17 Months Adjusted!!!

On Sunday, Henry turned 17 months adjusted. His vocabulary keeps expanding and expanding. He calls Donovan McNabb "Mickey Nabb." He's working on learning the word "Cardinals." But it is much easier to say "Eagles," which he does quite often and expects them to be on the TV.










We went to Tohono Chul Park for breakfast in the morning. We ran into Uncle Richard. We decided to sit in the courtyard. It was warm enough to do so in the sun. Henry was a good eater. He ate French toast and enjoyed making a mess of the powdered sugar on the plate. He also had several bites of my black beans, one of his favorites. As Jeff waited for the bill, Henry and I walked around the garden. A fellow was weeding and had a very large wheel barrow. Henry pushed it a few inches.

We skipped the park and headed straight for the grandparents' house, because I was working on something with Grandpa. Jeff went home and did a fabulous job cleaning our garage that had been neglected for several months. Henry played outside and went up with Grandma to the townhouse. He had fun playing with a hose up there. Came back and fell asleep for about an hour and 15 minutes.

At one point in the afternoon, he banged on the keyboard of the laptop I was using and managed to find some mysterious lock button that screwed up the key functions. Took us about a 1/2 hour to undo whatever he had done.

Henry had a good day reading and playing. Watching the Eagles of course. Grandma said that he had a good lunch. He wasn't so good about eating dinner. He rejected almost everything on his plate but decided that he wanted to share my toast.

We gave him a bath when he came home. I let him look at pics on my computer after the bath, because we hadn't done that all day, and it is his favorite thing to do. Jeff had no problems putting him down to sleep. About an hour later, I heard a stirring on the monitor. Went to check on him. He was sitting up in bed. He settled down as soon as I laid down beside him. What a snuggler!

His rash has subsided. I'm hoping nothing more comes from the measles shot. That's about it. Jeff and I have foster/adoption training tomorrow. Another busy day.

Henry the Dancer

Henry took a long snooze late morning/early afternoon. When he got up, he had some pierogies for the first time and some falafel. He's had falafel lots of times before. But pierogies were new. He refused to eat them until Jeff used the magic word "potato." Suddenly, the pierogies became acceptable. The boys watched the last half of the UA vs. Oregon State b-ball game.










They went for a walk in the early evening. Jeff reported that Brandi let Henry pet her, but she backed away when he tried to hug her. Small steps forward. She is truly a gentle dog but cautious.

Henry played with one of his belatedly given Christmas presents from us. It involves animal magnets and resides on the refrigerator. Henry likes the music that it plays. He gave us a dancing demonstration...



Around 7:30PM, we took Henry to Grandma and Grandpa's house because they were going through Henry withdrawals, not having seen him since Wednesday. Henry only stayed about an hour while Jeff and I did a quick run to Trader Joe's to get goat's milk (and a bunch of yummy but unplanned for purchases). Before we left, Henry tried to give Ramses a hug. He said "Ramses" name the other day and this evening...to add to his list of words.

When we came back, I put Henry to bed. Took awhile to get him settled down. He woke up about an hour ago wanting milk, which is unusual. I'm headed back to bed now.

Chasing Brandi

On Friday, Henry said three new words: water, spider, and zipper. We went for a walk in the late afternoon/early evening. Here's video of Henry chasing Brandi, a neighborhood pup:




When we got back from the walk, we walked past the kitchen table that's being used as a storage facility. Lots of papers on it. And it contained a box with Henry's new bilingual Elmo potty (with a button for motivational phrases from Elmo in English and Spanish) in it. He saw the box and said "pee." Jeff said, "Did he just say what I think he said?" We put Henry down on the other side of the gate. He had a view of the table. He said something that sounded like "Elmo" and "potty." He said "pee" again. Mind you, this was a potty that was still in a box! He picked it out with me the weekend before, but I had no idea that he knew it was a potty. We are surprised that he knows the relationship between pee and potty. So we took the potty out of the box to let him inspect it. We didn't think he was quite ready for potty training. He doesn't consistently tell us when he is about to pee or poo, but maybe he is ready and we are holding him back. It wouldn't be the first time that we've underestimated his readiness for new challenges.

