Socks, Socks

Nicholas has been home six weeks now! Some days it feels like so much longer, and other days I still have a hard time believing that I am his mom. I am still in amazement of how well he is adjusting. During the adoption, I read all the books on attachment and parenting. I’ve read about other people’s struggles. While I am well aware that to be fully bonded and attached takes time, Nicholas meets most of the qualifications for positive attachment on a list I have. I feel like with such a difficult adoption that God has given us a little grace in the area of post-adoption.

We still struggle with nap time though. Rest time on the couch works 50% of the time. He can either choose that option or he knows he will have to rest up in his room, which is the option he does not like. He was in his room the past two days. We are also finding that Nicholas can be a tad bit too friendly. While we don’t mind him giving hugs and kisses to familiar faces, we aren’t ready for him to just kiss anyone he meets. We need a happy medium. So, we’re trying to work on that issue. Overall, we're so happy with how he is doing.

We find that he likes to use his time in his car seat as vocabulary practice. Often times, he will sit and just say a bunch of random words over and over. One day as we were driving, Evan looked at me and said, “I guess you got what you wanted, a talker!” See, what A LOT of people don’t know about me is that I can talk! I love to talk! Evan will attest to it. I am just pretty reserved out in public. So, it would be nice to have someone who wants to sit and have a conversation. In fact, in the last couple of days, Nicholas has been sitting on my lap, looking me in the eyes, and talking to me. I don’t always know what he’s saying, but he loves having my full attention.

Yesterday we went to church and Nicholas was excited to go to the church nursery. He almost knocked a little girl over to get in the door. We actually had to ask for a hug, which he gladly gave us. We kind of had mixed emotions. We want him to be okay with the nursery, but at the same time, we (selfishly) want him to miss us. The lady in the nursery told us that he did really well. He did look sad a couple of times, but he had fun. In fact, she said he was a good helper! We know that for sure.

I do have a quick, cute story to tell you. Nicholas loves to see babies. Well, on the way to the nursery there was a man holding his baby. Nicholas saw the baby and then immediately noticed that the baby had no socks on. I had to keep him from trying to touch the baby’s feet as he proclaimed, “Socks, socks!” He always says the word twice. He looks at our feet everyday and says it. We have to tell him, “No socks" or "Yes, Daddy is wearing socks”, etc. He did make the father of this baby smile though.

There is another small problem that we are having. Nicholas loves to pick his scabs. Well, we were hoping to get some pictures done in the near future, so we needed to find a solution for when Nicholas sleeps, since that seems to be where he does it the most. I think Evan got a little carried away this time, but here was our solution:



And, here's a couple more pictures, just because:


Nicholas was so proud of this tower of blocks that he built all by himself.


Nicholas has learned to say, "Cheese". Here he is pausing to smile during one of his favorite pasttimes - Eating with Grandpa (and off Grandpa's plate).


This picture is just a nice one of him actually stopping and posing for the camera.

In closing, Nicholas' cousin, Carter is coming over this afternoon. I've been telling him that he will have to share his toys with Carter. Nicholas let me know that Carter could drive his boat. I thought that was nice. Let's see if he remembers what he said once Carter is here and actually playing with "Nih-ka-ka's toys".

Kristin