J Cooper Photography

It is funny how we feel like our social workers are privy to all sorts of information we don’t have.  Like how to get babies to sleep.  And how to get them eating solid foods.  But you know what?  They don’t.  Ours just spent the morning laughing at my kids’ antics, ooohing and ahhhing over the baby, and then said “it will all come together” when I asked all the pointed questions.  She thought Daniel was doing great.  He was the perfect amount of charming babbler and shy sensitive soul.  He showed off his growing vocab, smiled from across the room, and then promptly buried his face in my shoulder.   The older kids were {mostly} very well behaved and didn’t  jump around on the furniture or show off {all} of their school projects.

As part of our post placement report we have to submit 10-15 pictures of Daniel.  That is definitely not a problem as I have taken hundreds since we have been home.  But we also have to include a recent family snap shot.  I kept thinking we could just set up the ‘ol tripod and snag a quick pic one evening.  But by the time Mr. P gets home from work the artic sun has set and our family room is as dark as a cave.  Plus, I am usually comatose on the couch holding a baby with rice cereal plastered to my hair…there are usually three wild natives running naked through the house…and dinner is often burning on the stove.  So the thought of “family picture time” ranks right up there with a root canal.

So this morning at the end of our visit, I asked our social worker to take a quick snapshot of all of us together.  It is most definitely not frame worthy…but it DOES just make me insanely happy to have ALL of us in the same picture together!  It is kind of eerie how Julia is in the picture twice as her canvas is perched over Mr. P’s left shoulder.  Sam looks stoned.  Daniel looks like an uncomfortable little stuffed sausage.  And Mr. P has two large drool stains on his shoulder (I could have edited those out but what fun would that be??) We are SO not in the picture perfect mode around here.  But that is ok too.  When the spring thaw comes I will be begging Sara to take our family pictures for real…and then I’ll be sure to more careful about the drool stains!

So our social worker didn’t have a magic pill for us to get Daniel sleeping and eating solids better.  But last night he only woke for a bottle once (I was able to just rock him back to sleep when he woke again later in the night).  And today he tried THREE different foods and opened his mouth for each meal…so we are definitely seeing improvements.   We are trying to remind ourselves that he has only been home for one month and we have a lifetime ahead of us to worry about schedules…and sleep

It’s hard to imagine not wanting to be up ALL night with this sweet face isn’t it??

Absolutely nothing…but I’m too tired to blog these separately…so away we go

Miss Middle lost her second tooth of the week today.  I say “lost” but in all reality is was literally ripped from her mouth.  This girl has some serious guts.  I asked her how wiggly it had gotten over the past few days and after showing me she said, “just get it out!”  I asked to wiggle it myself and told her that I really thought it needed a few more days to be ready.  To which she replied something along the lines of “just do what it takes.”  I grabbed a tissue and told her I would do one BIG yank but if it didn’t come out (or I saw tears) I wasn’t going to try again.  “Whatever”, she sighed.  So I grabbed that tooth and yanked as hard as I could considering my giant hands barely fit inside her tiny mouth let alone could barely hold onto a slippery little tooth the size of a grain of rice.  I pulled HARD (and maybe twisted a bit too)…and sure enough…it broke loose!  She didn’t even whimper.  Just stood there with a huge (holey) smile on her face.   Then immediately did the “hand pump” and screamed “YES!!!!!”

When A walked in the door from school a few minutes later she asked “Hey A…notice anything that isn’t in my mouth??”

Tomorrow our social worker is coming over for our first post placement visit.  I’ve had the pep talk with the older three.  1) Do not interrupt any adult who is speaking.  2) Keep your hands out of your mouth, your nose, your pants, or your sibling’s mouth, nose, or pants.  3)  For heaven’s sake don’t bring up the Comet disinfectant story (again).

I am anxious to ask our social worker about some of the things we are seeing in Daniel.  Overall, I am thrilled with his progress and bonding.  But this night waking is starting to tire me and I am anxious to hear what she suggests.  And while we feel he is really starting to connect with our family, it will be good to get an outside perspective on the matter too.   Maybe he’ll show off a bit with his “talking” and his latest trick (shaking his head “no”).

