One Week Home!

Well, we've been home with Anya over a week now and we're living in the fast lane around here! The three little ones stay busy much of the day.  They are all enjoying having playmates. This is what they did while I worked out in the basement yesterday. I really enjoyed watching them play while I sweat away on the elliptical. It made me so happy!

Anya and Eli are starting to play together a little more.  Sometimes I find them side by side just enjoying each other's company.  It makes my heart melt!  Then there's other times when Eli yells at Anya because he wants to play with something she has...and Anya can hold her own!  Much of my day is spent putting out fires.  But it does seem to be a little less frequent every day.

Anya has discovered the joy of textures!  When we visited her at the orphanage, we brought Play Doh and she wanted nothing to do with it.  Now, she'll sit and play with it for a long time!

Sadie made some cornstarch and water goo after school yesterday. 

Anya thought that she was in heaven!

(Still can't get used to Max's black hair. We dyed it for the play he was in last weekend. It'll be a few weeks before we can buzz it and find his blond color at the bottom.)

Here's what we've noticed about Anya this past week:

She loves going out in the stroller for walks! She just takes it all in and I can tell she enjoys the fresh air and sunshine as much as Eli and I do. I'm one of those people who is happy as long as she gets out for a run or walk every day.  Pushing 65 pounds should whip me right into shape, too. :) I'm so excited! I found a Bob Duallie double running stroller in the classifieds. I've loved my single one and I'm having a hard time wanting to part with it!

The other thing Anya LOVES is baths. She will sit and play in the bathtub for a good 45 minutes. I'm excited to take her swimming this summer. She's going to love that!

Anya is understanding a few key phrases already and responds to them! Namely, "Let's go bye-bye," "Do you need to go pee?" and "Let's brush your teeth."  Each phrase that she grasps takes one less frustration out of our lives, so we celebrate! Word-wise, the only one she has down so far is "Daddy."  She uses it to get his attention, so that's a great start! She still calls me Nena and she says it loudly when she wants my attention. At first it bugged me, now I'm just glad she has some way to communicate when she needs me. She's not ready to say Mom yet, so we'll go with it!

Anya is starting to be more independent. She now wanders into the bathroom herself to take care of things. She even flushes the toilet and washes her hands like a good girl! She has been toilet trained for probably a year now, so I figured she was used to doing that. She just had to get comfortable with things for a few days!

On the health care front, I took Anya to a pediatrician for her first check-up the other day. She's really healthy!  We need to take her in for blood tests to check her Thyroid levels and screen for all the things you normally screen for with DS. 

Next week, we have an appointment with a Pediatric Opthamologist so we can get her some good glasses. I also want to address her blocked tear duct. She has a goopy eye every day.

The doctor also advised me to take her to see an audiologist to make sure she's hearing in the speech range, and a Pediatric Dentist so she can be put under to have her mouth full of cavities taken care of. We can visibly see quite a few in there. Oh, boy! 

A lot of people have asked how things are going with the transition. Here's the scoop:


It's hard much of the time.

BUT it's going so much better than we ever imagined. Anya is so happy despite her life completely changing and the kids are so patient with the changes we've had to make in the family.  They really love her. We can't ask for more than that.

Every time we have our tense moments when Eli is yelling about something he wants and Bennett is complaining about something and Anya is being stubborn (hee hee) we just remind ourselves that this is nothing unexpected! We knew it would be challenging. The next year or two will be some of the most difficult of our lives raising children (at least we hope!) But they will be the most rewarding, too!  This we know. One of the reasons Jeremy and I both believe the Lord lead us to adopt is so that we would stretch out of our comfort zone a little bit (OK...a lot!) so He could help us become what he has in mind for us to be.  We'll take this trial, though.  It's custom-made just for us.

We wouldn't trade Anya for anything in the world! She's already brought so much sunshine into our lives.  We just love her to pieces!