After dinner, Henry played on his slide and had a bath...










This morning, Henry went for a walk with Dada, Marley, and Roger. After breakfast (at home today), we opened a few remaining Christmas gifts from Aunt Jennifer and our neighbor Yvonne...










Henry really likes his new Baby Animals book. Turns out he knows what hippos and bears are and can say the words without prompting. We were looking at the cover of the book, and Henry pointed to the bears and said "bears." We don't recall teaching him that. We have mentioned Hippos. He has a cartoon Hippo book from Aunt Erin called Hippos Go Berserk, a favorite of mine.

Where did he learn that?

This morning, I got a call from Julie, our family specialist. She wasn't at the last two foster-adoption training sessions, because she was sick. She has been with the agency 1 month, coming from hospice care. She is therefore going to be sitting in on the training with us. She asked me where we were with our paperwork. I said that it has been completed. She seemed surprised but added that she heard we were a good family.

Jeff heard from his boss today re: the company. Jeff had spent yesterday terminating the computer accounts for employees who had been laid off. Received an email from his boss saying that they needed to talk one-on-one yesterday and the boss would be calling him. No call came. So one can imagine how just how fun last night was. Not that we really thought Jeff was going to be laid off, but given how crappy the economy is, it was in the realm of possibilities, although fairly slim. The long and the short of it is that Jeff will be taking a notable pay cut like everyone else remaining in the company (including administrators). Hard times, hard measures. It sounds like the company is trying hard to be sensitive to the needs of their employees, while also keeping the company is decent shape.

Patti, who cleans our house once a week, arrived this morning. Henry called out her name and said "Mic!" Patti knew that "Mic" means music, so she pulled out her small hand-held radio for Henry to play with and dance.

In the afternoon, Henry read some books with Dada. We are pleased to see that he is again interested in books. He was completely obsessed with "pics" over the holidays that book reading truly got the short end of the stick. Turns out that may have been my fault. We originally had kept his books along the step in front of the fireplace. When the holiday season came, I moved the books to his water table (absent water of course). Now that they are back in front of the fire place, they are suddenly very interesting. He had Jeff read him several. After my afternoon conference call, I read three to him.

Then, we went for our late afternoon walk. We went across the street to see Dakota and Outlaw, Nick and Janice's horses. Dakota and Outlaw always watch us as we take our walks. Outlaw was waiting for us at the edge of his corral. He let Henry and me pet his nose. When we walked a few feet to the side to say hello to Dakota, Outlaw sidled Dakota out of the way. Henry was pleased to touch Outlaw's nose. He wanted down of course, which just wasn't going to happen. It's only the second time that I've pet Outlaw, and I was pleased that he was so open and willing to have us touch him. I did let him sniff me a bit before I stroked his cheek. Although we've been neighbors for three years, they only know us by sight. Better to be cautious.

We walked up our road, crossed the wash (Henry let me hold his hand going up and down the hills in the wash), and then down the road toward the end. When we got to the driveway of the last property, Brandi came out to say hello. She is an incredibly sweet dog but has always been a bit hesitant (a good trait in a dog that spends as much time off leash outdoors as she does). Jeff informed me a few days ago that Henry could say her name. He talked about her and Luke the other day in the car. Henry was ecstatic to see Brandi. Brandi was a bit confused and scared of him. He chased her around a bit. She'd run but not very far. Eventually, she and Roger played as they like to do. This set Henry off in a fit of excited giggles. He tried to get in on the fun, but Jeff and I tried to monitor it because we didn't want him to get inadvertently trampled. Roger's backside has a mind of its own and had already knocked Henry down once on the walk. It was probably the most that we've ever seen Henry laugh. I mean, he is a really happy kid. But he was just laughing out loud and laughing and running and laughing. Of course, we didn't have the camera. We're definitely bringing it with us tomorrow.

As I was changing Henry, I noticed a couple of spots on his stomach and one on his face. I'm wondering if this is a rash from the measles shot. Rashes occur for every 1 in 20 who get the MMR. I couldn't find any similar statistics for the measles only shot. But normally for those who get the rash with the MMR, it doesn't appears until 5-12 days after the shot. Anyway, we'll keep a close eye on it.

