3 Weeks

Today marks three weeks since Aiden was placed with us.  Although each day brings more challenges, overall things are improving.  One big improvement is that I am back to sleeping in my own bed!  That is huge for me as I am not a great sleeper to begin with, and don't function well when sleep deprived.  After a few nights in a row of very little sleep on my part, I decided just to try sleeping in my own room to see how Aiden would do and he did great!  He is not sleeping through the night by any means, but when he wakes up crying I just go in his room, rub his back for a couple minutes and then he is usually back asleep.  At night I put him in his crib awake and just sit in his room and read a book until he falls asleep.  The past couple nights he was even babbling a bit in his crib while he was waiting to fall asleep which was a good sign to me that he is really feeling comfortable in the crib.

The other big improvement is that he is starting to learn English.  That's huge as well because it is hard to interact with a 22 month old when they have no idea what you are saying.  He has learned three baby signs- eat, all done, and please.  He even has a few English words already.  I can hardly believe it, but it's true. He says eat, all done, dada, apple, bottle, and yeah.  Most people probably wouldn't know that was what he was saying, but by the context it is clear that those are the words.  I'm amazed.  Today we had our first post placement visit and I was listing the English words he could say to our social worker.  When I said all done, Aiden looked at me, said "all done" and walked to the door and tried to open it. 

Due to the busyness and craziness of the adjustment, I haven't taken many pictures, but here are a few.  Right now it seems like Aiden has two emotions:  really happy and really upset.  We are hoping that over time he has more really happy moments and fewer really upset moments!

 Aiden loves to sit in this rocking chair.  He often grabs a book from his bookshelf, but doesn't spend much time looking at it.  I've tried reading to him several times, but it hasn't been too successful yet.

 Whenever I prepare a meal Aiden clings to my leg crying.  I've tried putting him in his high chair with some toys while I cook as an alternative to crying.  This works for about 5 minutes before he can't stand the wait anymore!

Jordan and Aiden continue to work on figuring out how to interact with each other.  Needless to say, there is A LOT of fighting. Even so, whenever Aiden is out of the room, Jordan is always asking where Aiden is and tries to find him. And Aiden always seems to seek out Jordan as well.  Hopefully the day will come when they are good buddies!