One Month Home

This is probably not the best time to reflect on our one month home. Not because things aren't going well but because month two is going to look so different than month one. Josh goes back to work next week and boy is that a hard pill for me to swallow. In a few short days instead of our tandem zone defense I'll be going 3 on 1 with the littles. My head is spinning just thinking about it. I have no plan for how I'm going to hold everything down without Josh. That's on the imminent section of my non-existent to-do list.

We are most definitely still adjusting to our new normal and everything doesn't feel "just right" yet. I think that has less to do with adoption and more to do with just still trying to figure out having three young and very active children and trying to juggle all of their needs and wants along with the necessity of discipline and training AND educating them AND keeping our home in a state of at least minimal sanitation (ok, really, it's better than that, but you know what I mean) AND feeding everyone. It just still feels like a lot.

Samuel is a treasure. He is sweet and affectionate toward us, and his little smile still melts my heart on the daily. When he smiles he doesn't just smile with his mouth, but literally his whole face is transfixed, and he lights up from top to bottom. He loves to be held and hugged and kissed, and I tell him about a thousand times a day that he's our son and we're gonna love him forever. I was nervous before we met Samuel that holding him and snuggling him wouldn't feel as comfortable and "right" as it does with Harvey and Verity, but I was so wrong...he is mine and I love wrapping him in my arms and holding him for as long as he'll let me!

But he is also wild and crazy and fun. He wants to do everything Harvey is doing, even the things that he can't do like the monkey bars, diving in the pool, jumping off high places, etc. It's fun to see him always trying new things and running around like a crazy person following after his big brother. And Harvey (mostly) LOVES having him follow him around. One of my favorite phrases to hear from Harvey is "Ohhhh, Didi!" in a long drawn out voice as he beckons Samuel to come jump on the bed or keep him company in the bathroom. It is so fun to have a brother!  (Didi = little brother)

We have been home a month and we still definitely don't feel any where near ready to leave Samuel with a baby-sitter or in any kind of nursery set-up (like church, etc). Although we feel so good about how he is doing with us and we feel like we're on the road to building trust, we can sense his fear and anxiety if he thinks he's going to be left. We've visited the church nursery a couple times and we'll keep visiting but he won't stay in there without us yet. This past week Josh's family was in town and Josh and I wanted to try to run for 30 minutes and leave all 3 kids with them but Samuel was clearly not okay with that so we changed our plan and went separately. No big deal, especially for being a month in, but I do hope that eventually we can leave him with friends or family so that we can get some time alone outside of the house or attend adult functions, etc. As Josh heads back to work and as I hunker down at home (as opposed to heading back to work myself) the weight of not being able to leave him even to go to a doctor's appointment or volunteer at Harvey's school is a little heavy.

Before this summer and the addition of a third little to our bunch I was not looking forward to sending Harvey to Kindergarten. Even as un-sentimental as I can be, I know this is the end of his little years with us and I love having him home. I genuinely enjoy his personality and he keeps us laughing through our days but this summer has helped me see that we are all ready for him to embark on the education landscape awaiting him. He'll only be going to school part time (yay!) but I think it will be the perfect chance for me to get some time with just the younger two and it will be a great chance for him to get some time to interact with his peers. He has done so well adjusting to having Samuel around but his life with two two year old siblings has, at times, caused him to lower his maturity level to the lowest common denominator. He is a great playmate for Verity and Samuel but he needs some time away with peers who can meet him on his level. School starts August 16th for him and I'm (finally) excited about that.

Bringing Samuel into relationship with Harvey and Verity has brought so much joy to our home. Of course it's not all sunshine and rainbows all the time, we do our share of refereeing and breaking up fights and time-outs and apologies, BUT the times when the three of them are all playing happily together my heart seriously wells up with joy. After dinner as I was vacuuming up a not insignificant amount of long grain rice from around our table I could hear the roar of our three children laughing together and running around like a bunch of crazy goons over the vacuum. Their after dinner second wind often leads to these spontaneous moments of laughter and joy and I just can't get enough. If only I could give them a shot in the arm to remind them of how happy they are capable of being with each other during other times of the day when they're bickering and fussing and snatching toys away from each other. 