We’ll do several of these post placement visits this year with our local social worker (they will be sent into AGCI along with additional information).  Then we will file an update report that will be sent to Ethiopia every year until Daniel turns 18.

Can you believe we’ve had him in our arms for one month and one day?

Tomorrow marks the one month anniversary of having Daniel in our arms…our “Gotcha Day”.  In some ways it seems like we just got home with him…and in others…like we’ve known him forever.  This adoption roller coaster ride is exhausting, happy, hard, rewarding…but crazy good.  Daniel has taught me so much about who I am and who I need to be.  Less of me.  More of Him.
That is so hard to do but I am working on it every day with little steps.

We never shared our video from our first trip to meet Daniel.  Mr. P worked on this while we were in the hotel room in Ethiopia and was so excited to share it with our family when we returned home.  I must have watched it 100 times while we waited for our Embassy date.  Hopefully, he will make another one from our second trip and I can share that here too!

We can’t imagine our lives without you Daniel.  You have brought so much joy already!

The Writer named the Tooth Fairy “Pearl E. White”. Pearl is our regional director serving Nebraksa, Missouri, Kansas, and Iowa.  Fortunately for our family, she serves all of the little tooth loosing girls in our clan.  Due to the large geographic region she covers, she does on occasion take a couple of days to deposit those dollar bills…especially in poor weather.   Those high winds and snowflakes just wreck havoc on her dainty little wings!

The good news in the Cooper house tonight is that the air is clear and she’ll be dropping in on my little “baby” who just lost her first tooth!  It has been wiggly for some time and this afternoon I asked her to show me how loose it had gotten.  As soon as she opened wide I realized the new tooth had already come in behind and I told her that baby tooth just HAD to come out!  I grabbed a Kleenex and we had it out in 60 seconds…it literally almost fell out in my hand. {Can you see that new tooth bud poking out behind?  Are my kids the only ones who have this happen??}

Can you tell she is just a WEE bit excited?  The one next to it is getting awfully loose too…I hope Pearl has her weather back-ups lined up….we might be keeping her busy at our house!

Most would think of date night as a romantic night out for two with your spouse..but with 4 kiddos and no family babysitters around these parts…we improvise

I think it’s been about 6 years since Miss A and I have gotten an evening all to ourselves.  Sometimes us girls ditch the boys…but I rarely get my oldest school girl all by herself.  And in the mad dash of after school homework, violin practicing, and sibling coralling…sometimes I forget what a hoot she is to be around.

{Taken on my phone in the Gap Outlet fitting room.  And yep…she bought that cute “tunic”}

So tonight we met Daddy at the door with grand plans.  Just my 8 year old and me…for a night of shopping.  Her legs keep growing (at 8 1/2 she has FINALLY outgrown her size 6 pants…poor thing inherited my short legs) and it was time to look for some new duds.  Ironically we didn’t buy pants.  But that wasn’t the point.  We drove, and talked, played 20 questions and “Would you Rather?”, ate McDonald’s shakes, and shopped.  She surprised me with her choices.  Two dresses (she called them “tunics”) and leggings.  My little girl isn’t so big after all.

Next up a similar date with Miss Middle.  She’s already warned me that she’s only into t-shirts and jeans though.  And she only wants to look at “Old Naby”.  Whatever…as long as she is ALL MINE!

Daniel has been home for 3 WEEKS today!  I thought it would be fun to document a few of the amazing steps he has taken since coming home.   It is so easy to get caught up in the mundane tasks of motherhood and forget about all these little baby steps that add up to be rather significant.  Each new step forward for our little man is proof that he is bonding to us and feeling more secure here at our house.   So what has he accomplished in 3 weeks?

•  He has learned to sit up completely unassisted.  He can stay this way for several minutes now on any surface and can even turn his head to focus on something else before losing his balance.

•  He knows he has legs and will stand with support!  This is huge because in Ethiopia he had no idea he even had legs…let alone what to do with them.  Now he can pull to stand with help.

•  We are slowly getting into a routine and rhythm to our day.  Daniel is now eating every 4 hours and taking a morning and afternoon nap in his crib!

•  When he wakes at night (or during naptime) he is able to put himself back to sleep if I go in to the room and reassure him that I am there.

