I have heard a few comments about how the blog hasn’t been updated for awhile. For that I am both sorry and thankful: sorry for not having the time to update and thankful that people are actually reading this!
We are doing well and every day we see more progress towards a “normal” routine. The biggest challenge to our adjustment has been sleep, but I guess that’s no surprise. Since we’ve been home 5 weeks, Kylie has slept through the night a total of 2 times. We got really excited when it happened the first time and thought we had turned a corner, but it was just a fluke! Again, the second time it happened seemed to have been an isolated case. So, we take things one night at a time and always go to bed hoping that we will not awake until morning. She has been sleeping the first few hours in her own bed, but when she does awake in the middle of the night, she comes into our bed. This makes the rest of the night restless for me as she prefers to be sleeping clung to my neck, but I consider this a sacrifice any mom would make, and also a privilege. Although those 2 nights with her not in our bed were quite refreshing nights of sleep!
In the past couple weeks, I feel like we have completed some significant rites of passage as a family:
1) Using the car to get your child to sleep: Yes, we resorted to this tried and true method of getting Kylie to sleep in the middle of the night. There were a few nights during week two that she would wake up between 2 and 4 and couldn’t get back to sleep even though she wasn’t wide awake (like week 1). We put her in the car seat and she was out before the end of the driveway. However, we didn’t want to jinx ourselves, so we would drive around for at least 10 minutes. I enjoyed watching the night construction on Hickman Rd, and found it interesting how going 40 mph on a road that I normally go 60 mph can seem like I’m flying when it’s dark out. Kevin discovered a nice new neighborhood that we didn’t know existed, so the next time I was driving in the middle of the night, I went over to check it out. We may not have much time to ourselves anymore, but it was kind of fun to “communicate” in that way!
2) Sharing germs amongst the family: Kylie came down with a fever on Thursday night of week 2, but it didn’t amount to anything significant. By Sunday night, Nicholas had a fever that lasted for 4 days and turned into a cough and laryngitis. He missed 3 days of preschool which made it a long week for all of us! It was actually the worst cold he’s ever had since he’s been home with us. Kylie then imitated his cough for days (she’s a little monkey in everything they do!), but a couple days ago her cough seemed to become real. Kevin has had head congestion for the past 3 days and I have woken up with a scratchy throat and stuffed nose for the past 2 days. Gotta love family colds!
3) Peeing on the potty: Again, wanting to be like Nicholas, Kylie has sat on the potty many times since we’ve been home and actually peed a handful of times. Nicholas gets so excited for her, it’s fun to see him support her. We think we could probably convince her to potty train with a few M&Ms (she is VERY candy motivated), but thought there’s other things we should work on first – like sleep! Maybe after the holidays we can address it with 100% effort. For now we just offer her the option and praise her when it happens.
4) Swimming for the first time (with us, at least): We can tell already that we have two swimmers on our hands! Kylie’s foster parents said she enjoyed the water, but we were impressed that there were no melt downs or tears, even when Nicholas accidentally splashed her or when she went under quickly while jumping in off the side. She is a daredevil like her brother! Nicholas has been taking lessons for the past year at the YMCA and has turned into quite the fish. Ever since he discovered goggles, he spends more time under water than above it. His new love is diving in from the side to retrieve toys on the bottom. He can swim almost the whole width of the pool as he now knows how to come up for breaths. Every time we get in the water with him, he seems to know how to do something new. We’ll have to see how quickly Kylie picks up on all his new tricks!
5) Participating in the traditional visit to the pumpkin patch: We went with some good friends this year who have a 3 1/2 year old son, also adopted from South Korea. Kylie had a great time keeping up with the boys! And for some reason she LOVES pumpkins so she had a ball pointing them out, picking her favorite, and bringing them home. We set them on the porch steps and Nicholas says, “This is the best Halloween ever!” The next day, Kylie got just as excited to see them still sitting there. And she is now even saying “pump-pin!” Oh, the joys and simple pleasures of childhood!
Speaking of communication, Kylie seems to picking up more words and sounds daily, including: “No!,” “yeah,” “okay,” “Mommy,” “Kylie,” “cracker,” “cheese,” “tank you,” “go!,” “movie,” “open,” “star.” and “puppy.” She also seems to understand most of what we say. She doesn’t always follow directions, but given the look on her face, we think that has more to do with her being a 2-year-old rather than her not understanding the language! People have often asked if it is easier or harder to bring a 2-year-old home versus a 9-month-old, like Nicholas. For the most part, I think we would say harder. It was an intense transition and adjustment period bringing someone into our home that has already developed habits, routines, likes/dislikes, and language. However, one advantage of a 2-year-old is that she is able to communicate what she likes or wants. Instead of just crying or melting down she can get her needs met, albeit non-verbally right now. One example: the night she had her fever, she was really restless and couldn’t get to sleep. I was getting frustrated by her tossing and turning so I finally asked her, “What do you need? How can I help?” While I thought these were rhetorical questions, she immediately took my hand, placed it on her bottom and made it start patting her. When I moved it up to her pat her back, she moved it back down to her bottom. She also started patting my back with the pace she wanted. Once I matched that she calmed down and got to sleep. The girl knows what she likes and we figured out a way to understand one another. That was a great victory and made me realize that she can teach me a lot about how to best parent her if I am willing to listen.
Kylie is also doing well with eating our food. This past week, I tried make her rice and seaweed (one of her favorites from Korea) and she wanted a hot dog instead. Perhaps I didn’t get the right brands from the grocery store as we were out of the items they sent us home with. Or maybe hot dogs are just that yummy… :) She still prefers to graze, so we are working on eating enough during meals and snacks, and not filling up on candy (her favorite food!).
Below are some snapshots of our first month together. When we look back on week one and compare it to where we are now, it seems like eons ago. We are looking forward to seeing how settled and adjusted we’ll feel after another month or two!
Exploring Her New Environment
Fun with the Dogs
Fun with Mommy
(For some reason we don’t have many pictures of me with her – I guess I’m too busy taking the pictures to be in any of the shots. You’ll just have to trust us when we say she does have fun with me!)
A lot of our time is spent in the car, so we are very thankful that she enjoys her car seat! Below are a series of shots of what I see in my rearview mirror. The first is the two of them hiding. The second is the usual smiley happy face we have in the car. And the third is a glimpse of 2-year-old attitude. We were on our way to pick up Nicholas, so she was all by herself in the back. I heard her say out loud, “No!” to no one in particular. When I looked back, she had the body language to match the word. And I am sticking to my story that she got this from Nicholas, not from me!
Fun with Daddy
And, her favorite: Fun with Nicholas
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