Five Months with Mommy and Daddy

This past week marked 5 months since "Gotcha Day," and we had our first postplacement visit. Time is going by so quickly! S continues to adjust well. This past week, his daycare teachers talked about how cheerful he is all of the time, how well he has adjusted to their class, and one teacher even said that if all kids were as happy as S, she would adopt herself! These comments each came on different days when we picked him up, and they were encouraging for us to hear. His postplacement visit went well too, and we did not have any major concerns after our visit with the social worker. His attachment continues to improve, as he has started hugging us more tightly, coming up on the couch to sit by us (if we are not on the floor at the moment-where he could come sit on our lap) while playing with toys, and going from sitting up on our laps before bedtime to laying down and melting into us. He is eating fairly well, too. This week we will start him on a calorie supplement called Duocal, as recommended by our feeding therapist and nutritionist. It is supposed to dissolve easily in liquids without causing a change in taste, and the 4 scoops/day will add about 170 calories/day to his diet. He feels a tiny bit heavier to us, and we think he looks slightly bigger. We will find out for sure at his 18 month appointment in a few weeks. At this point, the child will be 2 years old and turned around backwards in his carseat--come on 20 lbs!

S has begun to climb a lot in the past few weeks. He gets on and off of our couches and chair over and over again. He is so proud of him self when he does it, too! :) Of course this is usually with one toy in his mouth and one in each hand so it is quite an accomplishment! Here is a picture of him climbing tonight!

Yesterday we were able to meet up with Adrienne, Jim, and Owen so they could meet S and we could see Owen. We had a fun time at Chili's and enjoyed hearing about how Owen is doing as well as their upcoming adoption.

We are so blessed to have so many adopting friends. We are also very excited that a little girl from S's group at his baby home is being adopted by another family we have become friends with through our agency. They will be bringing her home in a few weeks. It is so awesome that S and AC will get to know each other as they grow up. It is so amazing because there are only around 35-40 children in S's former baby home, and out of all of the orphanages in Russia and all of the children being adopted, these two children's parents are friends and the kids will live about one hour from each other. God works in incredible ways! :)

After meeting with the social worker, we plan to check into Early Intervention this week. We're doing some services through Vanderbilt, but she said we should see if Early Intervention would cover some of these things. We're not yet set up with Speech Therapy or OT and are not sure if he will need either of these on a regular basis. If anyone has any suggestions or recommendations related to Early Intervention, we welcome your advice.

Some pictures of our smiley little man: