Memorial Day

On the Sunday before Memorial Day we went to a friend's house for a cookout.  Jordan had fun playing in the little pool in the backyard. 

 Aiden wanted his bathing suit on so I thought he wanted to go into the pool.  He laughed and laughed as he watched Jordan play, but whenever I would try to put him into the pool he would cry. 

 When we came home on Sunday night Jordan came down with a little stomach bug.  After a good night's sleep on Sunday night, we thought he was better so we drove out to Zeeland for the Memorial Day parade.

 Jordan loved all the tractors and trucks in the parade, but he did not like the loud noises.  He had his ears covered pretty much the whole parade.  That part of him reminds me so much of me when I was little.  I was terrified of loud noises too!

 When we came back from the parade my parents put on their sprinkler.  Jordan had so much fun running through it. 

 Of course Aiden wanted to go out in his suit too!  His sunscreen isn't rubbed into his face because he is so quick!  Whenever I put sunscreen on him, he squirms around so much that I'm lucky just to get a little smear on his face.  Thank goodness he is like Jordan and doesn't burn. 

 Aiden loved watching Jordan run through the sprinkler but he was pretty leery about joining in the fun.  Eventually he reached out his hand to touch the water, but he didn't want to run all the way through it.

Aiden was a lot more content to sit by Daddy than to run through the sprinkler!  Later on in the day we realized that poor Jordan wasn't over his little stomach bug after all. Poor kid.  We thought he was fine because he was having so much fun.  After a couple days of extra rest, he is back to his normal, energetic self.

Summer Weather

We've been enjoying some beautiful summer weather over here the past several days.  It is wonderful that the boys can play outside.  I am now grateful we brought Aiden home in the spring.  I can't imagine how difficult it would be to keep him happy if we had come home in the winter!  Being outside has definitely helped his mood/adjustment as he loves being outdoors.

 Here are the boys enjoying an afternoon snack of seaweed on the driveway.  I had to laugh as they both sat there devouring that seaweed.  What other 2 and 3 year old would you see loving seaweed for a snack? 

 I had a hard time getting a good picture of Aiden looking out the window because whenever he hears my camera turn on he turns around to pose.  He loves looking out this window just like Jordan did at his age.  Whenever it is quiet and I can't find Aiden, I almost always will find him on the chair staring out the window.

 Aiden is also similar to Jordan in that he is always very interested in what Daddy is eating.  Here are the boys sharing a bowl of kimchi soup.  The boys could only eat the noodles because the broth is too spicy.

 Notice Jordan's broken monster truck on the table.  Sadly many of Jordan's toys have been broken these past few weeks because Aiden is so rough on them.  He throws toys really hard whenever he is angry.  Jordan has handled it pretty well but he now has a hard time sharing certain toys because he is worried Aiden will break them.

 Here are the boys playing in the little pool in the backyard.  They both love the water!

 On Mother's Day we brought Aiden to my parent's house for the first time.  He took his afternoon nap there.  But just like at home, he woke up part way through his nap and fell alseep on Luke.  Almost every afternoon Aiden wakes up crying about an hour into his nap.  I then bring him downstairs to the couch where he sleeps for the remainder of his nap.  Sleep continues to be one of the biggest issues we are still dealing with as he continues to wake up several times during the night.  I was back to sleeping in my own room, but have recently been sleeping at least part of the night in Aiden's room. 

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!

Update on Aiden

Things continue to progress at a slow pace over here.  I could easily fill up a blog post with all the issues we are dealing with, but I decided instead to write all the good things I have noticed about Aiden.  There are many fun and endearing things about him.  Here are a few.

• He loves to cuddle.  I am a big cuddler and have always felt like I had to sneak in the cuddles with Jordan whenver I could because he's never been a big one for cuddles.  But Aiden is very different this way.  He loves to cuddle.  He gives me hugs and cuddles every chance he gets!
• He loves music.  He loves it when I sing to him, loves to listen to music, and loves it when I play the piano.  Yesterday evening he was pretty incosolable, so I started to play the piano.  It seemed to calm him right down and he started playing with different things in the room while I played the piano.
• When he is happy, he is really happy.  I will admit that there have been many, many tears these past two weeks, but we have also seen a lot of laughs from Aiden.  When he is happy he laughs a lot and is really loud!
• He is easily soothed by me.  Although he cries often, if I pick him up he usually stops right away.  He seems to be able to receive comfort from me which is a really good sign that things will improve more in the future.
• He's sleeping a crib!  I was worried he would never sleep in a crib since he slept on the floor in Korea.  But he's taken to his crib with very little difficulty.  That does not mean that he is sleeping well at night, but when he goes down for his nap and goes to bed at night he goes into his crib awake without complaint and falls asleep on his own.  I do have to be in the room with him, but that's the only assistance he needs from me to fall asleep. 

