All settled in...

It’s hard to believe that we’ve been home for two weeks. It’s been amazing, and of course, in many ways it has been nothing like we’d imagined it’d be.

During our waiting, we continued our research, attended great classes at the International Adoption Clinic at Cincinnati’s Children’s Hospital, and talked at length about how our first few weeks would proceed, given our focus on Max and attachment. We had planned to “hunker down”, giving all of us time to adjust to one another. No outside trips, very limited visits, no sensory overloads, etc., etc., etc.

So much for planning.

Max is completely and totally attached to us, and he is very discriminatory with regards to who can hold him or get close to him (virtually no one but Glenn or me). And, unless something presents itself in the near future, we have to proudly announce that Max has adjusted to his new home and life almost immediately, leaving his parents in his dust as we continue to adjust to our new lives!

So, instead of staying behind closed doors, we have had an amazing run of firsts, including:

• First Reds game (loved it, and was loved by everyone around him)
• First fireworks display (clapped his hands, shouted out with glee, and danced around to the music)
• First visit to both of our offices (a charmer)
• First US haircut (his bangs were hanging straight down his forehead, and he was just a bit shaggy)
• First trip to Target (likes grocery carts provided I hand him everything so that he can put the items into the cart behind him – a bit tricky with eggs)
• First trip to the grocery store (something I swore we would NEVER do because of over-stimulation)
• First meeting with Boomer, our dog (in keeping with her behavior towards the cat, Boomer ignores Max, and Max follows Boomer around practicing to “be gentle” while he air-pets Boomer from about 6 inches away)
• First bonding with G-Ma (my mom … by her third day, he did allow her to hold him, and he was visibly sad while waving good-bye to her at the end of her visit)
• First birthday party (ugh … I am still not a big fan of little kids’ birthday parties – so this is going to be a big adjustment for me….but he seemed to love it)
• First English word ("Tiger", the cat’s name; can also now say "hi" and "uh-oh" and "quack quack". I am relatively certain I have belted out "Old McDonald" 7000 times already.)
• First wedding anniversary (okay, that isn’t necessarily directly related to Max, but hello – could there be a better first year anniversary present than this adorable bundle of joy?!)
• First visit to the doctor (more on that in a minute)

Every day, multiple times each day, Max amazes us. He is truly a funny kid, and he has a plethora of facial expressions, verbal expressions, and hand gestures that keep us in stitches. He has an amazing imagination, and he likes to pretend to pick things up or take things from his pocket and hand them to us. He also walks around with a giraffe from his Noah’s Ark toy, and he shakes him upside down into our hands, and then encourages us to eat whatever it is that he is shaking out of the giraffe’s head. If we didn’t know any better, we would think he had a giraffe-shaped salt shaker at the Baby House – that’s the hand motion that he makes with the giraffe (and it’s only the giraffe). Our current favorite pantomime is when he pretends to pick up a really heavy box (complete with the heavy grunting and sighing as he lifts it up), and then he walks to each of us to hand us something from the box.

He also loves music, and he gets his little “show hands” moving and his little booty shaking to all types of music. We play everything from Baby Genius sing-along DVDs and CDs (thank you Uncle Ronnie and Aunt Carla) to Disney Mania (“music stars sing Disney”), and he babbles and dances along.

Another big surprise has been his transition from “screaming while maintaining a death grip on the edge of the tub” to “whining and crying when I make him get out of the tub.” This transition took three days. I credit the 99-cent rubber duckie from Target. He now loves his bath time, and when on occasion (in the interest of time) we instead have taken him into the shower with one of us, he runs to the other bathroom and stands by “his” bathtub, clearly hoping that he still gets to take a bath, too. (No such luck, son. HA!)

We fall more in love every day …. and our respect for the Ust baby house grows deeper every day. We adopted a happy, healthy, well-adjusted little boy, and we have an entire baby house staff to thank for that.

As I mentioned above, our big “first” was our first trip to the International Adoption Clinic at Children’s Hospital last Monday, where Max had an extensive four-hour evaluation. We are so fortunate to have this resource ten minutes from our home. The IAC provided a Russian-speaking translator, which came in very handy for the occupational therapy portion of his evaluation. She gave him all of his instructions – things like “point to the doll’s eyes”, “kick the ball”, “put the cheerio into the little bottle”, etc.

Being the experts that they are, the IAC team waited until the very end to introduce needles, conducting his TB test and drawing about a dozen vials of blood. Max was a total trooper until that moment, which also happened to coincide with lunch time. We were also tired and hungry by the end of the appointment, so we felt his pain.