We decided to go out to dinner and have a "at least you weren't laid off" celebration. We decided to go to the Thai-Chinese place that we went on New Year's Eve. It is new, so it isn't very busy. We haven't been impressed with our Chinese options in Tucson, but we really like this place. Keeping our fingers-crossed that it can make it in this crappy economy. To my surprise, Henry tried and really liked my Hot & Sour soup (vegetarian!). I would have thought the sour taste to be off-putting, but not to my son! He wasn't willing to try Daddy's wonton soup though. His kids meal consisted of fried rice, an egg roll, sweet and sour chicken, and French fries. The French fries were a hit. He had about two or three bites of chicken w/o sauce. He tried the sauce but didn't like it. He had a couple bites of rice. Didn't get around to the egg roll. He has been going through a phase that when he drinks from a cup, he really wants to share his cup with me. If Jeff shares a glass of water with him, Henry will insist that they give Mommy some, even if I already have a glass of my own. It's cute.

He said "Vove, Daddy" at dinner. That's Love, Daddy. When I have tried to get him to say "I Love Daddy" before, he'd say "I ____ Daddy." He'd pause when one would normally say "love" but he doesn't have the L sound down yet so he'd skip it.

We went to Basha's (nearby grocery store). It was an excellent time to go, during off hours, given that we don't take him into crowds. He had fun running up and down the aisles. Definitely kept us on our toes.

We came home. Henry had a bath. He did a new thing in the tub where he would get in a prone position, stretch out his legs, belly down, and straighen his arms to keep his head out of the water. He tried to put his face in the water several times. He doesn't have the "hold your breath" thing down so a little bit of water went up his nose (not much, but enough to give him something to think about). As usual, he was an excellent splasher.

After he got dried off, he wanted to look at "pics" and "mic." It was "Lime in the Coconut" night, although we also listened to the theme from "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air." During the Coconut song (Muppet's version), Henry shouted out "Doctor!" during the appropriate time in the song. At one point, I let him create his own blog entry. It's the one before this one (in case you hadn't guessed). I showed him an entry from June 12, 2008 where he is riding in a seat on Jeff's bike. Henry calls out "Bike!" Where the heck did he learn that? Jeff and I are puzzled. We can count the number of times that we've taken him riding on the bike. None of those times are recent. We don't recall using the word "bike," so how he knows what a bike is, with no prompting, is a bit of a mystery.

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Foster/Adoption Training -- Day 2

On Tuesday, we took Henry to get his measles shot. As I mentioned in previous entries, we are against the MMR given as a package. It appears that the fill-in-the-blanks at the CDC are trying to take away parental choice by leaning on Merck not to make the separated vaccines. Anti-choice seems rather un-American to me. Henry was a delight in the doctor's office. It was nurse visit, and he was very friendly to the nurse...until she stuck him with the needle, that is. He gave a yell as she inserted the vaccine. Went to Daddy. The nurse was surprised at his quick recovery.

We then went over to Grandma and Grandpa's house. Dropped off Henry for a spell while I went to a WW meeting (trying to get off the baby weight, lost 4.6 lbs) and Jeff went back home to walk the dogs. Henry went with Aunt Carolyn and Grammy to the post office. Grammy said that Henry said hi and bye to people. Then, we all met back at the grandparents' house. Waited for Brian and Erin to arrive, so that we could go out to dinner with Carolyn to say farewell. We went to P. F. Chang's. The food was good (found some WW friendly dishes), but Jeff and I have pretty much decided that taking Henry to restaurants is not an enjoyable experience. He simply doesn't want to sit quietly in a high chair for more than 5 minutes. The service was kind of slow, which just makes it that much more difficult. And if we are chosen to have foster kids live with us or have another biological baby...well...wow...we probably won't bother going to restaurants for the next decade.

Henry passed out on the way home. I managed to get him out of his jacket and jeans without waking him up, which says something. During the night, he talked a little bit in his sleep. He said "Nooo," "Mar-Dee!," and "Podgie!"

