Home SWEET home!
/It's so good to be home. It's so great to see my husband and my other kids but our adjustment to this time zone and a new place has been a challenge.
The plane ride was long but not awful. Luke only slept for about two of the 16 hours so we ended up doing a LOT of laps around the plane. Luke made lots of friends on the plane. All the flight attendants knew him by name by the end of the flight. He refused to watch anything on the tv in front of him but thankfully I had some Elmo in Mandarin on my phone and that kept him interested for about 15 minutes.
We made it through immigration lines at Newark in probably about 30 minutes and 30 minutes through customs which is way better than when we came home last time. We still got detained by immigration as we were bringing in a new citizen and they had to verify some info but that only took a few minutes.
We had been doing video calls with the kids every day while we were away so all the kids looked familiar to Luke and he will tolerate all of them for a few minutes. Abigail is still his favorite person but he will sit with the other kids for a few minutes longer each day. He will go to Russ also for a few minutes but when he's tired or wants to be comforted, he still feels safest with Abby or myself. The attachment will grow to the others but it can be slow.
Monday we had his first pediatrician appointment and as suspected, once he saw the doctor, he screamed. He wouldn't even let them measure his head. He will have a lot more doctor visits in the future so I'm praying he will start to do better as he feels safer with us.
Luke, Abby and I are really struggling with jet lag and getting Luke to sleep in general. We've resorted to having Abigail climb in the crib with Luke and staying until he falls asleep. That has worked fairly well the last few days. He is hyper aware so he has a hard time shutting down and relaxing.
When he's awake and fed, he's a pretty happy kid. His words are expanding every day.
Overall, we're doing well... just very tired. The kids are really enjoying their little brother and being very sweet and patient with him.
Continue to pray as we transition to a family of seven!!