We received a lot of preliminary assessments that morning, and have since received some test results, with more to follow.

Developmentally, he is testing “normal” in virtually everything (again, thank you, Ust baby house), except for a few minor things, and Children’s equipped us with suggestions of how to help him along. On the weight and height charts, he is at the 5% and 10% points respectively, and the doctor feels confident he will increase in both areas over the next six months. We are working with him on “nurturing” behaviors – he seemingly had no idea what to do with a doll and a baby bottle, despite being encouraged to “feed the baby” over and over again. He also wouldn’t clap his hands, which he now already does on command, and he is learning his body parts, like nose, ears, eyes, and toes. He is slightly behind in speech, as we suspected, but over the last few days, his babbling has really picked up, so we suspect that with a lot of one-on-one conversation and singing time, this will catch up as well. If not, we know we are in great hands with the IAC, and they will help us find additional assistance if we need it.

Max did come home with a parasite – not at all unusual for the circumstances. The blastocystis hominis parasite is detected via stool samples (oh, is that ever fun), and although he is not exhibiting any noticeable symptoms, we have chosen, with our doctor’s guidance, to treat him with an antibiotic. Apparently the manufactured version tastes horribly, with little possibility for masking the taste with food, so we had it specially made at a speciality pharmacy into a toddler-friendly formula. Max walks around with his mouth open when he sees the bottle, so we are having no problems getting it into his little body 3 times a day for 10 days. He’ll be re-tested then, and we’ll decide from there if there is an additional course of action.

All of his major blood-based tests (HIV, Hep A, B, C, Anemia, TB) came back negative. He is currently exhibiting a deficiency in a particular hemoglobin, but over time he will have to be re-tested to determine to what degree the trait is really present vs. potentially being currently impacted by malnourishment. We’ll re-test him in 6 months, and proceed with “business as usual” in the meantime.

With each passing day, Max does grow slightly more particular about the foods he will eat. Is there a chance that it’s because he realizes that there actually are choices? We are trying not to give in to every whim, but to be honest, we’re still just trying to figure out what he will eat and what he won’t. Just when I think I have something figured out – for example, “no sauces or dips” – he’ll down a plate of hummus. I think he’s already having fun keeping us guessing!

While we are all settling in nicely, the transition for me from “lots of free time” to “no free time” has been difficult at times. I am already trying to work a bit each afternoon during Max’s nap, stretching my vacation time out over a longer period of time. That time that I might otherwise be devoting to blogging, or emails, or writing thank you notes (oh my, am I ever behind!) is instead being used for work. I miss the ability to get a lot more done in a day, but when Max reaches for me from his crib with a giant smile on his face every afternoon as he wakes from his nap, all is right in the world! I still haven't decided exactly when I will go back to work full-time, but I am estimating it to be during the first part of August.

We’ll close with some photos. It is so hard to get a good photo of him. He scowls at the sight of the camera, but of course perks up as soon as he can look at the photo of himself in the digital viewfinder. That reminds me – he does seem to have a vanity issue. LOL. He’ll even stare at his own reflection in the oven door!

More updates soon! We’re still out here cheering on all of the waiting families!

Max in "recovery" mode right after having what seemed like gallons of blood drawn at the IAC.

Fully recovered, as he enjoys his post-IAC lunch at IHOP. He has been at multiple restaurants already (and I swear it hasn't always been IHOP -- HA!), and he does amazingly well provided he is in a high chair.

Bonding with my mom. Max was carrying around a hand-held poker game, pretending it was a phone. My mom, a retired minister who is not a fan of gambling, went to the toy store and bought him an Elmo phone so we could put away the poker game.
Now, I swear I hear Elmo in my sleep. :-)

We usually let him feed himself breakfast every day, and depending on the day and food, he feeds himself alot of meals. Letting him feed himself ensures twice the time and twice the mess, but he is missing his mouth less and less each day.

I'm a sucker for kids in footie pajamas, so I had to include this picture for the cuteness factor! Auntie Leenie gave him this wagon and "lego-like" blocks, and he loves to pull it around and around the house.

Taking his medicine, often times his favorite food of the day!

Eating pizza at his first Reds game. He clapped and cheered along as the Reds won, and he loved the July 3 fireworks display after the game.

Hanging out, making cell phone calls, in his big-boy shirt. This is one busy kid! :-)