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Lilian Pearl will be 3 weeks old this Thursday. It's already going by so fast, so much faster than it did with Madeleine. It seemed like everyday was an eternity when Maddie was this old.

We've been home for a week. Our train trip from Beijing to Xi'an couldn't have gone any better. We all slept well and got home without any problems. My parents, sister and nieces came up from Wuhan last Wednesday. They are all back at their homes now. We had a great time hanging out here in Xi'an and they got to do a lot of fun stuff and we did it almost all together! Again, it's amazing how differently we function with our second child. I could barely get it together with Maddie at this point and with Lilian we went out to dinner several times as a family and pretty much just did whatever we wanted. She's a pretty easy baby as far as babies go.

Now, we're trying to figure out how life works with 2 kids. Madeleine is figuring it out very well. She has her moments of being teary when I can't give her what she wants right when she wants it because of Lilian but those times are getting less frequent. And Madeleine LOVES her little sister. We often here her telling Lilian, "It's okay, Lilian (Wiwian). It's okay" and "Wiwian, I'll be right back."

Madeleine also refers to her as, "My Lilian" and "My baby". It's very sweet.

Phil starts back to school this Wednesday and I plan on starting back in 2 weeks. I hope that will give me time to get Lilian well established in a routine of eating and napping and I'll get some milk stored up in the freezer for the times while I'm gone. I really don't want to leave her but it's going to happen. I'll be taking 6 hours a week - 2 hours, 3 days a week.

I'm enjoying our home but I miss the location of our old place. I miss having friends so close by and I know Madeleine does, too. Thankfully, it's only a short taxi ride away.

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