Some action shots

I just looked at the blog and I feel like there are too many pictures of Elijah sleeping. This is not an accurate portrayal of this little monster's behavior! Here is a better portrait of his day:


"Oh, a cord! Let's tug on it and see what falls down on my head!"


"Hey, did you guys know there is DIRT in here? It would be WAY more fun if the dirt was spread all over the floor."


"Pick me UP! Please please please please..."


"I climb in, I climb out, I lose my balance, fall down, cry, then climb in again!"


"Oh, a remote! I wonder what I have to do to break this?"


"Outlet covers? Ha! I scoff at your attempts at childproofing! I am baby McGuyver, I can pry these off in .21 seconds!"


"If people are not giving me 100% of their attention, I will sit and scream until they do!"

Daddy John

One thing that has been amazing to watch over the last three weeks is seeing my husband transform into a Daddy. The whole time we were preparing to be foster parents I thought John was just going along with it to make me happy. I was prepared for him to try it out and say "I had no idea how hard this would be- forget it!" But he has surprised me in every way. Once Elijah got here, he dove right in head first and never looked back. This is a guy who had no experience with kids what so ever. The first diaper he ever changed in his life was two days after Elijah got here, and I had to go to work. No one stood over his shoulder to make sure he did it correctly. He just did it. He just became a Dad overnight. (Now that I think about it, I suppose every parent becomes a parent overnight. But still.)

Last night John gave Elijah a bottle on the couch and Elijah fell asleep on John's chest. What a sight to melt my heart.

What happens 5 mins after coming home from daycare

This:



Elijah has not gotten the memo that he is supposed to take a nap at daycare. By the time we pick him up he is walking like a drunk and acting like a zombie. Then he passes out at 6 o'clock wherever he happens to be at the time.

John was VERY concerned about him sleeping on the couch for fear that he would roll off. (On the spectrum of new parent worriers, John falls somewhere between "paranoid" and "delusional"). So as soon as he saw the couch-sleeping situation, he RAN to get the pillows, and came up with this little safety getup:



Hey, no one can say we're not keeping him safe while he's here!

Poop, pee, and pink eye

With two weeks of parenting under our belts, these are the topics we now have a multitude of experience with. Let's hit the highlights:

1. Poop: This kid loves his milk, and for the first week we just kept giving it to him. Then we wondered why his poop was becoming a pile of ROCKS. Poor baby was crying every time he had to go and he would grunt and push for 30 mins! The comic relief of this sad situation was when we put him in the bath and he immediately squatted and finally got that poop out~! John and I were just happy that he pooped so we started cheering... and Elijah looked so proud and started clapping for himself!

Now we are trying to limit the number of bottles for this "milkaholic" and are giving him water and apple juice instead. We put him on the "constipation diet" of all fruit, veggies, and whole grains. We even tricked him into drinking some prune juice. Things are now looking better in the poop department.

2. Pee: We have also gotten to learn a great deal about baby pee. After waking up several mornings to what we affectionately dubbed "pee-splosions" (ie soaking the diaper so much that it breaks down, thereby saturating the child and bedding in urine) we finally got the word from the mamas at the park... Overnight diapers. Wow. Who knew? Since then, our mornings have been much happier, and laundry is no longer a daily necessity.

Our other pee highlight was Elijah taking advantage of a rare 30 second naked stint just after his bath, where he decided to show us just what he thinks of his room... he ran right in and started joyfully peeing all over the carpet. Where is the camera when you need it? His face was PRICELESS.

3. Pink eye: It only took two trips to daycare for us to become a daycare stereotype. After day one of daycare, Elijah came back with a runny nose. I considered us lucky. After day two, he came back with a fever, runny nose, cough, and double pink eye. I considered it defeat.

The fun twist to this story was that the next day, I came home from work to find John looking like a puffy-eyed goobery monster. Pink eye conquered him as well! Knock on wood, so far I am the only one left standing (and waking up with the ability to open my eyes in the morning!)

And here are some of the millions of pictures we have taken so far:

He is here!

Our first placement arrived on Friday! Elijah is 13 months and a total joy. The reason it took me 3 days to post this is because I've been busy doing this:



And also a lot of this:



But most of all, just giving lots of hugs and kisses and loving this little one!

Spoke too soon!

Just got this email from our social worker:

"Good Afternoon, I just wanted to officially congratulate you and your husband on becoming licensed DCF foster parents. You are now open to receive children in your home."

Screaming, jumping up and down, and more screaming ensued.

We can now expect THE CALL at any time! This phone will NOT be leaving my side!

Two weeks of nothing

The reason I haven't blogged anything in the last two weeks is.... well, I've had nothing to blog. For some occasions the saying "no news is good news" may be true, but I can't seem to make it fit for this. For us, no news = nothing is happening = wait is getting ridiculous = major frustration. Even though we know in the grand scheme of things, we are getting closer to our goal, it just feels like we are getting farther away.