Tonight at dinner as I was clearing away the dishes Samuel and Harvey were thumping each other on the arm and laughing and giggling and I felt this overwhelming joy at the thought that they have the rest of their lives to laugh and play and be friends and this is only just the beginning. We certainly did not adopt so that our other children could have another sibling but that is one beautiful benefit of adoption. We also did not adopt so that our other children could learn about the world or about the wonders of language or about the harsh reality of orphans and the beauty of adoption but that has happened too. We are all learning so much and having Samuel here with us has brought us into a new and wonderful dimension and realization about our world - both on the inside and the outside.

Going forward we have a lot of milestones in front of us that we'd like to meet. One is having Josh sleep in our bed on a permanent basis instead of on the boy's trundle bed (which we're making strides toward). Another is learning English - Samuel's got a handful of words in his repertoire - hello, bye bye, night night, please, OK, na-na-boo-boo (that's an important one), yummy, and digger - but he's got to learn more so that he can communicate with others. We can tell he is understanding a lot more than he's producing (which is exactly how language acquisition works) and he's starting to like books more and more (instead of always humming or talking over the reader - that can be real annoying) which is great and will help his vocabulary. We hope he will grow to love reading as much as Harvey and Verity do, if not more. We expect the language piece to take a while but we're encouraged by what we see so far. I hope by mid-September he'll be ready for the church nursery and for the children's program at the women's Bible study I attend. We will see. We definitely don't want to push him into anything too quickly so we need wisdom for all of these areas.

Thanks for sticking with us on the journey! 

Loving Home

We've been back together for two weeks now and Verity and Samuel both still cheer almost every time we return home from an outing...no matter how much fun we've had they are always happy to see our little blue house come into sight. These cheers help remind me that we are doing the right thing with the remainder our summer - sticking close to home.

This week both of our families are all together on vacation. My family is all together in New Jersey visiting my dad's extended family and Josh's family is all together spending the week at a North Carolina beach. We were so tempted to throw our family in the van and head off to join them but we restrained ourselves this time (it helped that we would've had to choose between them making it easier to opt out altogether). We HATE missing out on these huge quality time opportunities with our families but it has been abundantly clear that for at least two of us (Samuel and Verity) the stability of home is too huge to give up right now.

A lot of people talk about "cocooning" with newly adopted children - sticking close to home and family to help establish the new family member. This is pretty much what we're up to although we're not extreme about it. We're out and about and, the majority of our time, it's just the five of us but we have had some time with friends which has gone really well so far. We are pretty hard core that no one else picks him up or hugs him or gives him food...that stuff all comes from mom and dad. So far he's been very good about not indiscriminately associating with strangers or people he doesn't know well, he likes to stick with us which is exactly what we want.

Samuel seems to be in the middle of an active roll call all the time. He's constantly going over the five of us ("Baba, Ami, GeGe, MeiMei, Yuanyuan") and if someone is missing he wants to know where they are and when they'll be back. Even in the middle of the night when he's awake sometimes he wants to know where everyone is and what they're doing and we go through the list. I love that we can actively see him solidifying our family in his mind. Yes, Samuel, we are your people!

We have several family pictures hanging in our house and on our fridge that go through the stages of our family...of course there are pictures with no children, then just Harvey, then Harvey and Verity. A lot of times he asks where he is or he'll name himself as one of the people in the picture (even a picture of just Josh and I...he'll say it's Samuel and Mommy). I'm so glad that I already had several pictures of him around our house so that he can see himself and see that he is one of us! He often wants me to pick him up in the kitchen so he can look at the pictures of himself on the fridge.  I can't wait to get some pictures taken so that we can hang a new family picture up with all five of us. I'm pretty sure he'll love it. 

