The return of Albert

Today marks the first week that we've been home from China - hooray for making it through this past week!  During the time that we were in China and the past week since we've been back, my parents and my grandma have generously been taking care of our sweet dog, Albert.  Today was the day we decided to try having him back, since we've been getting into a much better routine.  After TongJie's nap this afternoon, we picked up Albert from my parents' house and he's been getting settled into his new life here.  I think TongJie and Albert will end up really enjoying each other, but right now Albert seems kind of sad.  I feel bad for him - I'm sure he's confused and jealous.  We're trying to give him lots of attention, but he just sighs and looks at us with sad eyes.  TongJie already seems to like Albert and was trying to play "peek-a-boo" with him earlier, but Albert didn't have a clue what was going on.  I took Albert for a walk with TongJie in the front pack while Jeff was at music practice at church and both of them seemed to have a good time.  I didn't take any photos of them together yet . . . maybe tomorrow.

In other news, we had to get TongJie's tuberculosis skin test checked today and it appears that it might be positive, which doesn't necessarily mean that he has TB (and even if he did, kids under 10 or 12 are almost never contagious anyway), it just would mean that he's been exposed to TB at some point in his life, and could possibly get it sometime in the future if left untreated.  The nurse asked us to come back tomorrow morning for a second opinion from someone else, so we'll know more then I guess.  I think if it's positive, the next step would be a chest x-ray and then medication.  If the skin test result is in fact positive, I think he still has to have medication regardless of whether or not the x-ray shows any symptoms, just different types of meds depending on what the x-ray finds.  It sounds like the medications need to be taken for quite some time, so I'm not really looking forward to that.  Like I said, we'll know more tomorrow.  We're just REALLY thankful that kids under 2 didn't have to have the TB skin test done in China, otherwise the potentially positive result might have meant a delay in us leaving the country!

Last night, we all slept well in TongJie's room, and he took a nap at a normal time today, so I think we're slowly getting into an acceptable routine.  Bedtime is still later than we'd like, but we're trying for a little earlier every night.  We had him in the crib by 8:45 tonight, but it's an hour later and he's still wide awake, babbling and laughing.  At least he doesn't usually cry in his crib anymore if one of us is right there with him.  Man, those first few nights we were back home, Jeff and I were both starting to feel pretty discouraged by all of the sleep issues, but here we are a week later and things are going SO MUCH better.  Thanks for all your prayers and encouragement!

Only one photo from today:  Jeff giving TongJie his bottle before bed.  We're almost out of the formula we got in China, so we bought some at Target yesterday and we've been mixing the Chinese formula with the new stuff because we were worried the different taste would bother him.  We haven't noticed any reaction from him, so apparently Target formula tastes okay.