WE SURVIVED WEEK ONE

Our first week with Vivi went really well considering all that could have gone not well. :) First off, she slept on the exact same schedule as all of us from day one. We all recovered from being on China time at the same rate. She has always been an amazing sleeper and that was a huge blessing. So often this is not the case with China babies. Overall, she adapted very quickly to her new surroundings. Stella was at school during the day and quickly Vivi became accustomed to being in her car seat to drop off and pick up her sister from school. She realized very quickly that she could cry as much as she wanted, but it didn't get her out of that car seat any faster. This was one of the first signs to me that showed how smart she was. She was usually happy but calm without Stella and Brent around. I am sure it was an adjustment to just have her momma with her all day. When we would pick up Stella she would giggle at her big sister. They were always the first giggles of the day.

She had to visit the doctor a few times. We saw him right away and everything looked fine. She had to get her first round of vaccines, and of course she hated it. I had to take her back because she developed this rash thing on her chest, and I didn't want to ignore it. We made quite a few visits to the doctor those first few days.

I struggled the most on the second day alone with her. Having a toddler all of the sudden on your heels that whines and cries and is ALWAYS into something was more of an adjustment than I was ready for. I mean, I knew it would be hard, but of course I just couldn't predict how taxing the change would be. I wanted my peace back. I felt like everyone would expect that I should be just SO happy to have my baby home, but I wasn't. She still felt like mostly an interloper in my life and it was tricky at times. After a particularly bad day she came over to eat some orange. She started to play with the peel and I told her to go and throw it in the garbage. I had told her the day before what the garbage was and what we did with it. She picked up the peel and walked right over to the trash can and threw it away. I was ASTOUNDED. She had understood me. At that moment, I knew we were going to be okay.

That Saturday, April 22, Stella got out the karaoke machine, and Vivi grabbed the other mic and started to sing her whole heart out. It was one of the first times I really saw her personality shine through. It was adorable.

Sunday I took her to church and we ended up staying all three hours. I even sat with her in nursery. (Which was a mistake, since I am pretty sure she caught a horrible cold there that we struggled with the following week.) After church I realized I didn't have many pictures of me and my girls so we went out on the porch and took about 60 selfies. We finally got the perfect picture, so it was worth it.

One amazing transformation from Vivi is that she stopped her adorable kissy face pop noise. She made that noise for us on our first night and she would do it for everyone, even strangers. I thought it was adorable at first. However, once we got home I realized that she would also do it at me when I would chastise her (usually over a safety thing). She would look at me all sad and then make that little kissy pop at me and smile. I realized she was trying to be adorable so I would love her again. It didn't take me long to kind of hate it. I wanted her to know that I love her no matter what. Well I realized that after our first week home when she totally stopped the kissy pop thing. It made me feel like she was feeling comfortable and confident in our love for her. Our first full week was certainly full of highs and lows, but I was feeling a lot more settled. And so was Miss Vivien.