Samuel still continues to adjust really well. He is a sweet sweet child and just has the biggest warmest smile. I'm telling you, that smile is going to take him places. It is contagious and if he's asking for something it's almost impossible to say no when he flashes that huge smile, though we manage. 

Yesterday we got back the pictures from the disposable cameras we sent to his foster family. They are PRICELESS! A lot of the pictures are just of him playing by himself at a playground but there are some pictures of him with his foster family and of their apartment and around the outside of their building. I bought a little album for him and put the pictures in so he can look at them any time he wants. He was a little emotional when we looked at the pictures yesterday but not overly so. We still need wisdom for how to get on his little 2 year old level to help him understand all that's happened over his short little life. If you have advice, let me know. 

Our biggest hardship is by far managing what now feels like a house full of children. I know we just added one more but gosh it really feels like we doubled or tripled our population. Food and meal times have been really challenging. I've probably gone to the store every two or three days and I always tell myself that I'm not going again for a week only to find out two days later that I drastically underestimated the amount of produce we consume. For a while we were preparing some different foods for Samuel while he got adjusted to our American diet but that led to all sorts of chaos and special meal requests by the others so I've pretty much given that up and now everyone eats what everyone else is eating so that I don't lose my mind. 

It has helped that Samuel LOVES peanut butter and jelly (totally unexpected) and will eat cereal (also unexpected) at breakfast alongside of his hard-boiled eggs. In our first ten days home we went through 4 dozen eggs. FOUR DOZEN. And it wasn't like we were eating scrambled eggs or making omelets or anything - 45 of those eggs were hard boiled and the majority were eaten by Samuel. Not kidding. He eats more than Harvey and Verity combined and that's not just true for eggs but for everything. Whatever home and food managing skills I thought I had acquired in the last 9 years are in for a big-time makeover as we juggle more people and more food and more laundry and more everything. 

Samuel is doing great trying new foods. He often likes a new dish on his first try but, if not that try, then maybe the one following or the one after that. Sometimes he'll refuse something for breakfast (like blueberry muffins) but then when it's still sitting out on the counter mid-morning he's eager to try again and will often woof it down. One thing that he's absolutely fallen madly in love with is ketchup. It is not uncommon to see him licking up a pile of ketchup by itself off his plate or dipping his strawberries or mandarin oranges into it. He's taken this part of his American identity on full-force. I think it's probably the vinegar that makes him like it so much...that and he loves tomatoes and when you add a little sugar, it's the perfect combination! 

While the food management has been a challenge it's been a huge help to have friends bring in dinner for us several nights a week. Not having to fix dinner several nights is a huge relief as we figure things out and also allows us to spend more quality time together. Thanks to everyone who is a part of that. It's huge! 

5 Days In

Let's be honest. Jet lag is giving us a run for our money. Four out of five family members were awake before 5am today. It was not awesome. Guess who was still asleep at 5am? That's right, it was Samuel, the new golden child. Don't worry though, he was up by 6 and we were finished with breakfast and four activities into our day by 7 and by the time we rolled into the zoo at 9 it felt like it was time for lunch. I think we may have weaned the troops off of their sleeping aids a little too soon.

By 6:30 this evening Harvey was sitting at the dinner table begging and pleading for us to let him go to bed. SMH. We gave in and let him crawl into bed at 7 but I'm sure I'll regret that decision tomorrow morning. Verity isn't really fighting jet lag, per se...she's just really awesome at mornings or at least that's what I'm telling myself for now. Most mornings recently I've had to drag myself out of the pit of doom telling myself that surely this too will pass and some day in the future our sweet little cherubs will sleep until 7 again and I can drink my coffee alone. 

I do have to say that they all (right now) go to bed easily and peacefully and sleep through the night and that is more than I could ask for. I know we could be fighting sleep battles morning and night and in the middle of the night so really we are doing very well. 

Luckily they all wake in fairly happy moods and are generally pleasant to be around. It is so interesting having 3 very active children. Interesting like the circus is interesting. Because that's pretty much what's going on in the Shelley household. One of the best ways to connect the kids and connect us with them is simply by playing together and trying to facilitate their little relationships. There have been very few times when they are all playing together but there are lots of times when two of them are happily playing and the third one is upset or trying to torment the happy ones (and they take turns with these roles). 

