Adjustments

We are all alive and well, but as you can see, posting has fallen down on the to-do list right behind sleep and washing diapers. As you can see from when my last entry, I don’t have time for much else. I didn’t realize just how much time would be spent taking care of the kids. Since we arrived home, other than the usual laundry and meals, I have only managed to unpack (it took a week) and make one diaper cover. However, we have all made much more important accomplishments, like our daughter smiling at Gabe and me when she sees us smile and like my son calling me mama (sometimes mom) and Gabe dada. You can bet it feels good to look down on our little man with a mop of soft, dark, curly hair over big brown eyes and hear mama with a gesture that says, “pick me up.” It makes me laugh when my little girl smiles, coos, and laughs when I sing the itsy-bitsy spider.

I’ve been asked how we are adjusting and below I’ve written about some of the adjustments we’ve all gone through. I’ll warn you now that it’s long, so to sum it up, we’re doing well. We’re settling into a routine. If you want the nitty-gritty details of the past couple of weeks, you may keep reading. Otherwise, I’ll see you next post. To keep it interesting, I’ve added some pictures of our cuties over the past couple of weeks.

So on to the nitty-gritty details of our adjustments. Some adjustments have been easier than others. We all turned our internal time clocks back to Eastern Standard Time within the first day or two. Perhaps it was the sleep deprivation from two kids waking in the night, but I didn’t feel the time change at all. The first few nights, I was tempted to stay up after the little ones went to sleep to unpack and get the house in order, but I was good and went to sleep when they did. I’m glad I did too because it only took about five nights for me to feel like myself again. I can’t say well rested, but about as well rested as I will be until they both sleep through the night they are both married well, maybe ever.

Josiah can, but doesn’t often, sleep through the night. He has slept through the night a few times since we returned home. One day he refused to take a nap and he slept twelve hours that night. After a day of no napping, this was one thankful mommy. A more typical napping/sleeping schedule is for him to wake at about 7:00-8:00am and then lay down for a nap at about noon. He’ll sleep for two or three hours and then stay awake until bedtime at 8:00pm. He’s been going to sleep faster each night, but it usually takes him about half an hour to fall asleep. He’s been waking at about 4:00am for a diaper change before going back to sleep. Some nights he goes right back to sleep; others it takes him a while to settle back down.

Originally, we had both of the kiddos in the same room, but Alexandra’s waking kept waking Josiah up. We decided it would be a good idea to move her into our room until she was sleeping through the night. That arrangement has worked out well. Josiah now only gets up once during the night and Alexandra is right there for us to care for when she wakes. The first week, she was waking every couple of hours. It was getting exhausting. She wasn’t drinking much each waking, but wouldn’t go back to sleep without a bottle. Our doctor suggested starting her on solid foods by putting some rice cereal in her bottle. We have for the past week and she’s been sleeping much longer. Last night, she slept seven hours before waking. She then only woke a couple of more times and drank at least four ounces at each waking. I definitely think she is now getting enough to fill her belly so she can sleep longer.

She also naps about twice a day. Usually she’ll take her first nap any time between 10:30-11:30am and sleep two hours. I’m very glad when it’s later because then both are sleeping at the same time. It usually only works out that they are asleep at the same time during the day for half an hour to forty-five minutes. It gives me just enough time to eat and straighten up from the morning. Alexandra will then also take a nap some time in the afternoon, but that is more variable and usually only for half an hour to an hour.

All of our routines are still new, but they are finally becoming just that, a routine. Sleeping is now fairly regular as are meal times. Josiah would not eat the baby food we offered him the first week. Mostly, he would only take a bottle and sometimes a sippy cup. Thankfully about a week ago, another mom suggested feeding him table food. Since then, he’s been very happy to feed himself and will now let us feed him food like mashed potatoes and applesauce. I think he was ready for more substantial food and wanted to feed himself. I’m very glad that he is now eating very well. He loves bananas and will easily eat a whole banana at breakfast. He also likes eggs, our canned pears, homemade applesauce, and Cheerios. I have a porridge that I would like to try for dinner tonight. We’ll see how that goes.

