Our Book of Faces: We Made It Back, and a Week In We're Doing Fine

Time got away from me a little bit. We've been busy and not a lot of down time here. Archer did really well on the travel home. He had a short nap on our long flight, but otherwise we did a lot of playing. He watched some shows, but usually needed something in his hands at the same time. I hated touch screens for awhile since he could not relax knowing that he could constantly touch the screen and something could happen and thus wouldn't fall asleep. We had an ugly hour or so but he eventually was too tired to fall asleep or move so the last couple of hours he sorta stared at the screen like a zombie. Once we were in Detroit and through immigrations and baggage and everything he fell asleep and slept our layover, getting on the plane, and our flight home. He woke up when we arrived and was in a pretty good mood right away. Our homecoming was exciting, but I was so exhausted I don't know if I formed a sentence. Plus, that is a big kid to lug around for 20 hours. And actually my mom and sister probably were more tired from lugging around tons of luggage and waiting on me while I just carried Archer.

Archie-J as I like to call him has really taken everything in stride and was very excited upon first arriving home. He ran around after Simon and was ballistic about all of the new toys and fun to be had. Simon was big brother extraordinaire for a couple days before getting a little burnt out. He was so sweet, overheard him say to Arch the first day "It's so fun having you here" and then a few days later it was "I don't like Archer!" :) But now we're finding a nice medium ground of enjoying playing with each other but realizing we don't all have to be on top of each other at all times. Archer had a couple days where he didn't eat much but he's passed that and is eating plenty. Not a huge fan of vegetables but he has quickly learned that he has to at least try them to get to the good stuff. He's eaten his bodyweight in watermelon and we have to hide any treats from his view or he obsesses about them.

He's also doing amazing on sleep. Our schedule was a mess for some time and he and I were sleeping until like 11am. Probably the first 5 nights we were awake for at least 3 hours a night grieving but also just wanting to hang out. Night time was the only time we saw any crying, but I'm glad we have been working through it. At first he just laid by me and cried and slowly he started to reach out to hug me and kiss me and now he's greetings us with hugs pretty regularly. He has slept through the night the last 3 nights. A good 12 hours at a time. Well, he wakes up but mostly just says my name makes sure I'm there and goes back to bed.

His language is coming along. He seems to understand everything we're saying but tends to reply in Korean still. But we've learned some key phrases so I'm not sure who is going to win the language battle. We may all be speaking Korean by next week.

That's about it...