Two Months Home

Only two months home and I go back to work this week.  It's really a shame how little time I get at home with Kiera and Matteo.  Given how little time off from work I have, I'm lucky and so thankful that they're adjusting well.  I'd have some hard decisions to make if they weren't.  Instead I'm focusing on how far we've all come as a family in these two months.  Honestly, we've hit a really good place in our lives and it's hard to believe that it only took two months to get here.

I've heard so many adoptive parents say that it's like their adoptive children have always been with them, no matter what age they joined the family.  I'm definitely feeling that now, to the point that when I look at pictures taken before Kiera and Matteo were home, I have to remind myself that they weren't in the pictures because we hadn't met them yet. 

Sleep 
Let's start with sleep, because whether it's going well or not will determine how you feel about everything else.  And the verdict is...sleep is going well.  (I'm inclined to whisper that for fear that I'll jinxed myself.)  And by well, I mean that Matteo is out of our bedroom and bunking with Kiera in their own bedroom.  We felt so confident that this was a permanent change that we packed up the spare crib mattress we've had beside our bed for the past couple of weeks. 

How did we get there?  The adoption world is going to gasp in horror, but honestly, it was transitioning him to his room combined with cry-it-out.  We started by getting him to nap in his room and that involved some tears, but he quickly became comfortable with that idea and there were even some days where he joyfully jumped into bed at nap time and waved to us as we left his room.  He  was napping in his room for a few weeks before we tried getting him to sleep in his room at night.  It really only took one night of hard crying for 20 minutes and after that, it's been pretty smooth sailing.  We've had a stable bedtime routine since coming home and he gets plenty of activity during the day to tire him out, along with a nap to keep him on an even keel so he's not over-tired at bedtime and I think that all helped in the transition to sleeping in his own bed.  In in a first-ever occurrence, Matteo was fussing one night as I was getting ready for bed.  Chris was already asleep, so I went in there and he let me comfort him. 

Kiera and Matteo now go to bed at the same time their brothers do at 7:00 p.m. and are usually out of bed between 6:30 a.m. and 7:00 a.m.

Attachment
I think our children's attachment to us has been developing very well. Matteo openly gives us kisses and Kiera reaches for Chris and me to pick her up and doesn't show the indiscriminate friendliness as much as she used to.  We're not 100% there yet, but I know we're on the right path.  There may always be doubts in my mind though that we'll ever get "there" even though I'm not sure what "there" is supposed to look or feel like.  It doesn't seem reasonable that kids who've had so many caregivers in their short lives would trust us that we're going to be here for them forever.  Just like our kids have in fact trusted Chris and me, I'm trying to trust that we will get to the point where Kiera and Matteo hug someone outside our immediate family and I don't feel panic or sadness.  

Food
We're so incredibly fortunate that we have good eaters (among many things we're fortunate for).  Back when I was so naive about what it was going to be like to raise children, I had this notion in my head that I would serve my children a variety of healthy and adventurous foods and they'd joyfully eat and mealtimes would be this time of familial bliss.  My dream was shattered with the first hurling of lovingly-prepared potatoes by my first-born.   

And then along came Kiera and Matteo, who happily come to the table when it's time to eat and more or less eat anything you put in front of them.  Even without language, they could express their discontent with the food through whining or some other non-verbal expression, but they don't.  You put food in front of them and they start eating, or if they don't like it or aren't hungry, they simply don't eat it.  It's kind of amazing. 

They do have their preferences.  Kiera loves milk and eggs and Matteo eats Cheerios like he's a teenager, not a two-year-old. And they both prefer to pick the contents out of their sandwiches and leave the bread. 

There's plenty of time for their good eating habits to regress since we're still in the honeymoon stage of their adoptions.  I'm seeing signs of over-eating/food insecurity with Matteo, but I'm attributing that to the effects of being on a liquid diet for two weeks and the hunger he experienced during that time.  Still, I'll try not to be surprised if one of their first English words is "yuck" or "gross". 

Potty-Training
We regressed in potty-training with Matteo after his surgery, but we made some progress with Kiera, so still a win, right?  Matteo is finally day-time trained again and will even "tell" us he has to go by becoming distressed or pointing upstairs, where the bathroom is.  Kiera may well still have us trained, as after we got through a messy couple of days of constant accidents, we finally got in a routine of sending her to the toilet on a regular basis.  Both kids are in pull-ups at night since they're not in the same room as us and still don't know how to yell at the top of their lungs that they have to use the potty like Soren does.   

Sibling Relationship
All four kids generally get along well, which means that we're probably still in the honeymoon phases in this area as well.  Spats usually revolve around toys or who gets to choose what color plate or cup among our classy Ikea plastic dinnerware.  We need to keep reminding Oliver and Soren that Kiera and Matteo are still learning our family rules or they don't necessarily understand what they're trying to tell them to do.  We've been practicing patience, but also how to work together and help each other out.