One Week Home

It is so hard to believe that we have already been home a week. I know that I said that I would be blogging about our trip but I am still finding it very hard to put our trip into words. So, I decided I would let you all know how our adjustment is going. Noah did great on the plane ride home. He slept most of the trip and when he wasn't sleeping, he was watching movies. The first few days home with Noah were rough. We did not have much jet lag. Thank God or else it would have been much more difficult. The first night that we put him to bed was horrible. We had decided to go ahead and let him sleep in our room for however long the adjustment would take. He did not want to go to bed and just cried. It was the most gut wrenching cry I have ever heard. We were able to get him settled down and he slept until about 5 am. Doug and I tag teamed the first couple of nights. After a couple of days, we had him nap in his own bedroom. Since that time he has been sleeping both a nap and night time in his own bed. We did have to limit his water in the evening and he now sleeps from about 8:30 pm until 7:30 am with a three hour nap. This alone makes for a happy mommy:)

Every report we got from traveling families was that our boy was so quiet. We have not found this to be the case. He has the greatest laugh and loves to be the clown. His giggle is one of my favorite sounds. The first few days, he really was rejecting me. This was hard. The one helpful thing was that I felt love for him from the moment I saw him. We used different strategies with food for him to begin to warm up to me. On Wednesday, Doug was gone for the day so I was his only option. That seemed to make a difference and we definitely had a breakthrough. We have seen the Ethiopian shrug and have been quickly letting him no that this is not acceptable. We are finding that he is a very good eater. He doesn't like much variety which is good because there is not much variety around here.

Once again we want to thank each of you for the part you played in our journey. Having our boy here is still amazing to us. I regularly say to Doug that we have an African boy in our home. We are humbled and amazed that God would give us the privilege to be the parents to these four kids. Please continue to pray for all of us as we adjust to our new normal. Also please pray as we continue to seek God in regards to what He has put in our hearts concerning Ethiopia and our future.