My Way or the Thai Way

I've been told there's a pattern for international adoption blogs - once you get the baby, the posts stop cold. And now I know why.

Honestly, in Thailand, the wifi was sooooo spotty and would crash all the time. Trying to do anything online was super frustrating. We had our phones with 4G of data which was fast and reliable (thank-you True-H!), but blogging on there with the tiny little screen... meh.

But today, after being home for three weeks, we have a sort of routine going and I finally feel like I have a bit - a tiny bit - of time where I *can* sit down and write something.

I did keep sort-of daily notes on the rest of our trip, and pretty well stopped that after I got back, which sucks because soooo much changes with her day to day, hour to hour, and it's pretty cool experiencing all of these new things with her, I really should write it down, but when my hands aren't full of her, they're full of dogs, cleaning supplies, food, emails, laundry, shopping, more food... oh well. So, throwback to my first post, here's a top ten of "Since We've Been Home" questions:... mmm nope, this took too long and I'm tired, make that five... maybe five more coming.

1) How was your trip?
Good! As promised, Karn and Pen and Jane and the whole team worked tirelessly to make all the adoption stuff smooth smooth smooth. There were exactly zero issues. Some waiting, but we were able to leave on time and knew we would before we entered the panic zone.
Also kinda boring, but good-boring. Lucy bonded with me almost instantly but was pretty well otherwise terrified of the world around her, so we didn't even attempt to take her out for 'experiences'. She learned to handle the stroller pretty quickly, although walking around there was really tough. We settled on trips to the park, the mall / grocery store, the skywalk, and some restaurants... otherwise, a lotta time in the apartment playing with Cuppies and Cappies and watching (but not really watching) Thomas & His Friends.

2) How was the plane ride?
Long. 31 hours of travel door to door, 3 transfers. Her clinginess to me was starting to let up just a touch before we left, but it was back in full force for the travel. She was totally fine and happy as long as I was holding her. Daddy couldn't hold her with me in the very next seat, even, she would scream. Just glad it's over.

3) How's she doing?
Great! The first four nights were horrible, and we have some whiny cry-crys at dinner time when I'm trying to prepare food and can't pick her up (although I was generously gifted a sling today, so we will try cooking with that tomorrow!) but otherwise she's SOOOOO GOOD. She sleeps and eats like a champ (and learning cutlery!) and everyone who meets her comments on how happy she is! 

4) How are the dogs?
AMAZING! They're not what you'd call 'good' dogs, so we have been pleasantly surprised with their patience with her. She'd never seen a dog before and screamed and shook in terror at them for the first couple days. They did little doggy apologies and gave her the space she needed for the most part (sometimes they can't help but move quickly or brush up on her). It got better day by day and now she'll gladly cuddle and pet them (saying "aaaah, aaaah") and feed them off her spoon (oh I should't allow that, but bonding?!) and give them kisses (although she is not a fan of having that reciprocated). So BIG sigh of relief!

5) Is she speaking English?
Not yet, not real words in context, except bye bye (repeated after me). She seems to understand quite a few things, the first and best of which being "poop face!" and she will show you her poop face on command (but you'd better laugh, she is expecting it for her efforts). She has named her bottle "Meh" and we can communicate about it, which is nice. She vocalizes alllll day long, different syllables and intonations, all good signs. She yodels - "lodeelodeelodeelo" and 'barks' - "woooo wooo"... she knows what to do when we sing "Head and Shoulders" (but prefers the French version, please)... we'll get there!

And I have a bunch of photos to put up but keep getting a new error message I've never seen before and don't feel like dealing with, so sorry non-Facebook / Insta friends!

Worst. Blog. Ever.