It's Hard to Believe

We have had Lili with us for almost 6 weeks now and tomorrow she turns 1. I so wanted her home for her first birthday and I got my wish. It was hard waiting all those months, but now it almost feels like she's always been here.

While we continue to enjoy watching Lili grow and blossom, we continue to discuss our plans for the future. And for those who may be wondering, yes, we do plan on adopting again. I have felt very strongly from the beginning that I didn't want Lili to be our only child who was adopted. In addition, I wanted her to have a sibling closer to her own age. Now our challenge is to decide where our next adoption will take place. Guatemala is our first choice, but that program is currently closed to new adoptions while Guatemala puts a Hague compliant system in place. No one seems to know how long that will take or if they will be able to make it happen at all. It is very sad as there are still many, many children in need of a home and a family. Granted, there are many children in the world that have the same need, but there are many factors that go into making this decision and now we have to consider what is best for Lili as well. This decision is much more difficult this time around. I know there are other families going through the same decision making process right now who definitely understand our dilemma.

Sorry I'm not posting more pictures today, but rest assured that I'll have plenty of birthday girl pictures to post over the next few days.

Never a Dull Moment

One thing that we've always been able to say about our home is that we never seem to have a dull moment. Just when we think things are showing some signs of normalcy, something happenes to change that. I don't know, maybe all the things that seem to happen are just normal for us, but sometimes I long for a different type of normal.

So, I'm sure most are asking what has happened. Due to several factors, Ryan has recently not being doing very well in his home. Many individuals with Autism have some type of aggressive behavior, but some behaviors are more difficult to deal with. Unfortunately, Ryan happens to have some physically aggressive behaviors that are difficult to deal with. We thought and were lead to believe that the agency supporting his care was able and willing to handle Ryan through his bouts of aggression (which don't typically happen every day), but after 3 years of service, it appears to now be a problem. So a few days after bringing Lili home, we had to bring Ryan home. He has been back and forth a few times since then and while he does well while he's here, he does require a fair amount of care which takes away from the time I need to spend with Lili. We are now in the process of trying to find a new place for him to live, but this is going to be a big challenge in itself. I'm sure this will eventually all work out, but in the meantime it is a bit worrisome.

Despite the situation with Ryan, Lili continues to do well. She is becoming more and more vocal all the time. She is saying a few words . . . . . mamma, dada, dewg, ada (Jada), and baba (bottle). She loves it when daddy gets out the guitar and immediately scoots right over to help him play. Although her idea of playing guitar it to hit it. I call it her August Rush impression (those who have seen the movie will understand). She also pats her tummy and calls "ada." So far "ada" isn't responding, but maybe in time she'll understand that her name has changed temporarily. Lili also loves to scoot into the kitchen as quickly as possible to splash in the dog's water. Here's proof!

And as you can tell, she's so proud of herself.

The other thing that happened recently was our first experience at Lili becoming overly tired. Here's the outcome.

No mom can resist taking a picture like this.

Lili's New Passion

Books! She loves her books. I already have one completely memorized from reading it to her so often.

And we finally got Ben to read. LOL!!!!!!!

How Quickly a Month Goes By

It's hard to believe, but exactly 1 month ago today, Lili was placed in our arms forever. She is doing better than we anticipated she would do and we we didn't think it was possible to love her any more, but we love her more and more each day. All those months of waiting and anticipating her arrival are behind us and have become a distant memory. We are so enjoying being new parents again can't imagine how our lives without her.

Shake, Rattle and Roll

Last night was a bit better sleep wise. Lili slept in her crib for about 1 - 1 1/2 hours so I was able to get a little sleep before bringing her to bed with me. She fell right back to sleep and woke up a couple hours later for a little sip from her bottle and then slept until about 4:15 this morning. Around 4:35 she was still awake and I was really wanting more sleep, however, I quickly set up in bed when our entire house began to shake. Yes folks, Illinois was hit with a 5.4 earthquake early this morning. Dave thought the shaking was me running down the hall. Wow, maybe I need to lose more weight then I thought. LOL Apparently the shaking was enough to make Lili tired because she took a bottle and fell back to sleep and slept until around 8:15 this morning. So, while I'm still tired, I do feel more rested today and we haven't had any more shaking so far.

Little Sleep

I had no idea an 11 month old could survive on so little sleep, but Lili is functioning and isn't sleeping well at all. She has only slept about 6-7 hours the last two nights and took 1:15 nap yesterday and :30 nap today. Of course this means mom is also very tired, but Lili just keeps going and going. I know she is very tired because every time I try to get her to sleep she fights it with all the energy she can muster. The other new thing the last two days is that she will fall asleep while I'm rocking her and when I lay her in her crib she immediately wakes up and immediately becomes very upset. I know this is normal and she is still adjusting, but I'm also hoping this phase ends soon.

For those who are going through this too, I really feel for you. Maybe we could start a "sleepless moms" club :-)

Sorry no pictures with this post. I'm on the laptop and all my pictures are on the other computer. I'll try to get some posted later.