Adding an additional 2 year old turns up the crazy in our house by a lot. It's not like a newborn that everyone can just warm up to over time and who gradually gets more aware and more active; who steals mom and dad's attention for diaper changes, feeding, and snuggling. Nope. Samuel is full of personality and loves to play and laugh and create and he's entered a whole new world with two siblings who don't speak his language and who have some expectations for how things ought to go (and how they ought to go is "my way"). This is a big transition for all of them and it is hard and they all have their ugly moments (as do Josh and I) to work through. 

What a gift it is that Josh is a teacher and has the summer off -- I have never needed him home more. I am so grateful for these weeks we can truly invest in this little crew and truly settle in. The tag-team method of parenting is vital when they out-number you, particularly as we add Samuel and help him learn our family norms. One of us can focus on whatever child is crying, hurting, biting, hitting, tormenting, or using the potty while the other one can keep the rest of the crew intact or maybe actually get something done around the house like unpacking, meal prep, dishes, or the endless cycle of cleaning up toys. 

We've had some good break throughs with Samuel. We are going very light on discipline with all of our kids, mostly implementing a "time in" (time out where mom or dad sits with you) to help facilitate connection with us. Yesterday, after a fairly large incident, our only requirement was that Samuel apologize and we had a 45 minute stand off where he refused to apologize (we've worked on this a lot since he joined our family and it usually goes pretty quickly). This has happened once before and he ended up just falling asleep and never apologized but yesterday after 45 minutes he said those three magical words "dui bu qi" ("I'm sorry" in Chinese) and we celebrated and hugged and kissed and danced around like a bunch of crazy loons. We are hoping he is starting to get the idea that conflict resolution is good and happy and right. I sat with him and held him during that long 45 minutes and I was just so grateful that Josh was at home and could man the other two kids so that I could just be with him. Several other incidents requiring apologies have happened since then and he has done great with those. I know this is still just the beginning but we are grateful for any progress we see. We want him to know we are for him and love him dearly. 

We are using Karyn Purvis' The Connected Child book and the material from the Empowered to Connect Conference as our main guide for figuring everything out. I cannot recommend the Connected Child book more. I keep it on my kitchen counter and I can flip through it in a down moment and read what I've underlined or starred and get help as we're in the throes of such an intense time of parenting. These materials are geared toward adoptive families but we have implemented a lot of the strategies with Harvey and Verity even before adopting and they have been very helpful. 

Sweet Verity is doing better and better but still gets anxious when another adult comes into our home with fear that we're going to leave her. We have literally no plans in the next 6 months that will require a babysitter and do not plan on leaving her or Samuel with anyone but she is still anxious about it. Poor girl. Keep praying for her! 

Home

We made it home at last late Thursday evening. Our travel went exceptionally well. Samuel was awake for the first few hours of the long flight but slept the last 9 hours straight and we woke him up at the gate in Detroit when we landed.  Harvey only slept a couple of hours on the long flight but he was completely satisfied to sit in his seat and watch movies the rest of the time.

Josh and I were very groggy on the flight to Memphis fighting to keep our eyes open to entertain the boys and fight jet-lag head on. Excitement sat in as we landed and walked through the airport to meet Verity. It was a late night for our sweet girl but she met us with smiles and happily chased Harvey around the airport. So glad for all the many prayers answered for our family to return back together with the addition of Samuel after these long 3 weeks. It was the best feeling.

Our first night home was rough. So little sleep and two little boys who wanted to do anything but stay in bed. Last night was way better.  We've been trying to get lots of time outside and limiting naps to ward off the jet lag but it is a battle.

Samuel has done well in our home so far. I think he's overwhelmed with all the newness and the new toys and opportunities but I think he likes it, at least on a superficial level.  His favorite part of our house is our backyard. He spent hours out there today in spite of 90+ temps and a lot of humidity. We count birds instead of buses now and he adores all the airplanes that fly overhead. 

