Home Sweet Home

Zzzzzzz..... Sorry that's the sound of me sleeping. We've been home about a week now and we're feeling like the jet lag and time zone difference is out of our system but Jade likes to wake up about 3 times a night. We're tired! We haven't figured out what the deal is with that. I know it is really common to have sleep problems with adoption, especially at her age. Just 'cause I know, doesn't make it fun.

The 27 hours of travel home was surprisingly doable. She slept quite a bit. On the ride from Beijing to San Fransisco, she slept like 6 or 7 hours. That's very good. She was taking up at least one seat and sometimes both seats for a good part of that time. That's not so good. Matt and I both had lots of time to wander around that very large plane. Reading while standing up has never felt so good. I was very willing to give up my seat if it meant that she'd sleep. It was a sacrifice for the good of my co-passengers that I was willing to make. I hope they appreciated it. We had a lot of older American travelers around us that gave us sympathetic looks through the whole ride. They tried their best to entertain Jade for us. One nice lady thought that a sleeping mask would be just the thing to really make the plan ride fun. I wish Jade had thought so too. Maybe she would've slept even longer if she would've just tried it out. We'll never know. San Fransisco to Phoenix, she was asleep within 5 minutes of boarding the plane and we had a hard time waking her up once we landed. So all the prayers worked. Thanks!

You might have noticed that I'm calling her Jade instead of Molly. I know what your thinking. Wishy Washy. My family pretty much refused to call her Molly. Matt's family has heard the name Jade for so long that that's what they call her. We gave in and now we are back to Jade. She adores the kids - any kids really. She's surprisingly patient with Aimee, who - not surprisingly, is not completely thrilled with her. The first few days we were impressed with how nice Aimee was being about it all. She got over that. We know what she really thinks now. I'm pretty sure Jade does to. The other kids think she's awesome. I don't feel like I've really seen her personality yet. Not being able to communicate makes it hard. So much of our personalities is shown through the words we say. That's something to look forward to. She's figuring out American food. I think the food she's been most enthusiastic over so far has been spaghetti. She licked the bowl last night. She hates mac and cheese. Not a surprise there. Of course, all things sweet are appreciated.

She can walk, although she really only likes to when she's on carpet. We take her to the pediatric orthopedic next week. We originally thought we'd wait until she'd been home for about a month before taking her in but it literally breaks our heart to watch her try to keep up with the other kids. Her leg slows her down too much. I also think that we must encourage her to use it more than her foster family did, because by bed time, there's a spot on her leg that looks like maybe it hurts from using it as much as she is now. She's so heavy that we can't hold her all day and she'd hate being held that much anyways. So we'll know soon what the plan is for her. I want her to be healthy, happy and to be able to physically do what she wants.

That's all for now.

Melissa