Our First Week Home

Tonight marks our one-week anniversary of Makena's US citizenship. It's been a great and very long week.

Sunday was Father's Day - Makena and I splurged and got Charlie take-out food from PF Chang's! We also let him sleep all day, and in between naps, he also controlled the remote. I did all of the laundry from our trip. It is one thing to leave mail and items from a trip laying around, but I think that the clothes absolutely have to be washed! Monday was more of the same. A trip to Target and such. It's funny though...I really felt like people should be stopping me and asking what I was doing with a kid! I know that sounds funny, but everyone just assumed that I was her mom and for whatever reason, that felt very bizarre. That feeling will pass, but for right now, wow. Not what I expected.

We spent a couple of hours at Mak's new pediatrician on Tuesday. She got down to her diaper and ran (with help, of course) all over the office. Her squeals of joy could be heard throughout the building...as could her screams of terror when they measured her and gave her the required vaccines. Boy oh boy, was she showing off her lungs. Charlie had to go on an "emergency" business trip to Chicago that night, so he had left for the airport shortly before they administered her shots. I was on my own for 36 hours with Mak and the pups. While at the doctor, they also discovered that she had a nasty ear infection, so they prescribed her an antibiotic. She seemed fine as we headed home from the drug store, but she had me fooled! We took our baby Tylenol every four hours at the direction of the doctor...her fever started about 8pm and went up and down for the next 24 hours. She screamed for most of the night. My girlfriend, Kate, showed up for a new mom pep talk later in the evening and was AWESOME! She didn't even comment on the fact that we had simply spread all of our stuff all over our house...unpacking wouldn't happen for at least another day. I am so lucky to have her! It was no sleep for me on Tuesday night, but we still managed to get the dogs walked and a few naps in Mak on Wednesday.

Makena got to go visit Charlie's office on Thursday. She put on her Hollywood look and showed off for all of the folks...she walked around, played with toys, and smiled at the big semi-circle of people watching her. We are truly blessed with a wonderful little girl. We did get good news on Thursday - a negative TB test! Woohoo!

On Friday we went in for a hearing test and for bloodwork. Anyone with a child knows all about taking a kid for bloodwork, so I won't go into that trauma. The hearing test was very interesting...Makena wasn't thrilled about it, and did have some trouble. We are heading back in a few weeks to get retested and hoping that after her ear infection clears up that she will have better luck! To make up for the bloodwork (during which Charlie was the mean one that held her down...cheers to cool dads!), we took her to Toys R Us. Makena had a great time and ended up picking out a ball. A $1.79 ball, which really made her penny watching parents happy.

We relaxed over the weekend and went to the pool on Sunday. Mak LOVES the water and really thinks that she can swim (we really don't think she can), and after her ear infection is all cleared up, we will definitely let her try! Charlie heads back to work full time tomorrow...wish me luck!