On Wednesday, we had our second day of foster/adoption training. The class was fine. Still a "let's get to know each other" kind of session that wasn't very substantive, but there were some interesting stories. We like one of the foster mom trainers who has some insightful stories to tell. We like the group as a whole, a diverse and fun group of people. And we like the primary trainer, Phylis. Jeff and I got finger printed. We got out at 9PM. Jeff and I are committed to helping out by becoming foster parents, although this could be quite difficult on many levels. First and foremost, our primary concern is Henry. But we think that this could be good in the end for everyone. We got dinner at Chipotle, and then headed to my parents' house to get Henry.

Henry had read a lot of books with Grandpa. He watched a group of neighborhood kids play across the street. He was too young to play with them, but he enjoyed watching. He ate a huge dinner of chicken salad, yogurt, bananas, pea crisps, and something else. Wish he'd eat for us like he does for Grandpa. He was thoroughly exhausted when he came home. Slept like a log.

Foster/Adoption Training -- Day 1

On Sunday morning, we lazed around the house. Jeff was impressed by Henry looking at a picture in the Sunday sports section and correctly identifying the sport as "Hockey!"

In the afternoon, Jeff dropped off Henry at my parents during an Eagles game, so that he and I could work together on completing the paperwork needed to become foster parents. And it is indeed A LOT of paperwork. When we came over for dinner, my parents said that they had been teaching Henry to identify Donovan McNabb.

When we got home, I took Henry to bed, but he was awake. As soon as we got in bed, Henry started shouting "Mar-Dee! Mar-Dee!" at the top of his lungs. She joined us for a little bit. Ultimately, Henry got up and played for awhile before Jeff got him to sleep. He was being a little bit too much of a dare devil on his slide. He decided to take his hockey sticks down the slide with him. His golf and hockey swings are looking pretty good. Watching Jeff's face beam with pride as Henry takes a strong and accurate golf swing is precious. Jeff is quite the proud father. Henry's love of hockey and golf doesn't bode well for our large windows and flat screen TV, I'm afraid. If we don't have a cracked window or screen in the next five years, I'll be shocked.

It was hard for Jeff to get Henry and me out of bed this morning. Henry may not look like me, but he's got my "stay up late, sleep in" gene. When Jeff would try to wake Henry up, he'd pop up, move two inches forward, and then flop back into the sheets.

Henry didn't want Jeff to leave him this morning when Alicia and Karina were there. The day was fairly uneventful. In the late afternoon, we headed to my parents. Jeff and I had to drive across town for our first foster-adoption training meeting.

We got there around 5:30PM. Our family specialist wasn't able to make it, so we'll be meeting her later in the week. The actual orientation started at 6PM. There were about 30 people invited to the training. Out of their initial applicants, they invite about 20% to take their classes leading toward certification. I very much feel that we chose the right agency. Basically, there are 13 groups in Tucson that handle contracts from CPS. A Place To Call Home is the agency we chose. We chose them b/c they are one of the few groups who offer special needs training in addition to regular training and the recruiter, Lora, was simply the most persuasive individual that we met at the Pima County Adoption Orientation back in November by leaps and bounds. Tonight's meeting was run by the regional director, Dominique. But the training will be conducted by a woman named Phylis.

We began the meeting by going around and introducing ourselves. The group is eclectic in terms of occupational, ethnic, racial, educational, and even language composition. I'm guessing that English is not the primary language for about a quarter of our group. On the surface, everyone appeared to have very sincere reasons for wanting to foster children. The conversation, however, did get a little weird when it came to reimbursement money for the child's expenses. In fact, the group had the most questions about that topic, which Jeff and I found peculiar. It is clear that A Place To Call Home tries to screen applicants so that foster parents aren't using any money from the state as "payment" because that money is supposed to be used for the child's living, clothing, and personal expenses. If the money was used as intended, it would go 100% toward the child. There is no "payment" for being a foster parent, other than the reward of helping a child.