We showed Samuel the picture book we were given on adoption day for the first time today. He loved flipping through his pictures and didn't get upset when he saw the pictures of him with his foster family. He was reflective and sweet and we talked about them a little bit but that was all. I'm sure he's still hazy about what is going on. I wonder if he thinks this is just a little vacay for a while and then he'll get to go back? Who knows? I really wish I knew what he was thinking. We have two disposable cameras that we sent to his foster family in April that we hope have more pictures on them but we'll have to figure out where we can get those developed before we find out.  

As we've spent time together at home I am realizing more and more how little I know Samuel. Oh how I wish I could've been a fly on the wall for just one day of his life before adoption to see how he lived and what he filled his time doing and what kinds of things he ate and played with - how he interacted with his family and how they interacted with him. I know this life is so so different but I just wish I could compare the two to get a glimpse of what he might be thinking...I just have no idea. He is sweet and kind and fun to be around but I just know there's so much I don't know. 

I keep having to remind myself as I get overwhelmed with our new stage of life that this is only the beginning and most beginnings are really hard. Fighting jet lag and figuring out food and discipline and building community with these three little amigos is exhausting. This is truly the most intense parenting we've ever done. Please keep praying for us. Pray that we'll have enough energy to be the kind of parents our kids need, to help them in their battles to love one another. Pray that we will provide what Samuel needs to feel that he really truly belongs to our family. Pray that we can help Verity through separation anxiety and the fear of being left. Pray that Josh and I will be strengthened as we parent together and that this new challenge will grow our marriage and our friendship. We are weary but hopeful of all that is to come.

Guangzhou

Just two more days separate us from a 3-flight transcontinental journey back home to Memphis with Samuel in tow. Although China has been amazing we are very very eager to get back to Verity and be reunited with her. Definitely the hardest part of this has been not having her sweet presence with us. However, I do wish I could take the buffet breakfasts and the maid service back home with us! : ) 

Here in Guangzhou we've been staying at the Garden Hotel which has been really sweet. Above you can see Harvey feeding the fish in the gardens. Aside from it just being a nice hotel, there are about 90 other adoptive families staying here and it has been so encouraging to see them and get to know some of them since we're walking in each other's shoes. I have been so encouraged to see families who have returned to China for their 2nd or 3rd (or 5th or 6th) adoption and to see how many people are adopting older children in the 10-13 age range. Praise the Lord that these children are orphans no more! Everyone here has a story about how God led their family on this crazy journey to China and to their specific child...my faith has grown as we've listened and seen Him put families together through adoption. 

Saturday we took Samuel for his medical check that he had to have in order to apply for his United States visa. It went very smoothly and there were only tears when they took him away from us to do the TB blood draw. But he calmed down quickly once we got him back and popped a sucker in his mouth. 

This morning our family will go with several other families to the US consulate to officially apply for Samuel's visa. We'll take an oath and sign a bunch of papers and hopefully tomorrow afternoon we'll get his little red passport back with a US visa in it. We will enter the US through Detroit on Thursday and as soon as he's stamped in by immigration Samuel will officially become a United States citizen. We've been working on English a little bit the last couple days but so far the only things he can say are "hello," "bye bye," and "no." I'm sure that will change quickly once we get home. 

Please continue to pray for our family through this transition! On my mind right now are the 28-hour journey home, jet lag, reuniting with Verity, and helping Samuel feel comfortable in our home... there is so much more to add but those are the biggies for Thursday and over the weekend. 

While we've been in Guangzhou attending these various appointments we've also been killing time making memories with Samuel in his home country. Yesterday we had a big day. We left the hotel pretty early and took the subway to the Wild Animal Safari Park that is just barely outside of the city. We were a little hesitant to go but we were so glad we did! It was the most amazing zoo we've ever been to and both boys loved it. 

