stuff from the world's only Derek Bonesteel
Words can't describe how excited we were! This was her first night not to be awake for 3+hours during her bedtime.
She went to bed at 7:30 last night, then woke up at 8:30. Jessica talked her back to sleep by 9:15 and she slept until 7:15 this morning!!!! As importantly, Jessica and I got a decent nights sleep for the first time since we've been back in the States.
Other than sleep issues
It's been a wild time, and a bit challenging. The good news is Ava took to all of us immediately. She laughed and laughed with us off and on all day. We went to the grocery store and out to eat, and she was a champ. She played with the girls and played with us a ton. She seems very curious and very funny. She loves to have fun and giggle and laugh. She also seems very healthy, but we have a lot to learn about where she is developmentally. He can cruise, but probably not walk on her own yet. She loves to touch and scratch things, very tactile.
The bad news is we are trapped in some kind of bizarre sleep netherworld. Ava was supposed to nap for 2 hours at 1:00pm yesterday. We tried to put her down but she cried and cried and cried and cried. We couldn't let her cry it out in the crib because the crib the hotel provided has sides slow low that she jumped right out. Thankfully I was ready and caught her or she would have landed hard on her face! So she missed her nap.
Her bedtime is 7:00pm and we had her asleep in our bed by 7:30pm and she is still asleep. However, she wakes up and cries for 20 seconds about once an hour.
Our older girls on the other hand are in a totally different schedule. Yesterday they woke up at 1:30am. We couldn't get them to sleep, so they were just up. That came back to bite us yesterday afternoon when they put themselves down for a nap at 3:00pm!!! That nap lasted until about 2 hours ago (1:00am). Right now (3:00am) we are awake, I'm typing this, the girls are watching Mary Poppins, and Jessica is laying in bed with Ava. So we are basically functioning with 3 kids on 2 different sleep schedules. Jessica and I are very tired! Irrationally tired. Please pray we can all get on a semi-normal sleep schedule!!!!!!!!
This is us with Ava's foster mother and an orphanage worker. The foster mother has a 6 year old at home as well.
Everyone is a helper!
I had her asleep like this for a few minutes, but she freaked when I tried to lay her down.
We have some better pictures and a ton of video, but I can't upload the video, and some of the pictures are in the other room, where she is sleeping.
It's 1:24am Monday morning (11:24am Sunday morning in Houston) here in China and we are all 4 wide awake!!! This is probably not good. Pray we can all get back to sleep in a little while. Roughly 8 hours til we meet Ava.
Wow!!!!!!!!
We were so tired on the flight from Shanghai to Hefei we all 4 crashed out. I was asleep before we took off. Best hour of sleep ever!
Current time in Hefei, China = 11:34 pm. Current time in Houston = 9:36am.
Haven't figured out how to view/post on Facebook or Twitter yet, so someone may need to post links on my wall or something for that to work.
We just put the girls to bed. All said and done, we left Jessica's parents house at 4:30am on Friday, and we arrived in our hotel room at roughly 8:45am on Saturday. For 28 hours of travelling I don't feel that bad. Although we are super tired, I think I'll stay up for a little while and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..............
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