Josie is 11 months Old Today!

Happy 11 months, baby girl. I'm blessed to have spent the last month and a half with you. I can't wait for the years to come.

You've already been such a blessing to our lives. I can't imagine life without you.

The Coming and Going of Teeth

Last week was fun in the teeth department.

When we got Josie, she already had her bottom two middle teeth. On Tuesday of last week, her top right middle one came in, and her other top middle tooth is making its way out. The two teeth on either side of her bottom middle teeth may show up soon. The gums aren't swollen, but they feel kinda funky.

On Saturday a week ago, Phoebe lost her top left middle tooth. She lost the top right one right before we went to China. Now she, of course, looks too cute for words. Don't you agree?

Sorry, but Josie refuses any photos of her new teeth. She's very protective.

Today....?

Today, it's Gerber Finger Foods!

Josie actually intentionally ate some pieces of Gerber Finger Foods this morning. She hasn't mastered getting them into her own mouth yet, but she leaned forward with her mouth open to get them off of my fingers. And she kept doing that despite making a "what the...?" face every time she ate one.

Sadly, I don't have pictures because I wasn't prepared. I will be next time though.

J has also added sweet potatoes to her menu, although we don't have any in the house right now, so it's mainly still bananas. And finger foods!



EDITED TO ADD: OK, I had to go take pictures.





Notice the ever patient Senna in the bottom left corner. Josie actually leaned all the way down to my hand with her mouth open.

A Beautiful Thing

It's been quite a day for Josie. When we went to the adoption doctor a few weeks ago, he ordered a whole slew of tests requiring blood. Before we could go in for that, we had to collect the stool samples. With that task finally behind us, I decided to just not think about it, and get J to the lab for the blood draw.

Did I mention that one of J's top teeth is about to break through? I figured, hey, she's uncomfortable anyway, lets get this blood drawn.

I thought there might be a problem, when the lab tech brought out 6-8 vials to fill with my baby girl's blood. It was a lot of tests. Long story short, J did not have a great morning today AND we have to go back, because they only got about half as much as they needed.

(The lab tech told me I did very well.)

J took a great afternoon nap - and who wouldn't after the trauma of the morning. When she woke up I figured she was hungry, though not fussy, so why not try eating off of a spoon?

Oh, my gosh! She did it! Not just tolerating me putting the spoon on her lips, she actually ate! AND she opened her mouth, and leaned forward for more, and ate a whole container of banana baby food. (Hope THAT doesn't come back to bite me). It's stage 1 baby food, so it's really smooth, and I heated it up. So basically, it tasted like banana pudding. She followed this up with a full bottle of formula and rice cereal.

Gotta go to the store tonight and get some more bananas. Today bananas, Tomorrow....?

These pictures actually bring tears to my eyes. To see her with an OPEN mouth with a spoon in front of it...it's priceless!

Happy Father's Day!

Now that Allen has his Father's Day present, I can post these. I don't know which is my favorite.

Spotlight on Phoebe

Since this is now more of a family blog than an adoption blog, I thought I'd show you what Phoebe's been doing this week:

TENNIS CAMP!

Check out that form. Yes, she is actually watching her ball go over the net.

Phoebe loves Coach Brown

Great follow through. Must have taken her eye off the ball.

Adventures In Rice Cereal

We are working with J on eating things that aren't in a bottle. She came to us with, seemingly, no experience of eating off of a spoon. She only recently has started actually putting toys in her mouth. While in China, she started putting toys TO her mouth, but not in. We've now progressed to in, but not so with food on a spoon or otherwise.

Here are a few pics I took while giving J a try at rice cereal. She's tasted rice cereal in her bottle, so it's not a new flavor, just a new texture and method of delivery.

Hey, look at that camera.

You want me to do what, now?

Uh, there's something on my lips.

I'm not so sure about this.

Yeah, mom's lost her mind.

Is it time to take this bib off yet?

Huh, that glob of stuff on the bright pink spoon again? Let's see...

Get it off, get it off, get it off!!!

Referrals Are Trickling In

Lest it seem like I'm not keeping up with those who are still waiting, June referrals are starting to appear. It looks like the cut-off is November 7. Truly, I can't remember last month's cut-off, but I think it was October 31. I feel so bad for how slow things have gotten. I can't imagine that the CCAA is only getting through a week at a time. I feel bad for those parents who are reaching their "19 months since LID" mark, who like me thought it'd be 6 months from LID to referral.

Here are the blogs for people expecting referrals this month:
Our Journey to Paisley
Waiting for Karsynn
Our Adoption Journey - It's a BOY!
A Sister for Gabe and Julian
Fortune Cookie Monsters
3rd Culture Mum
Created in China
Our Journey to Charli
Jillian’s Journey
Journey to Allie
Waiting for Elianne Grace
The Amazing journey to Karlee
Desheng Darling
Emma’s Journey
Bringing Ju-lie Grace Home
Journey to Lily
Our Journey to Lucy
Jaida Ruth Hatcher baby name: Jaida Hatcher
Jaiden Falk baby name: Jaiden Falk
All for Olyvia

Getting Better All the Time

It's...Tuesday. Right. Tuesday.

