Getting into the Groove of Home Life - week of March 1st

At this point, night times were still really rough although feeling more normal in the day.  Isaac was just crying and crying at bedtime but was very happy all day long, although he was not eating as voraciously as he had in China - we figured that perhaps he had kind of stabilized and did not feel the need to cram it all in.  He was still crying when going to bed and waking up through the night.  On Tuesday the 2nd, on the fifth day after going to the doctor, we found out that the poor boy had a massive ear infection!  I had taken the children down to our friend Ellen's house so that she could meet Isaac and so that Indigo and Sarah could be together.  Yvonne, Ellen's mom-in-law was also there, staying with Ellen after the sad loss of her husband Bill, Sarah's YeYe.   It was so nice to see Yvonne and to have her meet Isaac as she had been with us also when we were in China adopting Indigo and Sarah.  Anyway, Ellen made chicken congee for Isaac and he wolfed it - seemed to be saying, thank goodness these people are finally feeding me properly.  Unfortunately, I have no photos of the kids playing - I thought it was a miracle that I got there with them both by myself!  It was my first outing alone with the two of them and in my jet lag state, I was quite impressed.  While sitting with him at lunch, I saw that he had a whole ton of guck in his right ear - his ear drum had obviously perfed.  We felt so terrible for not realizing what had been going on with him, but we just had not thought that since he had already been to the doctor who had said his ears were fine.   We also did not have a history of ear infections with Indigo so no alarms were ringing.  We thought our poor guy was struggling with his new room and waking scared etc.  We just felt terrible.  I was furious at the doctor but then a bunch of the moms at Indigo's school, whose kids have had ear infections, said that they can go to the doctor one day and the doctor won't see anything and then the next day - burst ear drum.   Anyway, the good news is that now he felt a TON better and slept wonderfully and soundly that night.   He was put on antibiotics for 10 days and ear drops for 10 days - yes, putting in those ear drops was a real blast, and you know who got to be the mean mommy who had to do it.   The change was immediate.   All is well that ends well, we just feel bad that he had to suffer and that we were so clueless.

On Thursday the sun was out (oh, it can be so deceiving).   I was very keen to see our horse Dan and so planned an outing to the barn.   Our friend Pam lives close by so I rang her up to say I was taking the kids there and she was able to meet us with her children.    There was actually quite a bitter wind so it was cold and as you can see from the photos - there was still snow on the ground from the blizzard that happened while we were in China.   We still had a great time and Dan loved being fed a whole bunch of carrots and the kids enjoyed running free.    It was a fun time and good to have both children out in the fresh air.  As you can see, bathtime continues to be a much happier affair than those first few baths with Isaac in China.  He still does not love the hair washing but it's much better and he loves the bath.

On Friday, Indigo's class was on the Bimah to do the Shabbat blessings and so I took Isaac to her school and David met us there.   The boy that Indigo is with is Noah - her current class favorite.   After the service we went back to Indigo's classroom while the children were all picked up and Isaac got to play in the classroom.  He will be attending the same school next year so we want him to get used to going there.  Later, when Indigo was with Jessie and Ava, Ava's mum painted her face, hence the butterfly photo.

More photos here:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/7322989@N05/sets/72157624060914682