One thing I am very glad that I did before bringing the kids home was research. I had little idea what foods to feed babies so I found a few books that I liked on the subject and copies out some useful information. I’m very glad I did because it was a good reference when we were looking for things to give Josiah to eat. Also, as part of our homestudy and then on our own, we read books on attachment. And while I haven’t used much of the information contained in the book, I felt much more prepared coming home with these two.

Attachment takes time and most adoptive parents say six to twelve months is a typical time frame to form solid attachments. So we’ve been at this a relatively short period of time. I can say however that we’re off to a pretty good start.

Josiah is a real charmer and is always thinking. Yesterday, he pushed his chair up to the futon and what do I see peering over the too-tall-for-Josiah futon, but this little head:
Then he stood up to smile at me.
What will he think for next?
Josiah was not speaking any words in Amharic (the language that he heard in both the orphanage and the transition home), but was babbling up a storm. Since coming home, he’s learned how to say hi (with a wave if he’s in the mood), mama, and dada. He’s also learned his name. He wasn’t called Josiah until we came home and in about a week, he knew his name well enough that when I was in another room, I called him name, and he came running immediately. He also knows the words “no”, “up” (with a hand motion up), and “come here”. He is a fast learner, so he’s catching on to more and more each day. I keep talking to him and telling him what we are doing. One day, I was talking to him and he looked at me really hard as if he was thinking, “I know that you are communicating to me; I don’t understand what you are saying, but I’m trying really hard to.”

Besides communicating with us, he is also learning that we are mama and dada. He uses those words to each of us correctly now and I think he’s beginning to understand that we are the people who are loving and taking care of him now (and forever). He will seek us out if we are not in the room and will prefer us when around other people usually. The biggest praise that I have was when he sought me for comfort instead of his bottle. We learned very early on that he was using his bottle to comfort himself which, I have now learned, is why he was so upset at the embassy appointment in Addis. He became upset when I got a bottle for Alexandra but did not give him one. It was also him naptime (I found that out later), so there were many things that got him upset. We were giving him a bottle often the first week, but Friday, he was upset and instead of whining for the bottle that his sister was drinking, he came and cuddled with me. This may sound small, but to me, it was huge. It is just a small step, but an important one on the road to attachment.

Alexandra has attached to us differently. Her needs have been fairly easy to figure out. She cries for only one of five reasons. She’ll cry when she needs a diaper change, when she needs to be fed, when she’s tired, when she wants to be held and when she’s hurt. With our consistently meeting her needs, she has come to recognize our faces and reacts to us. Her attachment to us is more based on our meeting her needs and less on our relationship with her, as it should be. At five months, what she needs in someone to care for her and in that way love her. Josiah is now at a different stage where he can interact more fully. He needs us to care for him, but more importantly, he needs us to interact with him. As they grow, the ways in which they need us will change and we’ll, with God’s help, give them what they need.

On our part, while we have loved them long before we met them, we too need time to become attached to them. For me, the process has been one of discovering the personalities and preferences of our children. When I find out, for instance, that the itsy-bitsy spider makes both of our children smile and laugh, I find myself more drawn to them. When I learn what comforts them when they are hurt or scared, I grow closer to them. When I find new ways to reach them and interact to them, I feel more and more the mother that I am. It’s with a sense of pride that I can now not only distinguish Josiah’s cries from Alexandra’s, but can usually tell why our child is crying. I know their eating and sleeping schedules and can read their non-verbal gestures.

I don’t think the process of attachment, as with any parent-child, will ever end, but instead will ebb and flow. I have been on the child side of that equation long enough to know that is very much how it works. And while there are hard days and easy days, even now, I can say the wait to bring them home and the work to care for them is well worth it. They are both such a blessing to our lives and we are so thankful that God gave these two little ones to us.