Yes, we're still here

Wow, it's been 10 days week since we've gotten home. Only 10 days. To be honest, it's felt like a month. I truly think this has been one the hardest weeks of my life. On top of having extreme jet lag, three kids with jet lag, a baby grieving for her life lost and clinging like crazy to me, I had a husband that was very sick for the first 5 days. That was the hardest of all. Not having the physical help was difficult, but it was so difficult emotionally too. I am so glad we are emerging from this fog and looking forward to things to come.

Orin and Micaiah had the hardest time adjusting to the time change. We weren't even adjusted to Korean time when we turned around and came back. For the first 4 nights they woke up at 2 or 3am totally awake. That is not easy when all you want to do is sleep. Thank God they have slept through the night the past three nights.

Sora was also waking up in middle of the night for the first 3 or 4 nights too. However, I couldn't just say, "Stay and bed and be quiet and go back to sleep" like I could with the boys. I spent three nights up with her in bed, trying to get her to go back to sleep. We were up from 3am to at least 6am every night. She just couldn't switch over to our time. Finally, we had a night where we let her cry. It was hard to do, but we knew we had to. She would never adjust otherwise. She we went in her room ever 5 or 10 minutes to comfort her, and finally she fell asleep. Since then she's been sleeping through the night (well waking up once for a bottle and going right back to sleep)! Yeah! She's even sleeping from about 8:30pm to 9am.

Damien is still having jet lag trouble. Monday through Thursday he just laid in bed until about 6am before he could finally fall asleep. He's been getting up around 9am hoping that it would help, but when the next night rolls around he still can't get to sleep. Today he slept in really late and felt some much better. No we're praying that he can get on to a better schedule soon! He really needs to in order to go back to work Monday.

I have had a hard time getting to sleep too, but finally last night I think I got about 7 hours, only waking up once. I am definitely ready to be back to normal.

All I have to say is that I'm so incredibly thankful that my mom has been here. She met us at the airport and has been our savior ever since. I might have had a break down otherwise. There was just no way I could handle three new kids and a sick husband and jet lag all on my own.

For all intensive purposes, Sora is doing great. Seriously, it's amazing. She has definitely bonded to me, and knows I'm her mom. The first few days were so hard because I couldn't put her down. She would just cry. It was exhausting but she is doing much better. If I sit on the ground with her she'll play and if she's feeling really good I can even walk away for a while. Now that I'm getting more energy I need to get back to doing things around the house instead of relying on my mom to do everything.

At first Sora would cry when we changed her clothes or diaper. She's already doing so much better. She's a wiggly little one, but she will actually keep still sometimes and hardly cries when we do it. Yea!

She didn't like the bath at first but tonight she actually sat down for a second and splashed. She won't sit still and wants to keep standing up, but at least she doesn't cry.

One of the hardest things for me has been to transition straight to a toddler. Usually you start with a newborn who will just sit there and want to be held...and sleep most of the time. It's been a major transition going straight to a toddler who is walking and getting into everything, and has a mind of her own. I'm really going to have to watch her every second. Luckily we have a small house so she can't get far. We put a gate on the boys door and they've already learned to keep it closed and to keep then Lego's inside their room.

Speaking of the boys, they have adjusted amazingly well to her. Although, for the most part they pretty much ignore her, Orin will often just randomly come up and give her a hug or kiss. I love the way Micaiah tells her "no." It's like he's been doing it forever. If she tries to take something of his he'll just say, "No Sora" in a calm voice. They have really shown no jealousy, and don't seem to mind that I hold her a lot. The only acting out I've noticed so far is that Micaiah has had a few temper tantrums and Orin has been somewhat disrespectful and willful, but we've been working on it the past few days and they are doing better. I do miss them and have felt a little guilty that things have changed for them. I felt the same thing when Micaiah was born. The hardest part of the transition for them is getting back into a routine and back to regular discipline. We had slacked in Korea but we knew they were so tired and we were putting them through so much. I really buckled down the past few days and I can already see improvement. They had also been watching TV like crazy since we left for Korea so it's been great to get back to just one show today. I have a feeling they will be getting more than their normal 30/day for the next few weeks.

Sora is eating ok. She obviously had very little solid food in Korea. Just getting her to eat anything solid has been a struggle. At first she had definitely lost her appetite due to the changes and stress, but I feel like she has totally turned around now. She's been pooping normally and will now eat pears, applesauce and banana with rice cereal. I've tried peas, carrots and sweet potatoes too, but she won't eat any of them. I'm sure it will come with time. I've made all of her baby food so far, but I think I will rely on store bought for the next few weeks until I feel the energy to make more. I'm definitely going "simple" for a while.

I'm almost out of the Korean formula. I hope she likes the stuff from the USA! The bottles that they gave us in Korea had still at the newborn nipples on them. It is not fun to sit there for 30 minutes so she can drink an 8oz bottle. I have switched her to number 2 advent bottles and I'll be going up again soon. I'm so glad we only have another month and a half and can switch to milk!

I know there is so much more to write about her. I'm slowly feeling like she is more a part of our family and bonding to her more. Every time I look at her sweet little face I love her more. I'm trying to be patient with her when she's wining and not letting me do anything. It's funny because she's actually jealous of the boys. If one of them comes and sits in my lap she'll come up and cry and try to push them out. I'm thinking about setting up the pack-n-play so that I can just stick her in it sometimes if I need to hug or spend a few moments with Orin and Micaiah. I'm learning that she'll just have to cry some. I want her to feel safe and secure in our family, but I also have to make sure Orin and Micaiah know that they have not been replaced.

I've decided not to blog for a while - at least a few weeks. Until I get our schedule figured out I want to make sure I spend enough times with the kids. I used to blog some at night but I want to spend this extra time with Damien instead of with the computer. I definitely don't need the burden of always feeling behind with the blog. It's also very difficult because it takes me about 20 minutes to upload one picture. I therefore spend an entire day trying to get things up.

I'm going to try to post a few pictures of our first 10 days with Sora home. I've put a bunch up on Facebook. I'm so glad my mom has been taking them because I haven't picked up the camera once!