Busy Days . . .

We are having so much fun! That doesn’t mean that we haven’t encountered a few issues, but Journey is such a character and her personality continues to emerge. We had sleep problems from the first night. She would go to bed around 8 or 9pm but then wake up several times during the night and wail. I would finally get up with her, usually about 2 or 3am, and hold her. She would drift off but as soon as I tried to put her in bed, she was wide awake. This made for very long days and extremely short nights. Finally, on Monday, my brilliant husband suggested that she might not be sleeping because she’s not used to being alone in a room and we should try moving her bed into our room. So we did and while we’ve not had cry-free nights yet, the episodes are few and short-lived. She will wake up, see that we’re there and usually go back to sleep within a very short time. We’re hopeful that sometime in the near future we’ll have an uninterrupted night.

It amazes me how quickly Journey is understanding what we say to her since she was not exposed to English until she came to us. I can tell her to pick up a toy or shut the door, and she does it. She also likes to wave and say bye-bye and throw kisses. She finds it very entertaining to make faces and sounds and have me copy her, and she’s very good at mimicking me when I make faces at her. She’s not saying a lot of words but she does have lots of baby babble and does well playing by herself. She loves music and will dance whenever she hears any, and she has some great moves! She’s also learning to do Pattycake (we practice A LOT), but won’t say any of the words yet. She and her daddy are still working on bonding, but if I’m holding her she will give him the sweetest smiles. When we want to take her picture, she will wait until she sees the flash indicator come on and then give us a big smile. She has been a trooper about being strapped in to her stroller and car seat and really enjoys going somewhere in both. Today she and I went shopping and she tolerated it for about four hours before she let me know she was ready for lunch. But that was okay ~ it was 1:30 and I was hungry, too.

Overall, I think we’re doing pretty well. We appreciate all the prayers that have come our way. Please continue to pray for Journey as she adjusts to her new home and for wisdom for Doug and me to know how to meet her needs.