•  He is slowly adjusting to solid foods (cereal, sweet potatos, squash, and applesauce so far).  Tonight he ate the whole bowl (it was pretty small) although he still isn’t opening his mouth willingly.  I have to trick him into opening up his mouth by making him laugh or talk.  Fortunately, he does both of those pretty easily!

•  He is playing with TOYS!  In Ethiopia we put him under a play gym in the hotel and had no idea what to do.  He just laid there staring at the ceiling or at his hands.  Now he likes to kick and tug on the toys and talk to the little dangling animals.

•  We are working on getting in all of his calories during the DAY so he wakes less at night.  Last night he only had 1 bottle between 7pm and 8am.  We are trying hard to reassure him during the night with our presence rather than food.  We are hoping for a full night’s rest one of these nights soon

•  He is babbling constantly saying “da-da”.  He will repeat it after you and laugh if you prompt him.  He also says “ah-gooo” and makes other sounds.  He likes to squeal and laugh to get our attention.

•  He is taking his binky at night instead of a bottle.  He had never had a pacifier before and we debated starting one so “late” with him…but is seems to be helping him fall back to sleep which can’t be a bad thing!

•  He is making lots of eye contact and “talking” to us.  He loves to hold my hair and reach for our faces while we are playing.  He whines when I set him down to play.  These are all great signs of attachment!

Oh my goodness…can you believe this crazy kid?!?  Standing up already and he doesn’t have a clue how to crawl?

We have SO MUCH to be thankful for!  Looking back I can see tremendous gain in the past few weeks.   But I’ll be honest…it hasn’t always felt like it.  It is so hard not to compare him to other babies at this age or to compare him to what our other kids were doing at 8 months.  We are trying hard to focus on the positives and remind ourselves that the exhaustion will eventually fade away and all the effort will be worth it

A few have asked how Sam is doing now as the big brother.  My first reply would be “GREAT!”  But I’ve got to mention that he IS two and he is still quite the handful!  Today when I walked out of the room he emptied the laundry basket of freshly folded clothes by flinging them individually to the far corners of the room.  When I placed him in time out he said, “Mommy you make me so sad.”  And when I reprimand him he will usually exclaim, “Mommy is scaring me!!!!”  (just an FYI that I am NOT a yeller).  He is definitely getting to be a dramatic little guy!  At rest time today we looked ALL over the house for his beloved blankie and could not find it anywhere.  I finally put him in bed and asked him if he had ANY idea where it could be.  He looked at me and said, “I just put it somewhere…” but wouldn’t tell me where.  So he cried himself to sleep without blankie.  When I still couldn’t find it tonight I was really getting worried.  We haven’t left the house in 4 days so it couldn’t have just disappeared.  Do you know where I FINALLY found it????  INSIDE THE DIAPER PAIL.  He was SO excited to see it again (it smelled so bad I was gagging retrieving it)…and luckily for him I had just enough time to get it washed before bed!  He is such a handful.  I caught him trying to “sit on Daniel’s lap” today.  And he has had a perpetual bruise on the side of his eyebrow from running into the edge of our bed.  But other than his normal crazy behavior…I think he likes being a big brother!

School is in session tomorrow (PRAISE GOD!!!) and I cannot wait to get out of the house (does driving the carpool count??)

I wish snow days made me all giddy and happy.  I wish I could report that I utilized the time to make beautiful handmade crafts with my children, cooked delicious, nutritious gourmet meals for my family, and danced gleefully through the house singing my children’s praises.  But the fact of the matter is this.  I grew up in Nebraska under a blanket of snow every winter.  And in all honesty…I’m completely over snow.  And although I thoroughly adore my children….I like them at school too   I DO like the lounging around in our pjs but the lack of schedule and activity is starting to wear me out!  That doesn’t mean the kids haven’t had fun.

We are on snow day #3 tomorrow.  I am trying hard to relish in these simple days at home.  I know some day my kids will be away at college and I’ll long for these crazy, couped up days.

So here’s what we are doing:

dressing up the baby

mix matched socks

Play-doh “Cake Boss”

simple lunches

organizing craft storage

reading books

movie time

breathing treatments

Wii tournaments

checking email

online shopping

trying on spring clothes

staying warm

What are YOU doing with all this crazy snow?