Settled In

Well things in our household are finally settled down and feeling "normal" again. I was so surprised it took us so long to recover from the jet lag. I am sure having a baby who didn't sleep through the night made it a little tougher. But I am thrilled to report that Annabel now sleeps through the night in her port-a-crib. She goes down around 10:30 and I usually have to wake her up in the morning. I have been able to get showered every morning. Yea!!!! So things from that end are looking great. She even let Mark put her to bed last night. We have also been able to get her to now go to bed without a bottle. It was difficult in the beginning because she was obviously use to that, but we knew we had to break that habit. She now has a bottle around 8pm, we brush her teeth afterwards, let her play a little and then she is ready for bed around 10:30. We are slowly moving that time frame up. I would like to see her in bed by 8pm within a week or so. Due to her cleft palate, it takes her over an hour and a half to drink 4 ounces of Milk/formula so we are getting a lot of cuddling time throughout the day and evening. She is such a sweet little girl. Bless her heart she had her first round of blood work today. It took four of us to hold her down. It was so sad to watch her cry so hard. They had a hard time finding her vein so that of course didn't help. It took two pokes and a lot of moving around of the needle to find the vein. But she seems to be doing fine tonight. Another issue we have been dealing with that we are praying is behind us are her night terrors. She didn't have them in China but once we got home she started. She had four of them last week on four different nights. They each lasted between 20-45 minutes and were pretty severe. Looking back they all seemed to occur on the nights she didn't have a bowel movement. She dealt with some constipation the first week home so we are hoping that was all it was. So far she has gone the last 3 nights without any terrors. Praise God!!! I want to let all of the families that we traveled to China with know how much we miss you and your little ones. I haven't had a lot of computer time since getting home and am very much looking forward to checking out your blog sites this weekend to see how things are going in your homes. Thank you for your posts and your emails. It has been great hearing from you. I pray that your little ones are starting to fall into some great routines and that you adults are all rested up from traveling. God has truly blessed each of our families and I know we are all forever changed because of it.