Hush

One of Irina's favorite stories to read at bedtime is a Thai Lullaby that was given to us years 

ago by good friends. (Thank you Shine's!) It's called "Hush" by Minfong Ho. 

The story is about a mother's attempts to get all the animals to be quiet so that her dear baby can sleep. 

I enjoy reading it and making all the fun animal sounds. Irina is all smiles. We've read it every night for the 

past 4+ weeks and it's a special time. Until last week when I had a realization...

At the end of the book, the mother is exhausted from all her attempts to 

to help her BABY sleep that SHE falls asleep at the window sill. 

\

However, the baby is still wide awake! Perhaps this is a little too close to reality. :)

It sort of feels like a puzzle to understand Irina's sleep woes. 

It's tiring, but we keep trying to find ways to help her. 

A few nights ago, I remembered a gift I had received from my brother 15 years ago. 

Jeffrey ironed on a picture of Darin to the pillow case of a body pillow. 

At the time, Darin was traveling a lot and my thoughtful brother wanted 

to be sure I didn't get lonely. We were newlyweds. :) It was hilarious!!

It occurred to me that maybe this would comfort Irina. She really adores Darin and maybe this would help her go to sleep and stay asleep? Irina loved it! She was laughing and giggling (which is better then tears!) and has requested we make one with Mommy's face. It's on my list! I was too nervous to snap a photo of her snuggling up to the Daddy pillow two nights ago, but it was super cute.

Unfortunately, a pillow is no replacement for having Mommy and Daddy close by around the clock.  Bummer! It was worth a try.

Now, all joking aside, we learned that the kids at the orphanage are told that bad people and dogs are outside at night. (There are lots of stray dogs there.) The staff tell the kids that the bad people catch the kids and the dogs eat them. Irina is very scared of outside noises and afraid someone is going to come through the window and hurt her. Isn't that awful! We had wreaths on the windows that were blowing in the wind and making scratching noises. You can imagine how that terrified her! I wish we realized sooner they were making noise and that this was creating such fear.  oh my! What a puzzle!