The park was huge and beautiful and had so many animals. By far the best thing about the park were the shows. We went to the monkey show first and it was amazing. Monkeys were climbing everywhere, I took the picture below from our seats and you can see monkeys are almost directly over our heads. If you've heard our stories from India you'll know we aren't super fond of them but the show was funny and none of the animals attacked anyone! Big win!

After the monkey show we followed the crowd to the hippo show and Samuel got to eat his very first peanut butter and jelly! I was pretty sure he'd reject it but he ate the whole thing and asked for more. 

The hippo show was really fun. Their hippos are pretty small and young but they brought out so many other animals: giraffes, zebras, flamingos, wildebeests, pelicans, gazelles, and a ton of other things. You can see here how close they got to the crowd. In the picture below they were tossing carrots into the mouth of the hippo. 

Samuel's first inquiry at all of the shows was: "they're going to bite me!" We reassured him that we wouldn't let that happen and he enjoyed all of the animals immensely. He didn't know a lot of the names of different animals so it was fun telling him what they were and how to say them. 

Here the boys are at the end of the show as they herded the animals back out of the theater. 

We also went to an elephant show. It was great but very similar to what you (used to) see at the circus so we weren't quite as impressed with it. The elephants played basketball, soccer, and did a lot of cool tricks. Here's Harvey with a baby elephant!

Here's a koala! Our first time ever seeing koalas that I know of. They were really cute! 

It was very hot and humid outside so we stopped for water a lot and after the elephant show got some ice cream. Thank goodness for the park's stroller rental or we never would've made it in the heat! 

We also got to see a lot of pandas. Below are triplet pandas (the only ones in the world) nursing from their mom. It was the only picture I could get of them altogether. 

You could feed the giraffes for 15 rmb (less that $3) but we had used all of our cash for our stroller deposit and there wasn't an ATM in the park (we could use a credit card for concessions) so since we couldn't buy any of the real food we just picked up leaves off the ground and feed them those. Worked just as well! 

We also saw a tiger show and lots of baby tigers! This was seriously the best zoo ever! 

A baby tiger sleeping in the cub nursery:

We used our camera's timer to get a group shot before we left the park. We had a great time but we were tuckered out. We splurged for a taxi to take us back to the hotel hoping that Samuel would catch part of his nap in the car. He finally fell asleep after a while and slept about 30 minutes but we mistakenly didn't take him to the bathroom before we left the park and he ended up giving Josh a nice surprise while he slept! Whoops! 

We returned to the hotel and took showers and baths and then headed out with our adoption group for a little dinner boat ride along the Pearl River here in Guangzhou. Samuel took one look at the boat and said "airplane!" We're going to have to work on transportation names! We counted boats along the river just like we count buses when we're on land. 

The boat was really fun, we got to eat with another family and watch the scenery go by. Dinner was a Chinese buffet so I loaded Samuel up with a lot of different things just to see what he might eat. One of those things was a chicken foot. Lots of Chinese people eat chicken feet so I was curious. He picked it up and put it in an empty cup and told us he was afraid it was going to grab him! And he most certainly did not eat it! Haha. Here Samuel's trying to get Harvey to smile for the camera:

Guangzhou is really big and we loved seeing the city by boat. I was only a little nervous that someone would jump ship while we were riding...there were signs every where that said "take care of your children." Luckily we came home with everyone in tact. 

Toward the end of the ride there was a circus lady doing tricks and things in the dining room. Here she is juggling knives:

I'm thankful for these sweet memories we are making with our boys in China. We are already thinking about when we will come back (with Verity!) to make more memories with them. Oh how we love this country! So glad for our time here and all the special people we've met. 

Good-bye Taiyuan, Hello GuangZhou

Samuel was up early this morning and Harvey and Josh were still asleep so I had a good chance to get some alone time playing with my new boy. We sat by the big window in the living area and watched for buses and construction vehicles and played with cars. The phone rang a little while after we got up and it was Grace, our guide, calling to say that our flight to Guangzhou had been cancelled so she had booked us on another flight leaving 2.5 hours earlier. Our morning was a little more rushed but I think it helped the emotions not to linger...especially since Samuel was completely at peace with us packing up and leaving. I have no idea what's going through that little boy's mind right now but he is happy and easy to get along with, for the most part, so we're just going with it. 