Time for Photos

I haven't posted pictures for awhile, so I thought it was time to get a few more out here for everyone.

Lili loves her doggies and they have gotten better and better with her each day. Lili loves to give them hugs and I was trying to get a picture of her hugging Jada, but my camera is apparently just not fast enough. I did think this was a pretty good picture though.

Lili really likes to help mommy with housework :-) and apparently her book needed to be washed.

I Did Not Fall Off the Face of the Earth

Sorry that I've been MIA lately, but I have a good excuse. "Sick baby." Poor Lili had a double ear and throat infection and was running a high temp. After a few doses of antibiotic, she is doing much better, but we had a rough few days at our house. In addition, I was trying to get ready for the "Come Meet Lili" open house we hosted yesterday. Of course we were wondering if we were going to have to cancel, but fortunately the little bug hit Lili early enough in the week and I got her right in to the doctor so we could "nip it in the bud" before party time yesterday.

Our open house went well. We had several people come by to meet this baby girl that they had heard so much about over the last several months. Lili seemed to really enjoy the attention and especially loved having all the kids here to play with. Her foster mother has 3 kids of her own and for all but a couple months that Lili was there, she had 1 or 2 other foster babies. Therefore, Lili was very used to having other kids around and having kids around again was a thrill for her.

Unfortunately, I didn't take as many pictures as I had hoped to take yesterday and the pictures I did get have other children in them, so I won't be posting those on my blog. Don't worry though, I'll have plenty of pictures to post in the future.

I was able to get some of my post-party cleaning done last night, but not all of it, so it's time to get to it and start the laundry. Assuming Lili continues to take good naps, I'll post more this week, including pictures.

Post Placement #1 Done

Our social worker came over this morning to complete 1 of 2 post-placement reviews for Lili's adoption. I think Lili may have won her over! Actually, she was very pleased to see how well Lili is doing so far. She also verified that all her sleep issues are very normal and she is progressing very well in her attachment and bonding to us. We won't have our 2nd post-placement review until November, but I'm sure we'll see her social worker between now and then as our agency has various events throughout the year.

I was so pleased last night that Lili slept for 4 1/2 hours before waking. However, I wasn't so pleased to discover that Lili apparently thought 4 1/2 hours sleep was plenty and it was time to play. 3 hours later she was back down for the rest of the night. She is napping right now (thus the reason I'm posting), but she hasn't been napping well either, so I'll be anxious to see how long she naps today. I know that she is making progress and that is a good thing. In the meantime, caffeine is my friend :-)

Here are some more pictures of our little cutie-pie doing one of her favorite things. Making more messes for mommy to clean up!

Getting Into a Routine

Slowly but surely we are getting into a bit of a routine. Hopefully we'll have it down by the time Lili is 18 :-) LOL

I want to get Lili on a little earlier schedule so she isn't taking such a late morning nap, but so far that hasn't worked out well. Last night she slept with me again. Poor daddy, he needs to get his sleep for work so he's now moved to one of the other beds since Lili still wants to sleep with mommy and hogs the bed. I'm sure this will also improve with time. The plus side is that she seems to be attaching and bonding very well.

Lili does love spending some time with daddy too though. He plays fun games with her and she really likes it when he plays the guitar. Okay, she really likes daddy to put the guitar on his lap so she can play.

Please notice the floor behind the chair. This is Lili's contribution to giving mommy more work to do.

Mommy's Helper

Lili moves quickly to the utility room everytime I go in to do laundry. She takes her post at the dryer and helps by removing clothes :-)

Please notice Lili's addition to the dryer.

Update

One week ago today, we left Guatemala with Lili in my lap. It's hard to believe at times that she hasn't always been here. However, early this morning was not one of those times. About 4 a.m. she showed her first real signs of grieving her foster family. It was heart breaking, yet a necessary step in her adjustment to her new home. She wanted me to hold her and at the same time she didn't want me to hold her. It was very obvious that she was looking for her foster mother and yet she wasn't here. After about 45 minutes she finally calmed down and a few minutes later she fell asleep. She's been happy most of the day today, but she did have some trouble settling down for her morning nap. I'm sure she feels an uncertainty about who is going to be here when she wakes up so it's very, very important that I'm here for her at all times. Eventually she'll realize I'm not going anywhere, but it's going to take some time.

I wanted to share some pictures of Lili with her brothers. They are pretty stoked about her being here finally, which you'll be able to tell from these pictures.

Lili with her big brother Ben. Ben was the baby of the family for 19 years and now he's been replaced. Doesn't look like he's bothered by it too much.

Lili and Josh. Josh took awhile to warm up to the idea of having a little sister. Actually, it was more warming up to the idea of us starting all over again. He seems okay with it now.

Lili and Ryan. Since Ryan has Autism and functions on the lower end of the spectrum, he was having trouble understanding what we were doing. He had pictures of Lili in his room at his home, but didn't quite get that she was his little sister. We knew he would start catching on once she got home and I think these pictures accurately show how he feels about her.