The New Normal

Gotcha Day

One Year Later

Look At Me Now

As of February 18th, Luke has been our son for a year. We had a small scale celebration, cake with friends, and pretty much called it a day.

The reality is, we haven't felt much like celebrating. We have found ourselves smack-dab in the middle of bonding issue hell, and it has been quite struggle lately.

When we last wrote, Luke was making leaps and bounds, crawling, scooting, cruising; reaching up to have us hold him in our laps; finally catching up after a year long effort.

Then suddenly, he got a cold, nothing Earth shaking or marginally disturbing, a simple cold. That day he refused to get off of my (Mike) lap and cried and wailed every time I put him down. He even started that old habit he had of hurling himself backwards, right on his head and crying. The same thing he was doing 6 months ago before he could really sit up well on his own. He stopped crawling, he stopped scooting, he stopped sitting upright, like the last 6 months didn't even exist.

We were struggling several months ago when he did this. It was such a releif when he started to be more independent. It was like our lives were getting back to a new normal. Then this happened. His neediness makes it difficult to cook, shower, clean the house or use the bathroom. We had to go back to putting in his bumbo chair, like an infant, to get anything accomplished. His lack of energy use has led to erratic sleeping patterns as well. 2 nights ago he was up until 2:00am for no reason that we can think of (yes, on a school night). He wasn't being naughty, just laughing and rolling around the bed having a grand old time, while visions of Benadryl and Melatonin cocktails danced in my head. It has also impacted the time we get to spend attending to our older children. I was really missing the time I spend with them, and have to admit, it was making me resent Luke.

So, what to do? We took him to Dr. Rich, his pediatrician, whom we love, and she ruled out most things medical, no ear infection, no health issues, in fact, he looks just great. Her best guess was that he is suffering from seperation anxiety like any normal baby would at age 9-12 months, only he didn't have the opportunity to do it when he was 9-12 months becase he was busy staying alive.

Next came the orthopedist, who postulated that Luke got an infection that made his leg hurt which likely contributed to his lack of willingness to crawl and his excessive clinginess. Otherwise, he looked pretty good to her.

So, essentially, we have to just live with the fact that our adoptive son is getting attached to us and is going through normal developmental milestones, and I should stop whining and "man up."

There is an up side to all of this. Luke is learning sign language and getting quite good at it. He can now sign many signs, including, Help, Daddy, Juice, All Done, Book, Open, Eat, Milk, Cracker.

He is much more snuggly, will give kisses, and loves to be held and sung to. The best gift in my opinion is when he wakes up and smiles this beautiful contented smile when you come to get him, and reaches his arms out to be picked up. It makes every bit of this struggle worthwhile and makes you forget your angry thoughts from 1:45am the previous night.

Anyone with some advice about how to continue to let your son know that you love him and will never leave him, but still carry on with life, please contact us!