Summer Update on S

Our family has had quite a bit going on for awhile, and S has done very well through all of it! Here are a few updates:

Attachment: I wondered if his attachment would be affected with my pregnancy, but we really haven't seen any concerns related to this. He has definitely grown much closer to his daddy since Michael had to do much of his care since early in my pregnancy and basically everything once I was put on bedrest and in the hospital. Michael has been Superdad, and he has done an amazing job and has remained incredibly calm and in control throughout everything that has happened. They have a very strong bond now, and S loves his daddy so much! Fortunately, S still maintained a good attachment to me, even though I was away from home for 3 weeks and not able to pick him up at all for over 3 months. He definitely knows who his parents are! A big concern we've had since we brought him home has been his willingness to let anyone pick him up and to reach out his arms for people he barely knew. This has definitely improved, and he is much better at staying close to me and Michael now and always wants us to hold him instead of other people. This is a definite answer to prayer!

Eating: This continues to be our biggest challenge! Because he has not really gained weight (and still doesn't eat well at all) and is still so far below the growth curves and considered "failure to thrive," he will definitely get the feeding tube. The pediatric GI doctor said he may need it for 2-3 years...ugghh. His surgery is scheduled for two weeks from now. Then, he will start feeding therapy again, this time going every week. Michael and I still wish there was another way for him to gain weight, but we've been told this is the best option for him at this point. This is just another example of where we are having to trust God and pray that He will take care of S through the surgery and then guide us through what to do with taking care of S' tube.

Speech: S has been attending speech therapy for 2 months now. He is saying lots of words and is much more willing to repeat words that we first say to him. His understanding of words and what we say to him has definitely increased as well. Last night, he was able to tell us the animal sounds for cows, dogs, and lions. We were so excited as we've never seen him do this without us first going through all of them with him and prompting him. And today, he learned how to tell us "no!" The funny thing is that he says it softly and in kind of a sweet voice. We'll see how long that lasts! He did this throughout the evening, and it is still kind of funny to us right now, which I realize may change at some point!

His new role: S has been a wonderful big brother so far. Baby H finally came home from the NICU about 3 weeks ago, and as soon as he walks into a room where baby H is, he says "baby" and points to him. He likes to point to all of baby H's body parts and name them, too. Very cute! We're trying to get him to "help" us with baby H by asking him to bring us blankets, etc. A couple of times he has seemed sad when one of us is holding baby H and not him, but generally we have not seen much jealousy. Overall, things have gone very smoothly.

Thank you for still following our adoption blog after it has taken me so long to update it. I'm thinking about merging this blog and our new family blog Boys Will Be Boys that I created several months ago, but I haven't decided yet. Thanks to all of you who have checked the new blog and left encouraging comments for us. We really appreciate them!