Thank you to all of you who are praying for our transition.  It is obvious that both Jordan and Aiden are still working on adjusting with Aiden bearing the biggest burden.  However, we are hopeful that we will see more happy moments and fewer stressful ones as time goes by.

Last Hours in Korea

I finally had the chance to load the pictures from our trip on to my computer.  Things are starting to improve a bit over here.  We are still dealing with many of the same issues, but Aiden has started to eat these past couple days which is an encouraging sign.  His first few days home he barely picked at his food.  I think he was too anxious to eat, poor kid.  But today he ate a ton and was full of smiles and laughs.  He even squealed when Luke came home from work.  I am so relieved.                                                                              

These pictures are out order, but there's been some kind of formatting change with my blog and I can not get it to do what I want! They will just have to be posted out of order.  This is a picture of us with Aiden and his foster mother right before we left to take Aiden with us to the hotel.  I felt so sorry for her as she started to get really emotional as we loaded up in the van.

Here's Luke and Aiden at Eastern about a half hour before we took him to our hotel.

Here's Aiden at our hotel.  He spent a lot of time entertaining himself by looking out the window.  We were 12 stories up and he loved watching the cars on the streets below.

Here's Luke and Aiden outside of Eastern.  We had a little time to kill before we could take him to our hotel and Aiden was quite restless so we took him outside.  It was a challenge because he ran every which way so we couldn't take our attention off of him for a second!

Here's Aiden sleeping in our hotel.  He slept 12 straight hours that first night and didn't wake up until 10 in the morning.  Luke and I were shocked by how well he slept.  Sadly, he hasn't been doing that well sleeping at home, but he is showing some improvement.  I have been sleeping on an inflatable mattress next to his crib as it is important to be able to provide him with immediate comfort when he wakes up crying.  He also has never slept in a room alone before, so I can't really leave him alone until he is more adjusted.

This picture is about a month old but I never had a chance to post it.  Over my spring vacation Jordan got a big boy bike.  He is so proud of that bike and rides it everywhere.  I call him the next Lance Armstrong because I am so impressed with how well he does on that bike.  He must have really strong leg muscles because he can ride that little bike with training wheels up some pretty big hills!

Pictures

I still haven't uploaded any pictures of our last days in Korea or our first days home.  These pictures are just ones that my mom took today.  Also, something weird is going on with my blog right now and it's really hard to post things for some reason.  The adjustment continues to be slow and difficult, but we are hopeful that we will see some improvements soon.  In the meantime, enjoy these recent pictures.

This is Jordan in his hanbok.  It's actually the hanbok that Aiden's foster mother gave him but it is way too big for him.  We are planning on getting a family picture taken soon since Luke's birth father also gifted us with hanboks.  Aiden will wear Jordan's handbok because then everyone will be in something that fits him.  Jordan loves wearing this and asked me yesterday if he could wear it while he rode his bike!

Although the transition is a bit rough, we have some joyful moments too.  I look a mess because personal grooming is pretty far down my priority list right now.  I think Aiden looks pretty cute though!

Here's our first family picture!  I don't know why this photo is so blurry.  Like I said, something strange is going on with my blog and I can't figure out how to format anything anymore.  And I'm too tired to figure it out!  I'll try to post more pictures soon.

Adjusting (Slowly)

We are all trying to adjust over here to our new little arrival.  It's amazing how one tiny body can change the climate of the home.  It's been a rough adjustment to be honest, and I am quickly realizing that adopting a 22 month old is vastly different from adopting an 11 month old.  Aiden is very clingy to me, but he won't have much to do with Luke at all.  This morning I quick snuck away while Luke was distracting Aiden and took a very quick shower and got dressed.  That's about all I can do before I hear him start crying and yelling, Omma, omma (Mommy, mommy).  If I am ever out of his eyesight he cries.  When he wakes up in the night and when he wakes up in the morning and after his nap he is just bawling until I pick him up.  I feel sorry for him as I know he is going through a lot, but it is a bit wearing on me.  Jordan has really had to bear a lot too because Aiden frequently hits, pushes, pinches, and bites him.  I don't know if he is jealous of him because I give Jordan affection as well, or what is going on but it's been hard on Jordan.  I'm trying to nip all the aggression in the bud, but it is really hard because the second I turn my back Aiden is doing something physical to Jordan.  We are thankful for Aiden's arrival home, but are hoping that this adjustment phase passes quickly so that our home can have some peace again.