Six Months Home

In just a couple days we will have been home with Jack for six months.

Six months.

I can scarcely believe it.

Where does time go?

He is growing up so fast. Two inches up and several pounds of weight. While I know that many adoptive families' children will grow six inches in the first six months of US life, ours never have. The doctor says we eat too healthily for that to happen. :) I doubt that. Besides, from the articles I've recently read on the rapid growth thing, I don't like the sounds of it. But that's another topic for another time.

He would live outside if I would allow it. Still. Unfortunately his mommy has gotten a little smarter than she once was and she now locks the door to keep him inside when she can't follow him around. He's so quiet as he toddles around destroying everything.

His sleeping quarters are still on our bedroom floor. I really think that we could move him upstairs, but something in me just doesn't want to do it. As strange as it may sound, I like to have him close by. I know he's nearly two years old, but he's still the baby.

He's finally starting to talk a little. Ma-ma, pa-pa, ook (look), hey, boo, hi, oup (ouch)... Simple words, but considering he had never heard English til six months ago, I don't think that's too bad!

This past month has been a little stressful for him. About a month ago I took the children to a splash park for my cousins daughters birthday. The children had a grand time.

At least for the first couple hours. Off to the side of the splash area was a big man-hole type thingy....I'd say about six feet by four feet maybe...that had a little sign posted above it. 'CAUTION. MAY BE HOT ENOUGH TO BURN.' That was it. No barrier of any sort to keep the children off it. My children were barefoot as they are every time they swim.

Jack got away from me for a split second and, you guessed it. He walked onto the man-hole cover. He screamed, but it took me about 15 minutes to figure out what the problem was. I took him to the bathroom. He screamed. I took him to get a drink. He screamed. I finally grabbed a towel and lay him down to take a nap. It was the last resort. After all, he had missed his nap that morning and it stood to reason that he was simply exhausted.

When I lay him down on his towel I saw what was making him scream. He wasn't simply grouchy or tired. He had burned the bottoms of his feet when he stepped onto the man-hole cover for that split second. Really burned them. I felt like I should receive the award for the 'worst mother of the year'.

I immediately scooped him up and raced to the water, where I hung out with him and soaked his feet. My cousin zipped off to Kroger to buy some aloe vera gel. We doused his feet in the gel and within 10 minutes he was sound asleep...his feet obviously feeling much better.

That isn't gangrene, it's aloe vera.

No. I didn't take him to the doctor. Perhaps I should have. It was obvious that the burns were second degree as there were multiple blisters, and I felt comfortable treating those myself. We drove the 40 minutes home and he laughed and played with Addie and Will the whole way (strapped in his car seat, of course). He didn't act like anything was even wrong.

When we arrived home I smeared them with salve, wrapped them in a bandage, and strapped a diaper on each foot to protect them from dirt and to add a little padding. He started walking on them immediately.

By the end of the second day his one foot had healed completely and by the end of the first week we was cruising around with no bandage on the other foot. Now? Both feet look great, though the areas that were blistered are still quite pink. We feel very blessed that he didn't get any infection.

We haven't been back to the splash park in order to find out if they have done anything to keep it from happening again. I am so thankful that he was able to stay upright when he stepped onto the cover. Typically he falls if he tries to hurry off something too fast and had he done that he would have had burnt hands as well.

A mere three weeks or so later we were picking green beans at a friends house. They have two dogs. Jack loves animals. Loves them. The only animal he's ever been scared of is our horse, Pumper, and that was only because Pumper stole his cup and chewed on it. ;)

Anyway. Jack trotted up to one of our friends' dogs and threw his arms around its neck. The dog snapped at him and actually managed to puncture the skin under his right eye. Not that it affected him too much. Sure, he cried, but before we left less than an hour later he was petting the dog....with an adult holding onto it. Turns out the dog is far from used to toddlers and really didn't appreciate getting that lovin' from a toddler.

We're hoping that is the extent of his accidents this summer.

He stayed with a baby sitter for the first time last week. A baby sitter. Who happened to be his grandma. But still. It was two and a half years before Addie and Will did that. They simply weren't ready....but Jack? He is so attached to me that I really wasn't too worried about it. Granted it was only about 30 minutes ;) but he still had his first experience with a baby sitter.

I'll have to admit that it felt pretty good to drop off all three children and zip off by myself. As much as I love them, sometimes it's nice to have a smidgen of time to myself. It's been six months since that has happened. Jason takes the older two with him frequently, but the midget is just not ready for that. Poor daddy would get absolutely nothing accomplished if Jack were along. He gets into absolutely everything.

He has done so well at adjusting. I really think that we owe so much to his caregivers at his baby home. He came to us already knowing what love was. He came to us knowing that he should cry when he gets hurt. He came to us knowing that 'big people' can be trusted.

It's been a breath of fresh air. I always assumed that children would automatically know all that, but they don't. If a child never gets any attention when he/she falls down, they learn to buck up and laugh even if there is blood running. It was amazing for me to watch Addie...and Will to a lesser extent. I'll never forget the time that Addie fell off a chair onto a concrete floor, landed square on her head, and got up laughing. It had to hurt, but she had been conditioned to laugh things off rather than cry and get no attention. She had to be taught that some things hurt...but sometimes I think we taught her that a little too well. :)

If all children adapted this well, and if the process were free, we'd head back every year. For a while anyway. But reality is that not all children adapt so well. Not all children blend into the family so easily. Some children require tons of time and energy before they are truly blended into the family.

What a blessing it has been to receive the gift of our third child.