We're Coming Home!

...and we couldn't be more ready. We are so excited to be heading home with our sweet Calli. We miss our girls (and Molly), we miss our house, and we're just ready to be back where things are normal. We know we'll be starting a new normal, bringing Calli into our family, but we're just ready to get started.

We have had friends and family asking about when we are arriving, so we wanted to confirm our arrival times in DFW and then in Houston here. We would LOVE for anyone who wants to come meet us and Calli at the airports in both cities to do so. We will be doing a lot of staying home and just being a family of 5 for the next (however many) days, so we'd love to get to see everyone at the airport.

We arrive on Wednesday at DFW at 4:04pm. We are flying on United. Right now they have our gate as E5.

We arrive in Houston at Hobby on Thursday at 1:30pm. Flying Southwest.

There are a few things we've talked about that we will be doing with Calli and wanted to communicate those here as well. Some of these we were just waiting to see how she transitioned, so we're able to talk about them a little better now that we have had her for a whole week. We've read lots of books and lots of other people's adoption stories and studied a lot about attachment. Calli is attaching well to Randy, but it has certainly not been what we expected in regards to her attachment with me. There are a few things that are recommended for when you bring an adopted child home, so we'll be doing some of those that fit us for awhile.

One thing is that we will be the only ones to care for Calli for awhile. This means holding her, feeding her, diapering her - Randy and I will be the ones to meet all her needs. She needs to see us as her primary caregivers. Having been in an orphanage the first 10 months of her life and then with a foster family, and now with us, she has had a ton of change in her whole 19 months. We have seen her walk off easily from us, walk up to strangers for food, and walk up to others with her arms up for them to hold her. Since she isn't doing much of this even with me yet, we need to establish that first before we allow her to go to other people. So if she does this with you, you can give whatever you have for her to Randy or me and let us be the ones to give it to her.

It may seem like Calli is very friendly and outgoing and does well when in groups of people. But, if she is outgoing and affectionate with strangers, this can be a sign of "indiscriminate affection" and can show that she is not completely attached to anyone. If she comes up to you for something, please point her back to us.

We'll be staying at home a lot. We notice a huge difference in Calli when she is just with us in our hotel room and when we take her out in public. This is called "cocooning" and is honestly something I wondered if we would need to do. We definitely see the need for it now. So please come see us, take Kendall and Cooper for play dates, and be patient when we just need to be home as a family. We've been so overwhelmed by your prayers and encouraging words - please please continue those as we come home. We're so ready to be home, but we also realize that this next part could be harder than what we've experienced so far. Establishing a new normal.

We'll also be doing a few other things differently than we did with Kendall and Cooper as far as parenting, care and discipline. Adoption is just different than having children biologically. We're still learning what all this looks like.

We just could not be more thankful for the community of friends and family God has given us. We feel so blessed and so undeserving of all your love and prayers and sweet words. We can't wait for Calli to know the love that is already waiting for her. Thanks so much for being respectful of these boundaries as we transition. We're still figuring out what this looks like, but we know that for sure we want to be the two most important people in Calli's life and we need to teach her that through things that are tangible to her - holding, affection, food, caring for physical needs. We love you guys. Thanks for your love for us!

My new friend Jenny wrote a great blog about this before they brought their son home. I thought she explained things well - here's a link. Jenny, thanks for being such an encouragement to me these past two weeks. I told Randy the other day I wanted to come through the computer screen and hug you. I'm thankful you understand all this and can speak to it all from a few weeks down the road!