TingTing has been home one week today!

We returned home from China one week ago today.  It's amazing what a difference one week can make!  Not that we have fully settled into our new normal in one week, but if I look back to the day we got home, we've come a long way.  Each day has shown changes and improvement in some way.  TingTing, or Lydia as we mostly call her now, has had several first experiences, many first foods, and has settled into our family already quite well in just one week.  She is very willing to try new things, and she seems to love watching us, and then proudly does what we do.  If we want her to eat her carrots, we take a bite of carrots, she watches, and then follows along by eating hers.  If we want her to clean up, we start to clean up, and then she follows along by cleaning up too.  If we want her to cooperate at the chiropractor, we all take a turn getting adjusted, and then she follows along by getting adjusted too!  She watches and gladly follows along with many things! 

Her sleeping has been one thing that has been a little different each night.  At the beginning, everything was nuts with sleeping and she probably wondered what happened and why she felt so crazy!  I know Jim and I did!  But as the time change settled in a bit with our bodies, we were able to see a bit more of a normal sleeping pattern with her.  After two nights of her falling asleep in her own room and then coming into our bed around midnight for the rest of the night, we decided to go get a cheap toddler bed at Ikea so she would have a place of her own in our room.  Of course, the first night we had it, she stayed sleeping in her own room until 5:30 am and only snuggled in the new toddler bed for a couple of hours!  And the next night, yup.  The whole night in her own bed until she came in smiling at us at 7:30!  Of course, that's just how it goes isn't it?  But that's ok - I'd rather have spent a little on a bed and not need it, than still be struggling to get sleep with her flailing around in the middle of our bed!  We'll still leave it in our room for now of course, because I would not expect that we are in the clear on that, but at the very least we are on the right track.

One funny thing we have had some fun with this week is Google translate.  It's been fun to type some phrases into the translate line and then play the audio of the Chinese translation.  It will get her attention every time, and many times she will respond to the questions in some way.  Some of the things have been just for fun or to see her reaction, like telling her it's time to sleep in the middle of the day - to which she looks up shocked and says her word for "Bath!"  Like, if you're telling me it's time to sleep, then I'm not letting you forget I need a bath first!  But other things, it's been really neat to see an enthusiastic nod and huge smile, like when we asked, "Do you like living here?"  And then we could play for her, "We are glad you live here."  Or "We love you TingTing."  So sweet to see the smile bloom on her face in response to hearing those statements in her own language.


For those of you who were daily addicted to our blog, sorry I haven't been doing this daily since we got home.  :)  Some of it has been the fact that we've been going to bed at 9:30-10 each night!  And some of it is the fact that in China I think it helped MY sanity to have that link to back home.  Whereas now, I don't feel quite the same need to communicate our daily happenings.  Even so, we've had plenty of daily happenings, most of them quite good, quite fun, and very family filled.  Doesn't get better than time spent to build a family.  Some photos to highlight our week:

It has taken some diligence, but she is getting braver every day with our kitty Violet.  She is not a fan of any animal that can move toward her, but cats seem to be much less of a threat than dogs!

We discovered on about her second day home that she loves puzzles and she is very good at them.  In fact, we have a tray of shaped blocks - the point of them is actually to stack them.  But her favorite thing to do with them is to dump the tray out and then fit all of the blocks back into the tray like a puzzle.  She has some impressive spacial reasoning skills!

On Sunday we went to church and she did great!  We thought she would maybe be really overwhelmed, especially with the look on her face when we first walked in!  But after just a couple of minutes, she walked off with her sisters like she owned the place!  After church we went to a local Asian cuisine place and she was thrilled!

I love this picture of her with Grace.  Didn't take her long to completely love her big sisters!

Puzzles in children's church.  I knew if they did puzzles or playdoh that they would have her attention!

It was a beautiful day on Sunday so we took a short bike ride that afternoon.  We attempted Lydia riding the trail-a-bike and it went pretty much ok - at least she didn't fall off!  She loved it, but it made Mommy VERY nervous since she wobbled back and forth the whole time, and we didn't have reliable language to tell her to hold on tight!  I couldn't stand the idea of a broken arm or something just days after getting home!

Funny to think Mary Emma was the one who started out on that trail-a-bike and rode it all over the place!  Look at her now!

Our kitchen helpers!  Turns out Lydia loves to clear the table!  Not just her plate, but everyone elses too!  Wohooo!  Way to set an example for those big sisters!

Ok, this was the cutest thing ever.  Both of our older girls had to be bribed and coaxed into chiropractic adjustments over the course of a couple of years.  This little one watched us get our adjustments, and then went trustfully up onto the table and got hers!

She even smiled as she felt the sore spots get fixed and feel better!

Subway sandwiches for lunch!  New favorite American food - salami!

Meeting Aunt Julie!  Just like with the big sisters, it won't take her long to figure out this is going to be a fun person!

When we went to Ikea for the toddler bed, we spontaneously were able to meet Aunt Julie and Lauren at a coffee shop since Ikea is just minutes from their house.  Not much to do at a coffee shop, but it was good to see them and get all the girls together!

Looking at photos with Grace

Someone got into the sticker collection.....



She likes to "help" at the piano too.  I wonder how long before she'll be ready for lessons like her big sisters?

Looking over Mary Emma's shoulder, she got introduced to the world of Nintendo DS!  She has also tried out some Wii dancing with Mary Emma but I missed that photo opportunity!

One week after getting home, I figure I'll add some thankful things at the end of the post again.  This could be difficult though - where does one begin to pick three things after being home a week with a new daughter?  But here's trying...

Three things we are thankful for today...
1.  That yesterday as we finished getting the last of our suitcases unpacked, I threw away the pullups that we took along and never needed!  Yahoo!

2.  Sister, sisters, sisters times 3!

3.  That somehow God chose this little girl for us and chose us for her.  And that he led us to her from around the world.  And that having her home, it's like she was made just to fit here in our family.



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