We watched a video that was basically a set of statements set to music, trying to evoke an understanding of foster care/adoption from the child's point of view. Some of the descriptions were...well...horrifying. Afterward, we went over some of the "fantasies" of foster care. Dominique explained that there is not such thing as a "normal" foster child. All children separated from their birth parents have some baggage. The amount of baggage can vary from child to child. We met a woman who was there with her husband and wants to foster children. She and her husband have four children, the youngest of which is 19 and is going through the training so that she can be certified as a respite provider. The woman chose A Place to Call Home because two of her sisters had gone through the program and are fostering and have adopted children from it. That was inspiring hear.

A Place to Call Home wants us to be as honest as we can about the kinds of children that we are willing to take care of. We needed to know our limits, so that they can make the best match possible. One of their goals is make great matches from the get-go, so that kids are moving around the system from family to family (not great for the psyche of the child).

In the initial introduction, at least two of our classmates mentioned that they are open to adopting children of different racial and ethnic identities. Wouldn't the world be a better place if it was color blind? And perhaps we can change the world by adopting children unlike the skin color of ourselves, etc. I did some Internet research after our home interview with Lora because she mentioned that a lot of people want foster to children who are of the same background (which I found odd...isn't a child a child regardless of background?). While I think that it is noble and justified to want to look beyond skin color (of course), there were several Internet sources that suggest that kids actually do better when placed with foster/adoptive parents of a similar background. Turns out that it really isn't a matter of getting along with the foster/adoption family. It is just that when kids are in school, their peers tends to question the authenticity of the family when the profiles are mixed, which makes it harder on the foster kids psychologically to adjust and attach. That said, the ethnic/racial profile of the foster parent population isn't the same as the profile of the foster kids in the system. So if the goal is to find every child a placement, that means some ethnic/racial mixing and matching has to happen. So where does that leave us? Jeff and I have it in our profile that we are willing to take in children of any race or ethnic identify. I sincerely suspect that our agency has the best interest of the children in mind. I suspect that they won't be making any placement decisions that don't have a reasonable chance of working out.

Although the class ended at 9PM, they had extra paperwork for us to fill out. Jeff and I still aren't sure how is will all work out. After all, we both have full-time jobs. But Jeff said that he is more committed now than ever about doing it. We also want to make sure that we are doing what is best for Henry. We'll create a screening profile that will serve his needs as well as ours. We'll amend that screen, I suspect, as we learn more about the foster care system. Right now, our screen is children 0 to 4 years old, either gender, any race/ethnicity, up to 2 kids.

We didn't get back to my parents until 10:15PM or so. Henry was wide awake. Carolyn spent some time watching "pics" with him on youtube.com. She also taught him to say "juice." When we got home, he wanted to look at more "pics." I hadn't spent much time with him all day, so I obliged. Henry is in his crib now. I'm headed to bed too.

Syrup Head

On Saturday morning, Henry took the dogs for a walk. It took some effort getting out the door. Henry lodged a protest by flopping on the floor. He wanted to look at pics instead. Yet, his cruel parents said "no."

Carolyn had spent the night. The four of us went to The Garland for breakfast. As usual, we had their little courtyard all to ourselves. Henry enjoyed pancakes. Carolyn was impressed by Henry's chipmunk impression. It is stunning how much pancake Henry can stuff in his mouth at one time. Henry decided to rub his syrupy hands through is hair. He was intrigued by how the hair stuck to them. It gave him a unique hair style...very modern.

Henry managed to climb onto one of the picnic tables in the courtyard all by himself. Jeff was close behind in case there were any missteps.








Henry had a lot of fun. He was adorable as always.



Henry fell asleep on the way to Oro Valley, so we decided to skip the park and head straight to my parents' house to drop off Carolyn. Then, we went back home. Henry and I took a long nap. Jeff fed him lunch when he arose. He let him watch part of the Cardinals game while being fed. Jeff taught him how to raise his arms to cheer and say the word "Cardinals."

We played hockey in the backyard in the afternoon and then went on our afternoon walk in the red wagon. As we waved to Swanee and Hal who were standing in front of their house with Annie and Luke, their dogs, three large deer came bounding through their front yard. Their dogs took of to chase the deer. I managed to grab Marley and Roger before they took off. It was amazing to see deer this time of year. Swanee took pictures of Henry in his wagon b/c he was looking super cute. I explained his hairdo. Swanee pointed out that a lot of celebrities pay lots of money for that look.

