Over-Thinking

Love Bug has been sleeping much better the past few weeks. Most nights he stays asleep until early morning, like around 6-6:30. Some weekends he even sleeps in as last as 7-7:30! But, some nights he still wakes up and won’t go back to sleep in his crib. Those nights, like this past one, he needs to be held, not just sleep in bed beside me, but be held to my chest and sleep on me. Often times he doesn’t even want a bottle, he just wants me to hold him. I makes me worry that he’s insecure about our attachment and fearful that I will not be there when he wakes up if he is not sleeping with his head on my chest, hearing my heart beating. Of course, I could be reading into as well and maybe he’s just spoiled and sleeps like that because I let him (really, it’s the only way I can get back to sleep, since any other method results in loud crying). It could be his teeth and he just needs comforting because he is getting like a million molars right now and I’m sure that doesn’t feel the greatest. In general, Love Bug is a needy child and he requires a lot of attention. I’m blamed for making him that way, but I insist he was like that from the moment he came home. As a tiny infant, he would only sleep being held. If I laid him down he would howl. So, he’s been consistent in his needs and even though he is now able to walk and explore, he mostly prefers to be held and watch you try to struggle to complete tasks with one hand. He is this way at daycare as well. He has grown fond of his new teacher and so as long as she is in the room when I’m dropping him off, he does fine. On those rare mornings when she isn’t there, he cries inconsolably as I leave him in his class room. At Sunday school he howls for a good bit of time before settling in and either falling asleep or eating. He is always very anxious to leave when we pick him up. No one else, not the daycare, his OT therapist, the myriad of case workers, his doctor, no one seems to identify Love Bug’s behaviors as problematic, so I guess I should stop looking for trouble where this is none. I just want to make sure I am doing everything I can to ensure that Love Bug is getting the best start to life as possible. I wouldn’t want my ignorance or lack of diligence to cause him any developmental harm. I probably just over-think things…….

Tomorrow Love Bug will be 16 months old! That is crazy! The CHOR adoption case worker needs to come over to have me complete some paperwork she forgot to do before. Hopefully, once she has those things and I hand in the paperwork from my physical on Friday, she will be able to officially submit the adoption paperwork and then we will wait for a date. I’m cautiously optimistic that we will have a date before the end of the year, but I’m not going to hold my breath, since none of the dates we were given ever came to fruition. I need to weight the pros and cons to having Love Bug and Chica Marie attend the adoption (right now I’m leaning towards no, simply because I will be distracted and having them there would require an extra set of hands to keep them under control). We need to solidify our invite list and Primero needs to decide if he wants to celebrate afterwards or not. But, those things won’t need to happen until we get the official date. I honestly haven’t thought that much about what the day will be like because it seems so ethereal, like some lovely dream that is rather realistic. I still don’t think about it that much because it doesn’t seem real enough. With the line in the sand changing so often, it made it hard to believe in the adoption. When I got my physical Friday and explained to my family doctor why  I was there, he thought I had already adopted from the last time he performed my physical and filled out the paperwork (this was in September of 2013). I had to explain that the first physical was just to complete my homestudy to be eligible to adopt. Now, this one was for the actual adoption of a real child. “So, the first one was a waste then?” he asked. He’s not wrong, the whole process seems rather like a dog chasing its tail than anything that resembles common sense order. The rules are my physical must be done within a year of the adoption. Since I had not seen my family doctor since 2013, it was necessary for me to return and do it all over again, even though nothing had changed with my health in the interim. And my clearances, which were still good for fostering, had to be renewed because they needed to be done within a year of adoption. My family profile needed to be updated, Primero’s child profile needed to be updated and pretty much everything needed to be redone – the home inspection done by the adoption case worker, forms that were signed previously, it’s maddening!  So all of that is done now. The adoption case worker needs to see me to sign the financial form and to delineate who would take custody of Primero should anything happen to me. I meant to talk to Primero about that over the weekend but it slipped my mind. I know in the past he mentioned his brother or aunt who has two daughters, the youngest being just a bit older than Love Bug and I naturally think of my parents. I suppose we would really need to ask the person we would choose because that would be a crazy surprise if they ever needed to step in. So, this task is now added to our list of things to do tonight.

The county case worker notified me that Hermano will be moving in with a foster family in a nearby town the Monday after Primero’s birthday (which is only a little over a week away!) She said we could have bi-weekly visits with him, so that will be nice. It might mean we could do things over the holidays again, which would also be nice. I’m glad this case worker lets me know things like this, it makes me feel like she has a vested interest in doing what’s best for the kids, rather than just what is convenient for her. I know she is under no obligation to tell me things like this, but it does help to keep Primero informed and to have some involvement with his sibling. He knows I always try to accommodate him seeing his siblings because I know how important those relationships are, especially as we get older. I’m not sure when we will start the visits, but I’m glad she is allowing them to happen.