Gotta love technology

We live over 800 miles from our family. Since we got married, over 14 years ago, the closest we've lived to family is just under 800 miles and the farthest we've been was over 1400 miles. Being from the Midwest we are a bit of an anomaly. Midwesterners tend to stay in the Midwest and usually within a 40ish mile radius of family.
Obviously with BJ in the Air Force and almost no active duty bases in the Midwest living close to home has not been an option for us.
Over the years our families have not only accepted our absence but have actually enjoyed the opportunities to travel that come with us living far away.
They enjoyed that is until last month.
When we brought Sophie home it seems the game changed. The twice a year that we regularly head to Wisconsin is already not good enough. The once or twice a year that our families visit us just doesn't seem like it's gonna cut it any more. We have had more complaints about the distance in the last month then we have in 14 years.
Thankfully we live the age of not just Facebook and email, but Skpye and PS3 chat.
Since we stayed home for Christmas we video chatted with our families. It was almost like being there. We got to see them and they got to see Sophie. We set it up so they could watch her play, climb, and crawl while we talked. It was awesome.
Every couple of days one of the grandparents will call and see if we have time to Skype. They love making googlie faces as Sophie and watching her laugh, and smile. Granted it's not the same as being there, Sophie is awfully squeezable, but its a whole lot better then just email (or way back when there was only snail mail and a phone call).
Today Sophie got her Christmas presents from my brother and his wife. Instead of a call to thank them, we video chatted. Sophie's aunt and uncle were able to watch her play with the toys that they sent her, they could talk to her and since she could see them, she smiled and waved and giggled at them as though they were in the room.
I love video chatting!
BJ and I have at least 5.5 years left before moving back to the Midwest is really an option. We definitely plan to move back eventually but the Air Force has been good to us and we plan to make it to retirement (possibly a little further). In the mean time we are so thankful for the technology to stay close to the people we love and have them be an active part in Sophie's life. What a blessing.

Our Most Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!

Its absolutely amazing to me that its Christmas today. These last few months have been such a whirl wind that I think in my mind I'm still waiting for Thanksgiving (though we did celebrate in China).

Yet for all the blur of the fall, today was a wonderful Christmas. Today we watched our daughter open a few presents, and though she was (as most young children) way more interested in the paper then the toys, her delight was awesome. We feel overwhelmingly blessed this year.

Over the past several years Christmas has been one of the more painful holidays. Sure, Mothers and Fathers day felt like salt on an open wound but Christmas had become a gaping hole in our hearts.

Don't get me wrong, BJ and I love Christmas. The love of our Savior coming to Earth as a baby, so that we might be adopted into God's family is absolutely reason to celebrate, but all the family activities were a glaring reminder of the absence of our hearts desire.

This year BJ and I didn't go to Wisconsin, we didn't buy each other presents, we didn't make any big plans (though some wonderful friends had us over for lunch which was delightful). We wanted Christmas to be about Sophie, our best present ever, and our gratefulness to the Giver of that gift.

We have no delusions, Sophie is a child, a completely normal (though utterly wonderful) little girl. She gets cranky, she pulls my hair, she wakes us up at night. She will be naughty, test our patience, and become sassy. Someday she might want to date a boy that will scare the poo out of us, dye her hair crazy colors (which will only be a struggle for her father), and she might even skip school. Its not that we think she is a perfect child, but we believe she is a perfect gift from our Loving Father.

Sophie is the answer to years of prayers, years of wanting, and years of waiting. Yet as we celebrate our Savior this Christmas we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God is good and His plan was absolutely the best plan. Sophie was worth waiting for.

So this Christmas we are rejoicing with full hearts, we hope you are too.

A Challenging Night

So my sweet Sophia has been sleeping through the night now for about a week. We had been told that for most children it takes about 1 day per hour of time difference, and China is about 14 hours. So right on schedule, after about 14 days home she started sleeping at night and napping during the day, it was awesome!
She's also been sleeping in her crib, in her own room. When we were in China the hotels had cribs in our room (very kind) but after the second night when Sophie would not let us put her down and was not confident that we would be there when she awoke, we put her in bed with us. BJ and I are not so keen on keeping her in our bed, but we always agreed that what was best for Sophie was what we would do. If we felt she needed to be in our bed we would allow it, but plan to transition her out as soon as we thought she was ready.
By the time we got back to the States she was sleeping soundly through the night (night in China, day in the U.S.) and not lifting her head 100 times a night to make sure BJ and I were still there, so we started putting her in her crib. She did fine, she slept more soundly and so did we ( I may have forgotten to mention that Sophie is a whirlly bird when she sleeps and when she is in bed with us neither BJ or I get much sleep).
Well last night Sophie was more fussy then usual going to bed, in fact while BJ was rocking her she was almost screaming. We did the usual, check the diaper, check her temp, give her a little gas medicine (her veggies don't always sit well) and finally she calmed down and went to sleep. I kinda thought that it wasn't the end though.
About 10pm, while BJ and I were turning off lights and heading up stairs she started to cry, it was NOT her normal fussy trying to relieve a little stress cry, not was it her angry cry. It was a cry I had never heard and it was full of sadness and fear (I may be reading too much into it but it seriously broke my heart). BJ and I both ran up the stairs to comfort her. I picked her up, but she was still sound asleep and crying her little heart out. It took a few moments to calm her and wake her, but by then BJ and I were both upset. All we could think was that she was dreaming about being alone, away from her family, maybe the orphanage (though I work very hard to trust that they did their very best to love her), maybe the other babies that used to sleep in cribs tucked up next to hers. I have no idea all I know is that my baby sounded hurt, not the scrapped knee kind but the wounded heart kind. She came to bed with us.
Sophie, however is more resilient that I give her credit for. As soon as we were up in our bed she started giggling, and playing. It was remarkable to me how just the reassurance of our presence was enough for her to have joy. I know someday our presence might not be enough, but today, having had very little sleep for all the kung fu my daughter does in her sleep, I am grateful beyond words that she finds comfort in BJ and I.

