We've been home a little over 1 week!

We all have switched our bodies over to CST once again.  This was so HARD!  The 13 hour difference was so difficult for the first 3 days.  The kids would wake-up wanting to eat all night.  It was hard getting broken sleep.  We made it through!  

 

Amelia is having difficulty with her sleeping.  She was used to sleeping with her foster parents.  We don’t allow our other children to sleep with us so we couldn’t start allowing it now.  Every night she begs to sleep with us.  She cries and points to our bed. We gently hug her and tuck her in like we do Ariel and Kayli.  Sometime we lay beside her toddler bed for a good while until she falls asleep holding her hand.  A few hours later she walks into our room crying and pointing to the bed again.  One of us walks her back and repeats the steps above.  She finally goes back to sleep and we sneak back into our bed. 

She is doing better.  Last night Brian tucked her in and before he walked out of the room she was asleep. I woke up this morning at 6am thinking WOW –I got 8 hours sleep!  It felt soo good!  (note to self—daddy needs to tuck her in every night. Ha)

 

Some new English words that Amelia is saying are:  Let’s go, hello, goodbye, pink and prissy, (*wait a minute—Ariel taught her this…she shakes her bootie and it is hilarious)  please, thank you, and she will repeat any word that we tell her in English. She will tell us the Mandarin word and we will tell her the English.  It has been fun. She is helping us and we are helping her.  Our Chinglish is improving. Ha!  One morning Ariel and Amelia were having their own conversation.  Ariel would say in Mandarin I like ___.  Amelia would then say what she liked.  They did this for all of the animals and foods that they knew. It was priceless. 

 

Her singing is adorable.  I have about 12 Chinese songs for kids on cd and some from our Chinese teacher. Several she knows and her eyes get big and she sings away.  How sweet! 

 

There is a special sweetness about Amelia.  Amelia is giving kisses like crazy now. 

 

As far as the food goes she’s loving ALL fruits and most veggies. She asks for bananas and watermelon almost every morning.  Tomatoes are left on the table all of the time and she asks for one almost every meal.  She doesn’t quite know what to think about oatmeal, grits, bread for any sandwich, English muffin, macaroni, and any processed chip type product (which is good).  She loves smoothies, guacamole, eggs, meat (when Brian has it), corn, cucumber, bananas, almond butter, peanut butter, and any type of rice.  We went to Blue Coast Burrito on Friday night and I got her a veggie burrito.  She picked all of the veggies and it came with rice and beans.  She ate about half (adult sized) and really liked it.  She enjoyed trying all of the different types of salsas that were offered. 

 

Overall she is adjusting GREAT!  Kayli is still having some jealousy but overall she is doing better also.  Ariel is just plain awesome.  She is really enjoying Amelia and does great with both younger girls.  Sometimes she wishes she had time alone with Amelia without Kayli.    

We took Amelia swimming the other day and put her in a lifejacket.  She couldn’t quite figure out how to stay on one side with the life jacket.  We were teaching her how to kick her feet.  She wants to do what her sisters do so badly.  She tries to do her arms, face and the whole bit.  She also wanted some goggles like the big girls.  I bought some for 25 cents at Wal-mart. She LOVES them.  We will upgrade when she learns a little better how to swim.  J  Next year Amelia will take swim lessons.  Kayli is still a wonderful swimmer.

 

*For those of you who know Ariel know that she is not into pink or prissy so that is funny coming from her.