Carolyn came over for dinner and to stay the night. Henry seemed to fade particularly fast once it hit 8PM. That unfortunately meant that we didn't get a chance to give him a bath. That's definitely on tomorrow's agenda.

The Word of the Day is..."No!"

On Friday, Henry and I spent the day together while Jeff worked.

Henry surprised me on New Year’s Day when we had the following exchange…

KATE: Henry, do you want me to put you in time out?

HENRY: No.

I repeated that question Friday morning and got a similar response. I also asked him a follow up question…

KATE: OK then. Would you like to make an attempt at listening to your mother on occasion?

HENRY: No.

Jeff and I suspect that Henry’s spoken vocabulary is somewhere between 80-90 words. Those are words that he isn’t just repeating but which he also understands the meaning. Despite his large vocabulary, “no” hasn’t been a part of that vocabulary. I suspect the fact that I almost never use the word with him might in part have something to do with that. “No” is a first word or at least in the top five for most kids.

In the morning, I took him to Toys R Us. I got him a toddler camera because of his love of “pics.” He hugged the camera box as we walked through the store. We then went to Trader Joe’s. As we walked past some ginger cookies with a tiger on the package, Henry made growling sounds that were very cute. He wasn’t quite asleep as we got near the house so I drove up the street a little ways and he crashed.

In the afternoon, we had a visit from Shirley, his PT. Henry showed her his new skills. Not only walking backwards but doing it on command without being shown what to do, arms circles, going down his slide, diving into the ball pit, etc. She thinks that he is amazing. No disagreement here.

We went to Grandma and Grandpa’s house in the evening to watch the Wildcats get beaten by Cal and have some dinner. Henry ate taco meat and beans, fed by Grandpa.

Later in the evening, Henry and I had the following exchange…

KATE: Henry, are you allowed to climb on the glass table?

HENRY: No. [Shaking his head as he slid his tummy onto the glass].

No question that he knows what the word “no” means. It was definitely the word of the day.

Henry the Tree Hugger

We got a late start to the New Year. Henry and I slept in until 9AM. We eventually made our way out the door and had brunch at the Paradise Cafe (not to be confused with Cafe Paraiso). My parents joined us at the playground at Harelson Elementary after brunch. We watched Henry play on the equipment and kick some soccer balls around. He did an excellent job dribbling the soccer ball. I was impressed. He went down the slides without us needing to hold his hands. One person stood at the top with him, sent him down by himself, while another person waited at the bottom. At one point, Henry decided to give a tree a hug.

We went home, and Henry took a nap. It was "Casual Thursday" around the house as evidenced by Henry's picture on the left. We listened to music and looked at pics of course.

Later in the afternoon, Henry visited Grandma and Grandpa and helped them sweep up leaves. He likes spending time in their yard. Grandma and Henry had different ideas of cleaning up. Grandma spent time trying to put leaves in a pile, while Henry thought it best to spread them around. Jeff and I went to the movies with Carolyn, Erin, and Jill; we saw "Slumdog Millionaire" (very interesting film).

We had dinner at my parents. Henry had some pizza. He showed Aunt Carolyn how he could spin around, and around, and around. He also showed off his backwards walk. At one point, he used a DVD player as a step off to make an attempt at climbing onto the glass shelf on which the flat screen TV sits. I asked him if he wanted to go into time out to which he responded "no." That's the first time I'd heard him use the word "no" (although he's shaken his head before). I also didn't know that he really understood what time out was. Guess the other day when I put him in time out twice within 10 minutes something must have sunk in.

We came home around 9:30PM. I took Henry to bed, but he wanted his Dada. He's asleep across Jeff's chest now. Tomorrow, Jeff is working. I'll be taking care of the Doodle Bug. I want to take him somewhere, but I haven't figured out what we'll be doing yet. It has to be relatively crowd-free. Outdoor activities are preferable. We'll probably go to the Desert Museum or to the zoo.