Points of Progress

Virginia Grace is making so much progress! It's amazing how far she has come in just the last two weeks home.

- She lets Scott hold her and even let him give her a bath AND put her to bed last night!

- She let my MIL hold her for a few minutes last week while I was holding Carter. This was huge!

- She no longer cries when I hold Carter or when Scott hugs me.

- She isn't eating quite as much food. (Though she does play with it a lot.)

- Yesterday, I happened to be watching her on the video monitor during naptime when she sat up in bed, looked around for a few seconds, and laid back down to sleep. Before then, she would always cry as soon as she awoke and saw I wasn't in there with her. This means that her room now feels familiar, and she knows I'm close by even if she can't see me.

- When we pull into the garage, Grace usually cries if I try to get Carter out of his carseat first. Today, he had fallen asleep on the way home from MDO. I opened his door and told her I was going to take him up to his bed and then come back for her. (Like she would understand this.) I paused inside the basement door and didn't hear any crying. A few minutes later, I came back down, opened her door, and received a happy, content smile. She hadn't shed a tear!

- She is not afraid of Jackson (our dog) at all. In fact, she's pretty bossy with him and tells him how it is if he takes any of her crackers.

- She understands "all gone." As in, all the Puffs are gone and I have no more to feed you. As you might recall, she went ballistic on me at the Kunming airport (in front of tons of Chinese observers who could do nothing but stare at us) when we ran out of yogurt melts. Now, I can show her the empty container and she gets it. She's fine and moves on.

-As of this weekend, she will finally finish a bottle. I am so thankful she's getting enough liquids now.

- She understands A LOT of what we say.

- She doesn't always throw a fit when we tell her "no."

Mother's Day was so special yesterday. I haven't forgotten past Mother's Days when I longed for children or mourned those we'd lost, thinking of how old they'd be that day. I haven't forgotten last year when I so desperately wanted to expand our family and yet lost 3 babies in months prior. I still hope and pray for more children, but I was so grateful to sit on the deck with Scott and watch our kids play. I love being a family. But my heart goes out to any of you who shed tears yesterday because you longed to be celebrated as a mom. Or because you've lost children a long the way. It's a hard day, I know.

I so badly wanted a good picture of me with my son and daughter, but it was quite a challenge. Neither of them wanted to stand still. Or stand next to each other, for that matter. They were into pinching, pushing, and pulling...all the lovely activities you hope for on Mother's Day. :) If only you could see how many pictures we took trying to get just one good one with both kids looking up. I wasn't even asking for a smile.

Here are some candids (and attempts as posing) from yesterday...

The best pics of the day were really of Scott and the kids. :)