Adjustment period

We have now been home for five days and I see the routine is starting to settle in. It has been a real struggle to get all four of us off "China time" and get back to US time (13 hours difference) I think Luke has adjusted the best. If I tell him it is time for bed, he crawls in kisses me good-night, turns over and goes to sleep. In the morning he wakes up all smiles and ready to go. Miss Lily is completely the opposite. She tries to stay awake until she just drops in her tracks, fighting the whole way. In the morning she is a bear to wake up. It has not helped that the weekend weather was cold and cloudy. My plans to get the kids out into the fresh air and sunshine fell a few sun rays short. Monday meant Lily went back to pre-school and meanwhile the weather improved dramatically so that today, Tuesday, she is pretty much on schedule. I had both kids bathed, books read and asleep by 8:40pm, a record for me.
Daddy, Luke and I have all developed a nagging cough, kind of like the one I had when leaving for China. Today Luke woke up from his nap all flushed and he indeed had a fever of 101. It went right down with Tylenol and has not returned. I'm trying to hold off on going to the doctor because he already has an appt. scheduled for Friday. I will have to see how he does in the morning. Lily seems to be the only healthy one at this point. I'm sure our immune systems hit an all time low during this busy time of travel and time changes.
Luke is changing day by day. The first day we gave him a wooden alphabet puzzle, he just picked out all the letters and proceeded to throw them around the study. When I tried to show him how they fit back in it was clear he didn't understand how to turn the pieces around to get them in. After a couple of days he is now turning the pieces and actually getting them to fit( most of the time). He is so proud when it works and his face just lights up. I think a lot of this is new to him and it will just take some time to reach his potential. He does on occasion get frustrated with me when I don't understand what he is saying but we have not had any melt downs for a couple of days now. I took him to the nursery at church on Sunday and stayed in to watch him with the other kids. There were 10 kids in a small room and he behaved himself just fine, he never hit or tried to take away a toy from someone. He enjoyed going down the slide with the high school girls throwing him up in the air and played with many of the toys.
When we went shopping at Walmart he started pointing with excitement when we were in the aisle of children's clothing. I could not figure out what he was pointing at except a row of ball caps, then it hit me, he was pointing at "his" hat as he has one exactly like it at home.
Lily has a play microphone with speakers and he loves singing songs in Chinese into it. I'm still working on teaching him proper pet etiquette. He is no longer terrified of the dog but delights in hitting him or kicking out at him. He told Yue Jia (in Chinese) that "dogs bite" so it may be that he had a bad encounter with a dog. Tobi is very tolerant (thank goodness) and has not nipped at him, but I can tell he is close to the breaking point. I just try to reinforce that Tobi is our friend and we must treat him kindly.
So Friday is the doctor's appt and next Thursday is the dentist appt. I don't think I mentioned before but his teeth are terrible. He is missing a top front tooth and the other front teeth have brown lines running through them. I hate to say it, but they look like the "hillbilly teeth" Lily picked out as one of her prizes at incredible pizza. The dentist has talked about sedating him to do the work but will know more once they see the damage. It leads me to believe he never had his teeth brushed at all. He will let me brush them although I can't say he likes it. Lily has never liked having her teeth brushed and fights me everyday over it.
Time for bed, the rest of the family is already asleep. This is my only quiet time of the day for now at least.