met more neighborhood moms and kids. Today she wandered outside for a few minutes to meet the neighbors. Everytime she gets this little furrowed look on her brows as if to say, "What are you all looking at?"

Today was another horrible medical day. I thought I'd take her to the lab to finish up the pediatrician's requests for bloodwork and stool samples. First of all, the pediatrician's office gave me the wrong container for the sample, so we have to do that over again. Secondly, the two nurses took 20 minutes playing with her arms and poking her (twice, while moving the needles all around) just to say they couldn't get the blood. Ugh. The poor thing was soaked from sweat and crying (and so was I from holding her the entire time). It was awful. She was still screaming as we left the office... I can only imagine what the poor people in the waiting room were thinking. Now we get to go back and try again!!! I think I may wait another 1.5 weeks to try again... once Tommy is back in school camp so that I don't have to take him again. He was good, but it's tough enough to hold her while always watching to make sure he's being good too!

We're looking forward to a very UNeventful weekend here. Nothing planned for three whole days... not even sports! YAY! I get to bum around and clean up a little (oh, the house is a mess) and maybe even take a daily shower! We are also SO SUPER fortunate to have a great bunch of friends. My neighbor Joanna organized a meal plan for us. We have people bringing meals nearly everyday for 2 weeks. Wow! So far we've received from the Garmans and Pasqualones... thank you so so so much! It's been wonderful. By afternoon, I've been beat, so the meals have been fantastic!

A last hello to my family... if they can read this from Alaska! Mom, Dad, Tracy and Tim all boarded their Alaskan cruise ship this afternoon and called to say it's going fine so far. I guess Dad survived another 8 hours or so in the air! I envy the relaxation they are enjoying... but not the weather. They said it was in the 50's in Seattle. I'd much rather have our 70's. Oh... but as in tribute to you... I watched 4 episodes of Gray's Anatomy today (Seattle Grace Hospital) to catch up on all the weeks I missed. :-) Everytime I saw the Space Needle, I thought of you guys. Have a good trip! Wish I could be pampered like that! Heck, with 4 kids, I doubt we'll get on another cruise ship till Grace graduates from college.... or we hit the lottery.