Josie is so much better about sleeping at night than she was a week ago. Last night, she went to bed about 8:50. She woke up around 9:45, but only for about 10 minutes! Daddy has taught Mommy the magic touch, and I actually got her back to sleep quickly. There were a couple of whimpers during the night, but nothing to get out of bed about.

The past couple of nights, I've been awakened by crying. I've been a little confused at first because, while I can hear the crying through the house, it isn't coming through the monitor. It takes a few seconds of waking up to realize it's P. She's had a few "bad dreams". Last night's involved a ball that had come apart that she couldn't find the bottom of, and something about a second glass of orange juice. Do you know how blessed I feel that this is the extent of her "bad" dreams? She is actually barely awake when I go to her, and gets back into bed without a problem. Hopefully this will pass soon, and an uninterrupted night's sleep is in my near future.

I'm feeling pretty good, but I do plan to take advantage of J's afternoon naps. This week, P is in VBS. This year, our VBS coordinator decided to help the youth raise money for summer mission trips by offering "extended care" after VBS. P was all over it (and how could I say no?). So, VBS is 9-12 and "extended care" is 12-4. Yes, 12-4! (Thank you, Tracy) That's longer than school was. So far, P's having a blast. She gets to play with friends and make things and watch movies. It's great. So, I'm going to use this week to try to get J's naps established, so maybe next week will be even less stressful when P's home all day. A's first day back at work is today. I must say this all day VBS is really helping me transition to being the only one here with 2 girls.

And because I promised pictures, here are 2. Last Friday, some friends came by to see if we wanted to go to the pool. My first thought was, "A & P, have fun!" Then I decided, maybe J and I could go along too. J had so much fun. She loves taking a bath, so I had high hopes that cooler water wouldn't change her mind. I was right. It was like she didn't want me to hold her and she'd be perfectly fine just going off on her own.

Here are my girls having fun at the pool:

Let go, mama!
There's my fish - well, if she has a noodle.

Last Night Was Better

I hope I'm not jinxing anything by saying that.

And by better, I mean J cried earlier in the night than usual and not as long. A got her to sleep a little after 9 and she slept until about 10:30. Then she cried until about 11:15 and finally went to sleep. The great part is that she slept all night after that.

She didn't really seem to want to be comforted or held. So, A just stayed in the room with her while she cried and let her know he was there, and she finally fell asleep.

P slept with us. She had a bit of a difficult day yesterday. She got into bed with us around midnight. I guess I'm still having a little jet-lag, because I didn't manage to go to sleep until a little after 1:30. Can't blame that on either girl. Just me.

P and I have spent the morning playing Star Wars on the Playstation. Y'know - quality mommy/daughter time. I think we all feel a bit better from having more rest.

Pray for more of the same tonight. Possibly with less crying at the beginning - but I don't want to get greedy.

Can Anyone Say "Sleep"?

We've been back almost a week. I keep trying to remind myself of that. It hasn't even been a week, yet.

Josie is not quite on Texas time. Her normal behavior the past few days has been to go to bed about 9pm and wake around 12am. She then wants to stay awake and play until 2 or 3. Wednesday night, she woke about 11:30 and was back asleep for the night by 1. Sweet.

Well, last night, she went to bed between 9 and 9:30 and woke at 10:30. I was with her until I couldn't take anymore at 1:30. I handed her off to Allen and have no idea when she went to sleep. I don't think it was too much later. But I don't know.

Heaven help this child get her time zones figured out. Mommy is pretty cranky without sleep.

Other than that, we are doing pretty well. On Wednesday, we took J to an international adoption doctor. He said she looks pretty good, but said she's a little thin. He did a TB skin test that we are going to our pediatrician this afternoon to get checked. He also wants to do a lot of labs to check for any diseases and to check her titers to see what immunizations she's had or needs. Oh, and there's the stool samples. Two per week for a week or two. Nice. Oh, and they don't have to be refrigerated because there's preservative in the containers. Well, that's a relief...'cause I don't know whose refrigerator they'd be going in.

We're working a little bit on getting her to eat things that aren't in a bottle. Right now, I'm just doing my best to not be too cranky and to get through one day at a time. When we've had a little more sleep, we'll work on introducing new foods, etc.

I just looked over, and J has fallen asleep in her exersaucer, despite P sitting on the floor beside her and making all kinds of noises with her toys. Last night at 1am, I had diabolical plans to keep her from napping today. Guess I didn't make it too far. But, since her Dr. appointment this afternoon is scheduled during her prime nap time, I guess she won't nap much this afternoon.

I'm sure it'll all work out. I'd just go for sooner rather than later. I really need some quality sleep.

I promise new pictures will be forthcoming soon. When I remember how to work the camera.