We are making it! Jeff and I were/are both really scared/nervous about parenting two children. Noah has always gotten most of our attention so we were a bit nervous about how things would work out. The first day that we were home we declared it - Big Brother Day. :) Noah was on top of the world. So we thought that we had things under control. Day 2 was another story. Noah didn't even want to get up that morning. :( It is a bit rocky at times, but he seems to be doing better. We have more fun moments of all of us playing now.
Jacob seems to be getting more and more comfortable. He is not napping well and us up a lot at night but I think that we will get there. The more that he seems to bond and attach with us the less he seems to sleep. I think he has a lot of anxiety about sleeping. We are trying different things to try to get him to be more comfortable, but overall I guess it will just take time. Jacob eats great. It is definitely very easy. We have taught him the sign for eat. Everytime he walks into the kitchen he seems to want a snack. We have to keep all food put away and be careful about opening the fridge or anything because he will want it. He turned his head and looked at me today when I said his name.
We have some amazing friends and family that have been helping us with meals. It has been so nice to be able to not have to worry about that part right now.
We have had Jacob out a couple of time to play in the snow/ice. I am not so sure what he thinks of it. I know he is used to playing outside but I don't think that he is familiar with our yard or sledding.
I took a quick trip to the grocery store with both boys by myself today. I was a bit on edge but it was a pretty good trip. Noah had most of the candy rearranged in the checkout isle by the time we left, but we made it!
The more comfortable Jacob gets the more he says and does. He says dada really well now. He was pointing to a dog and saying 'arf arf'. He also says crunch crunch when he is eating. :) I think he said tree today too when we were outside. We also got some giggles out of him today too. I think that those were the first giggles since we have been home. No crying at bed time. Making progress...

Home

The 3 of us waiting for our ride to the airport.














Lindsey, Jason, and Hudson right before they left for home.













Jeff and Jacob in the Moscow airport. We hadn't even left yet and look how tired they look! :)








We are home!
We had the longest day ever on the way home. Jacob got up at 6:30am Moscow time and took a 10 minute nap and then close to an hour nap on the plane. That is it! We got home at 9:30pm US time! That is almost 24 hours! The great thing is that he never really seemed too tired. He threw a few more tantrums but nothing more. He was great at keeping himself busy.
He did good on the plane once we relaxed. I think that we started the day off with a bad attitude about everything. We just know that it is a long day for us and I just couldn't imagine what we would do with him the whole time to entertain him. I really couldn't tell you what we did, but it really didn't seem as long as I thought it would.
Our first flight from Moscow to Amsterdam was delayed. We were waiting at the gate and then all of a sudden our flight went off of the board. I guess they announced the gate change in Russian but not English... So Jeff panicked and found our new gate. We left about an hour late at least. Well, we missed our flight from Amsterdam to the US. I guess, for some reason, that flight left about 15 minutes early. We thought we had a few minutes to spare when our plane landed and Jeff took off running to find it. When he looked at the board, the flight was gone. We moped over to the transfer desk to get a new flight. I happened to look out the window beyond the desk and noticed a big NWA plane with the jetway being pulled away. Once again, Jeff took off running... and yes, that was our flight. They wouldn't let us on it... :( We did get a flight that was only 3 hours later. It wasn't the worst that could have happened. I was trying so hard to avoid tears. At that point, I just wanted to be done with the day and I was missing Noah terribly.
We ended up having time to sit down and have a nice lunch and then went to board the plane. We had great seats. The row we were in had two seats by the window and the row in front of us had 3 seats. We were right in front of the bathroom but no one was behind us and there was a bit of extra room in front of us. It was really nice. Plus, when we changed Jacob in the bathroom and he screamed super loud, we could quietly slip back to our seats before anyone really could notice who it was. :)
We only had a few meltdowns. Our first flight was rough. Like I said, we had a bad attitude. Jacob threw a tantrum for something. I can't remember now. I am sure he was scared. The more out of his element he is the more tantrums we see. I think we told him no for something. He screamed for awhile. He got mad when we landed as well because he had to be on my lap in a seat belt. The next flight was better. He knew what to expect and we were able to bond with him a bit and figure out how to avoid or distract from the tantrum triggers. It went much smoother.
My dad picked us up in Detroit. We got through really fast(our flight landed an hour early too).
We got home at about 9:30. I was bummed that Noah was in bed, although I still went in and sort of woke him to tell him that we were home. Jacob slept in the car. He then slept about another 4 hours total that night. I felt bad for him coming home to a big new house and then us throwing him into bed.