I went on a run down by the river while Josh packed a bit and then we all met up for breakfast before a last minute cram-everything-in-the-bags packing session. Below is a picture of us with our adoption guide, Grace, and the guy who drove us around all week (I hate to say it, but we were so pre-occupied with everything we didn't even ask his name, sadly). They were both so easy going and so helpful to us. Grace did endless amounts of paperwork for us this week and I attribute our getting to visit Samuel's orphanage and meet his foster family to her (and your prayers!). 

Our flight to Guangzhou was just a little over two hours and Samuel did great! He flew like he'd been flying all his life. He was loud and excited during take off and then fell asleep for a half hour and then pretty much just sat on Josh's lap and ate snacks happily for the rest of the flight. It was easy peasy... thank you Lord! 

We arrived to the sweaty, humid embrace of Guangzhou's summer.  Seriously...I thought I was in Memphis, it is so hot! Luckily our hotel here has a nice outdoor pool and we hit it up right away. They have the PERFECT kid's pool and the boys had a wonderful time playing and jumping off the edge. If only Samuel would stop running around on the wet tile! He's already super clumsy on his feet and adding wet tile just makes my heart jump. He's fallen down several times but luckily hasn't gotten injured yet. We are working on obeying but running is something that we're having a hard time with in general - I think it's just his little boy nature to run and maybe he thinks we're playing when we tell him to stop and walk. Just this evening a woman came to fix something in our bathroom and left the door to our room open, unbeknownst to us...Samuel ran out into the hall but eventually came back on his own, we didn't even know he'd gone out! Scary! Josh is constantly paranoid that he's going to run off into traffic or something which just makes for a lot of anxiety. 

The boys are getting along well but they are definitely having to get used to each other. Sometimes Harvey surprises me with how sweet he is to Samuel but other times he has a hard time sharing with him, which is obviously totally normal. One thing that's surprised me has been Harvey's attitude toward his old hand-me-down clothes that Samuel has been wearing (the ones that still look decent anyway). They are most definitely too small for him and he didn't blink when I packed them away two years ago but all of a sudden he nostalgically wants them again. After several days I think he's finally getting used to it, at least I'm glad to know he's liked his wardrobe!  

We have a very strict rule in our house that we share all of our toys. Harvey and Verity each have a little monkey that they sleep with and it's the only sacred object that they don't have to share (unless of course, something isn't age appropriate for whatever other chid is around). Samuel came to us with the clothes on his back, a backpack full of snacks, and one plastic truck. That truck has been deemed the one thing he doesn't have to share with other kids and still Harvey tries to take it away from him a couple times a day. I know he can't truly understand the idea of literally only having one toy to your name but that was Samuel when he came to us. We are still taking his Mickey Mouse backpack and plastic truck everywhere we go (at his insistence, though we don't argue) and if he still wants to do that ten years from now that is fine by me, I'll pack that thing and send him off to college with it if that's what he wants. 

But even though Harvey has his normal sibling struggles with Samuel, all in all he is traveling so well. Every flight has been easy with him, even the ones without tv and movies to watch, and he hasn't complained once about eating Chinese food for almost every meal. When I took him to the bathroom on our flight today I almost fell over when he told me he ate the fish balls they served for lunch! Seriously, I could not believe it. I think it helps that he's had a consistent diet of pancakes for breakfast every morning thanks to the glorious breakfast buffet at our hotel. He has played a huge role in helping Samuel to learn our family culture and how we do things, and of course, he's a constant playmate. This trip would have been so different without him and I wouldn't trade having him here for anything. It is so fun to have brothers in our family now...we are praying for a strong bond between them as they grow up together. 

Even though Samuel is almost 3 in some ways he seems like a newborn because around every corner is something cute or funny that we want to capture in a photo because it's all so new to us!