A long two weeks

The boys taught Anya Rashi a little bit about playing football. 

My handsome guys, ready for their fall boychoir concert.

It has been a looonng two weeks.  Peter had to be at two conferences in a row, first one in Michigan, then one in Wisconsin.  During that time, Anya Rashi had pneumonia, the brakes went out on our van, and we had many commitments for the boys (in addition to normal life things like laundry, cooking, homework, etc.).  My own personal mission to paint our window shutters before it gets too cold was obviously put on hold.

In the midst of the first week, we had some documents for our updated dossier returned from our state capital -- we had sent them for apostilling, and a few of them were improperly notarized.  Argh!  It felt like a "rookie" mistake that we didn't notice before sending them off.  Our India case worker is out of the country right now, though, so we will have our new-and-improved documents ready by the time she returns.  I'm sure every one of my adopting friends understands that feeling of "every day counts!" with paperwork, and I was home with my sick girl and couldn't do anything about it for several days.

We felt cared for and protected during his absence, though -- we are so grateful for our wonderful support network!  A friend brought a meal, my parents-in-law made sure we could get our van to the mechanic, my parents visited, and many friends prayed for Anya Rashi to get well. 

She is much, much better -- she is done with the pneumonia antibiotic, and is back on the original sinus infection antibiotic.  She still coughs in the morning when she wakes up, but she's well and energetic during the day.

I have a renewed appreciation for people who have spouses in the military, and for single parents.  Peter's absence left a big void in our family in so many different ways -- we are so thankful that he's back.  He is such a gift to our family, and we celebrated his return yesterday by going out to dinner.

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Something interesting happened last night that reminded me how differently younger kids process tough emotions.  Anya Rashi had a very rough bedtime, and couldn't fall asleep for close to 2 hours.  She was teary, and talked about not wanting to go to school anymore, and was having scary thoughts about potential nightmares she might have when she fell asleep.  It seemed like she had held everything together while her Daddy was away, and then when he came back, she finally let it all out.  Finally, at nearly 10:00, she couldn't keep her eyes open any longer and drifted off during a song and a back rub. 

I think we all slept better last night with Peter under the same roof again.