My First Official Day as a Stay at Home Mom

I've pretty much waited my whole life for today. Certainly for the last 13 years I've have dreamed of the day when BJ and I would have a child and my full time job would become Mommy. That's a lot of years of expectations...
BJ was already out the door when I first heard Sophie chattering in the monitor. I love that she wakes up in the mornings happy and will start babbling to her stuffed lamb that she has recently started to cuddle with at night. I am not a morning person, but its hard to be cranky when Sophie's sweet giggles are the sound that wakes me.
For 14 years Mondays have always been my cleaning day. I do the whole house, top to bottom, plus all the laundry, but today was the beginning of a new routine.
Play with Sophie
Clean the kitchen
Play with Sophie
Put a load in the washer
Play with Sophie
Load into the dryer, next load in washer
Play with Sophie
Put her down for a nap
Actually read my Bible and journaled a bit
Fold and put away laundry
Neighbor came over with coffee
Played with Sophie
Daddy came home
Played with Sophie
Made dinner
Played with Sophie
Gave Sophie a bath
Played with Sophie
Put Sophie to bed.
I'm guessing tomorrow I'll have to do some more laundry, eventually I'll need to vacuum again, but I'd much rather spend my day making Sophie laugh, reading to her and smooching on her then clean.
I'd say our first day home alone together went pretty well. I did accomplish a few things around the house. Sophie learned that she can now bite the spoon when I feed her, its our new little game. I learned that she laughs super hard when you put her in the laundry basket and swing her back and forth.
I'm sure not everyday will be so much fun, but I'm awefully thankful that on day 1 neither of us had a meltdown.

Let the Parenting Begin

So BJ and I have decided since we already have the blog set up, we will post our Sophie updates here and keep Facebook for the more social things. Having been the ones without kiddos for so long we are sensitive to those that care about us but don't really need to (or honestly want to) know every detail of Sophie's life.
However we also know that there are several of you (grandmas and grandpas) that wish they could be here to experience every single milestone, big and little. So we will post our Sophie stories and adventures in parenting here and spare the masses from our Sophie obsession.

And speaking of our darling daughter, now that we finally have her sleeping at night and napping during the day (14 hour time difference was brutal) she is thriving.
It's completely normal for children who have been in orphanages to have some developmental delays. Even under the best of circumstances a caregiver cannot be a mommy or daddy to 5-10 babies in one room. Add to that limited finances, so toys are scarce and playtime a challenge, and it's not surprising that babies often are a little behind in gross and fine motor skills.
When we received Sophie, for the 1st day she was pretty much immobile. I'm not sure if it was out of fear of her new surroundings or simply because she hadn't had the freedom to move about, but that first day she just laid where ever we put her.
By the next day she had already figured out how to roll over and could sit up on her own for a few seconds at a time. Now Sophie is doing the army low crawl all over the house, can sit up for as long as she wants and is just beginning to pull herself up on low things (like BJ or I when we are on the floor.
It is amazing to see how much progress she's already made. She's 10 1/2 months and though she isn't quite at that level, she is catching up quickly.
Our newest milestone is picking up cheerios and putting them in her mouth. She just started this two days ago, and she gets about 1 out of 4 in her mouth. Its so fun to see how proud she is of herself when she actually gets one.

Day 13

Well...we finally got the whirlybird to slow down enough to fall asleep. We are pretty sure that she has spent the last 10 months so wrapped up in clothes that she could barely move, much less roll around or crawl. Now that we are in a room with heat and we can take some of the layers of clothes off of her she has discovered how to roll and move. And let me tell you...it is non stop. Even while she is sleeping. I think I have a dislocated jaw from a heel strike and April might have a broken nose from a flailing kick. This kid doesn't stop moving...that should make for a fun 14 hour plane ride!

Today was very low key...as you can tell from the pictures we did a lot of napping in preparation for 20 hours of planes trains and automobiles tomorrow. April and I managed to get everything packed while Sophie was napping and surprisingly we do not have to buy a new suitcase. We have been using things, like diapers, and throwing things away so we have managed to make enough room in the suitcases to fit all of the things that we bought. Not bad if we do say so ourselves.

So...tomorrow is Day 14 in China, we have a 14 hour plane ride, and there are 14 letters in the phrase "Last Day in China"...coincidence? I think not. I am off to bed...we have to meet the van at 6 tomorrow morning and I have a night of getting kicked in the nose ahead of me...looking forward to a crib!!!

Talk to everyone when we are in the states!

BJ, April, and Sophie!