Transitional Days!!!!!

Our first days at home have been a balancing act :) Bailey was fairly unimpressed with her new brother – the first afternoon we were home. He doesn’t speak English, he is moody (goes from happy to sad if he doesn’t get his way), he plays with her toys, and demands lots of mom and dad’s attention – she was tired and depressed. I think Teferi was feeling a little of the same feeling about his new sister. He had all of our attention for the first 7 days of our lives together and now there is this older sister that demands our attention too.

Sunday, was a discovery day for Teferi (rough day for mom, dad, and Bailey) and he ended up having about 5 major tantrums and timeouts to go with them. He is definitely exploring his new world and Scott and I remind ourselves and Bailey that it is like he is a two year old in a 5 year old’s body. We has to learn about his surrounding through exploring them – but that isn’t always so fun - because he can’t have/touch everything. We are working through some of his institutional behaviors. The children at the orphanage often only get attention when they get into trouble – so if he begins to feel that he isn’t getting enough attention he will intentionally find something to do to get our attention. Also, he will take something that we have told him he can’t have – and run with it and throw it. At the orphanage, it was survival of the fittest. The stronger and faster you are – the more likely you will get the toy. Bailey and dad had a Burger King date to support her new attention needs. That really helped – also we are letting her stay up much later than Teferi so she can some time with us alone. That has also really helped!

Monday, was sooooo much better. He actually had several moments of quiet independent play. On a few occasions, he actually asked before getting into something. Huge success. Bailey showed him how to go down our yellow slide on the jungle gym – and she goes – “your right mom it is kind of fun having a new little brother.” This feeling only lasted a brief moment, but it was progress. Also, we are finally getting over jet-lag and the time change and feeling more human. I have been attempting to cook some Ethiopian dishes for Teferi, but he seems to like our American food just as well. We played outside a lot yesterday too, and that was a good outlet for energy.

Communication is OK, but we miss a lot of what he is trying so hard to tell us. We are meeting his basic needs very well, but he gets frustrated when he can’t share his thoughts.

Anyway, that is a glimpse of our craziness here. We are thankful that we have been through so many pre-adoption classes (and have so many wonderful people praying for us) – which allow us to have a positive perspective on all of this. We love him – that is for sure! We laugh at ourselves a lot and our daily adventures. You just can’t make this stuff up! Yesterday - we gave Teferi a dog treat to feed to Cecy and he tried to eat it – CRAZY. Lesson learned by mom and dad!

To love and laughter . . .

S, K, B, and T