Okay, so the blog posts get sparse once the child is home full-time. But now that I am finally also home full-time (yay parental leave!) I have a chance to sit with my glass of milk and jar of nutella in front of the computer and catch you up on how things went.
N. moved in on Sept 28th. Things went remarkably smoothly. We expected to see some reaction from him in terms of wondering when he'd be going back home, or seeming upset when we put him down for the night. Nothing. We thought it might have to do with the fact that he was overstimulated at our house compared to where he used to live (a 4 year old, a cat and a dog make for some interesting play-mates when you've been living alone with a 65 year old). But ultimately, there has been no major grief around moving away from the foster family. Or, if there is any, he is living it very differently than K. did. What we are getting is a 2 year old who is much more independent than K. was. Offers to help him eat his meal are met with dirty looks and a swatting hand. He's not very cuddly and seems more turned in on himself. So our work with him regarding attachment has looked much different than with K. One very welcome change, though is that he goes to sleep without a peep. This alone has made life so much easier.
So attachement-wise, I've been on the floor with him quite a bit, playing peek-a-boo, patty-cake and pretending to feed each other plastic vegetables all to keep eye contact and establish physical contact with him. He's taken very quickly to it! I also need to learn to go at his pace and not overwhelm him with all the hugs I have stored up for him.
In terms of adapting to having 2 boys to manage, it's gone fairly well. We've got a good routine with K, and we just cycled N. into it as well. So he went from falling asleep in front of the 11 o'clock news at foster home to a 7:30 story, song and hug regimen. The part that is more difficult, is having K. get used to having a new one at home. He went from being the prince to now being the person who is perceived as the toy-thief. As soon as K. picks something up, N. decides it's what he wants. Then things look like a 3 stooges revival with smackers and slappers a'plenty. I draw the line at eye-pokes though. As for K., he's as big as 2 eight year olds, so it's funny to hear him scream as if his arm had been ripped out when N's little hand comes within 2 millimeters of him.
Time outs work well and with the frequency of them, he'll also be able to count to 10 in no time.
So all in all, our little family is slowly becoming a four-some. Greg is now back at work after his month of being a stay-at-home dad. He is actually very happy to be back at work. I'm also very happy that he now knows that a parental leave is not a vacation. By the way, Greg offers a medal to anyone who chooses to stay at home with a toddler.
As for me, doing this the second time around, I' m much more practiced. I know which Chapters has the Thomas the Tank Engine table set up in the Children's section. I know how not to do large grocery orders just so I can go shopping at least 3 times a week. I have almost the whole Wiggles playlist memorized and can make wild animal noises whenever necessary. I'm also very well versed with the maximum holding capacity of a snuggies diaper. I'm back to cooking elaborate meals for supper and baking desserts. So with us gays, we don't gain weight before the child arrives, it's afterwards!
But I do have to tell you that dealing with the social workers this time around has been a major pain. Our new worker is fairly inexperienced and so everything with her is by the book. We still have visits with the educator despite the fact that the transition is already done and integrated. So basically it feels like we have in-laws who visit every week or so to tell us how we should be raising our child. It wouldn't be so bad if their suggestions were helpful, but often they make no sense. Case in point: as we have a cat and dog, the educator told us we could train N. to take care of them by having him start by helping us with our fish. As he can't hurt the fish since they are behind glass, that would be a good beginning. So have him feed the fish.... one problem. overfeeding the fish will kill them. And seeing how I can't trust him with the ketchup bottle, the jar of fish food is waay off limits. But, I smile, nod and say what a great idea to the workers and I wonder how the hell their children are turning out.
As for N. it's been around 6 weeks since he's joined us. He's much more cuddly now and his vocabulary has tripled. He sings, dances and makes food for me in his little kitchen. He's now shy around strangers (good sign) and will cuddle into me when scared. He is very social and waves hello and goodbye to everyone and will even blow kisses. Cashiers fall in love with that. I don't have the heart to tell them that he blows kisses goodbye when we flush the toilet too.
