home one month

Well we are home almost a month now - it is hard to believe that much time has gone by. WOW!

So you may be wondering how it is going after a month home - the truthful answer is really pretty well! We have had a handful of meltdowns/tantrums - truth be told if I were picked up and moved to ET I'd would have had many more than she has had! I think it helps tremendously that she understands so much of what has happened and it helps even more that she has such a wonderful grasp of english. Her vocabulary is improving as is her usage of sentances rather than just words. I need to be better at reflecting correct grammer back to her rather than ignoring it - but that is my job. There is sooo much talking in our house that I am sure by summer she will be totally fluent! Sleep is majorly important - she still needs more than she is getting, but she is beginning to sleep in more and isn't up at 5 or 6 am with the big boys - which is a big relief for me as an hour to myself in the morning makes a much happier mom! And I think it means that she is really relaxing more and not waking at every noise in the house. Food is way less of an issue than we expected - the first week or 2 home I thought she would burst at the seams for all she ate. But that has calmed down. She still eats alot - way more than Emma, but it is normalizing. One hard thing we have encountered is that Scott has had to travel alot with work lately and it has been challenging for her - both in terms of bonding with him, and in terms of trusting that we really are a family. We really haven't had any choice in the travel and it isn't going to get better anytime soon so we just have to figure out how to move through it.

The most stressful thing right now is me - LOL what a surprise! But I like having my kids mostly figured out - and with Alemtsehay is it a bit like standing on a cliff waiting to see what happens. Most of the time everything is just fine....and then every once in a while we fall off.