A Bit of Normal Life
Last week, the girls had an unexpected three days off of school (plus the weekend made five), so we had a lot of time to hang out all together at home.
Okay, but "normal" is a bit of a stretch in the title there, because ever since the adoption the girls have been a little freaked out and the house is SO LOUD when everyone is home. And there's a lot more arguing than there was before. But at any rate, we're getting there, and I suppose our new normal is almost certainly going to be louder than our old one anyway, although hopefully the fighting will slow down. But it was pretty nice to be all home together for so many days. We did a lot of home school catch up, played outside a lot, and played with some of our expat friends who are moving back this summer.
We also celebrated a Chinese holiday by making sticky rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaf husks. Now that we have a Chinese child in our family, I feel like we should do more things for Chinese holidays. Which actually is kind of a funny statement, because we've always had Chinese people in our family. But anyway for some reason, since we adopted, I feel like we should do more and H is definitely not complaining about that. So I spent the whole day with a friend wrapping these dumpling things, and wow, was it a challenge. Seriously we spent the whole day on it. But in the end, they were delicious! So I guess it was worth it. I think by next year I might be recovered enough to do it again.
So it was a nice five days together. Although when the girls went back to school on Monday, G had a pretty rough day, so I guess the time off introduced another transition for him. But he's mostly doing better now. Also, I've started reading books to him while he's on the toilet, and it's been super fun to see him start to enjoy books and being read to. I also made a trip to a "library" run by another expat here out of their home and everyone is really excited about all the new books. E has been reading hers to G also, and it's just so extremely cute when kids read to each other. So, we're doing okay and are glad to finally be getting more used to life with three littles!