Sleep, sleep and more sleep! YAY!

Guess who slept through the night last night??? You guessed it!!! Juliana, girl! We are so proud of our big girl and pray that it continues. I must admit that because of this damn sickies, I was up often and didn't sleep as well I would have hoped, plus of course Joey was up again last night so that interrupted my sleep too. BUT I am thrilled for Juliana. We had such a nice morning. The kids are all getting a little better. We all have runny noses, coughs, etc., but the icky flu is out of our home I think (I hope I didn't jinx it!).

So let me backtrack. Last night we put Juliana (and the big kids) to bed at 7:30. At 8:45 am we heard our first cry. We went to run into her room, but she literally just made a sound and stopped. At 9:30 she did it again, but this time, it went on for longer than a minute so Chris went up there. We hoped to get her back to sleep before she began to play. Success. Chris came back downstairs a few minutes later. She was back asleep. We heard from her once or twice more, but mostly just little noises, not cries. And she never did cry. ALL NIGHT LONG! At 7:30 am, I woke her up and we came downstairs for breakfast. We seem to have her on a nice schedule which I think is working nicely because it is exactly what is written by her foster mother that she did in Korea. We also are opening every shade in the house during the day so that she knows its daytime. We try to spend time outside either walking or playing so she realizes its day time! I also break the golden rule of "never wake a sleeping baby". I do wake her after both her naps. I realized she'd easily sleep all day if I let her, so we do wake her. It also protects the time for the next nap and night time. If I let her sleep, then I don't think we'd be on the right track any time soon. It doesn't work for everyone, but it does work for us.

Personality wise -- we are definitely seeing some happy spurts in there. She is trying to get our attention a bit more and looking for the kids a bit more too. She is giving hugs, and not pulling away as much either. She cries when she is tired, and unfortunately before today she was tired a lot. She doesn't seem to be looking for someone as much anymore.

We are definitely starting to move in the right direction!!!! A funny little story. Joey had a little bit of a rough few days when Juliana came home. You can almost see him walking around the house trying to figure out where he belonged. He's definitely a Mama's boy and it wasn't cool with him that someone was stealing me away. Now I know he was getting sick, and that may have also been throwing him off. So the other night, he woke up crying in the middle of the night (he's been doing this every night lately again likely because he's sick). So I went in his room, got him back to sleep, and went back to bed myself. The next night I went to put him to bed, and I said "Joey, don't wake up crying tonight. Be a big boy." His face lit up like he just remembered something and he said "Oh yeah, Mom, I had a dream that Juliana was a bad guy and she stole all my toys!" His little face was so serious. I was laughing so hard. I reassured him that mommy would never let anyone steal all his toys, and that he's doing a wonderful job sharing with his sisters, and that I was so proud of him. Poor little Joey adjusting to being the big brother :)

Carmela is taking the role wonderfully. I hear all the time saying little things to Juliana to soothe her. Out of the blue, I hear her saying, "your my sister". Or things to that affect. Carmela is a bit sad lately though because she misses school. She took off Wednesday because of the stomach bug. Then Thursday I had her take off because she didn't wake up until 9:30 after getting to bed so late because of the airport. Then friday-sunday she had no school, and on Monday she had the flu. Then I found out that she has spring break (her first one) from wednesday-next wednesday! She misses her best friend Diana so much :( Poor big girl.

My heart is so full with my three angels. I enjoy so much when they all play with one another or when I get to spend a few minutes with one of them alone. I am so proud of how all three of them are handling the changes to the family.