Negatives first:
1. No words- perhaps the most striking developmental delay is his speech (or lack there of). He verbalizes and sings to himself, but no words. He communicates through gesture, however. I usually have a good idea what he wants or wants more of.
2. Attention seeking behavior- he spits, throws things, and sometimes hits. The thing about these behaviors, however, is that they are done with a smile. It's not a "stink eye" look, followed by this. I choose to completely ignore the spitting. Today, while we were having a bit of a "moment", he started spitting and was waiting for my reaction to fuss over it. I choose not to. Spitting is gross, but in his mind any attention is good attention, even if it is the nanny coming over to get you to stop doing that. I can't figure out if the throwing is just enjoying watching things fly or if he is trying to get attention for it. Jury still out on that one. Now, I did get a smack across the face today. He wasn't upset at me, and he was smiling. I think it was just a test to see what this nice lady will do when I hit her. He found out and his eyes went a little wide for a minute. He is learning that I give many many "yes"s, but my "no" is a firm no and I save it for when I need it. After spending the hours that we have together, the testing is coming out. This is fine, it's not like I didn't know it was coming.
NOW TIME FOR POSITIVES!!
1)I have been claimed- when I arrived today, I stepped through the door into the court yard and folks started yelling back to the toddler room to get Eskedar because his mommy was here. About 5 seconds later he toddles out and scans the yard and when he saw me the arms went up with a big smile and he started moving quick towards me. A bunch of nannies jumped out in front of him because he can't do the stairs unless he really concentrates and we were all worried about a face plant. Face plant averted, I scooped him up and got good hugs.
2)He problem solves- He can open stuff with his teeth. He tries to figure things out and how they work. I brought his "backpack of happiness" as it shall henceforth be called with a snack, pants pack, and some more toys. He knew there was good stuff in there. He tossed his snack container at one point before he knew there was snacks in there. It broke open and some goldfish flew out which was a very exciting development. Problem is, then he assumed that was how you open a snack container and he tried it again a few minutes later.
3) Even 10 seconds after he hit me across the face, he was still looking for my attention and to be near me.
4) We spent 20 minutes of our snack time eating Goldfish one by one on purpose. He puts out his little hand to ask for more and I say "Ebahke, emama" (please mom) and then I give him a Goldfish and we say "awo, Trenton Eskedar". He chews. If he wants another one he asks me again. So we did a dance of 50 practices of asking Mommy for something and Mommy saying yes. He seems to be pretty patient when he can tell that you are present and working towards it. One funny moment was when I motioned that he needed to sit down for me to give him something (as he had done about 3 times for me before), except this time he decided to be silly and he signed back to me to sit down too!
5) He has learned to do stuff that my kids at home can barely do. Example: So while we were playing, the nanny brought in what I think was supposed to be his morning snack or a small lunch. It was a roll of bread and an actual mug of really hot milk. He breaks up his roll to eat that so that was not an issue.. but I'm staring at this really hot milk like.. "what am I supposed to do with that? I wouldn't give my 7 year old that!" After awhile it cooled, and he was asking for it.. so I'm all trying to do hand over hand to help him because surely he can't do this and if he does its going to go everywhere and I'll be mopping it up. He was kind of fighting me on having my hands on his cup, but given some of his behaviors, I couldn't tell if he was trying to get away with something since I didn't know the rules of this. After what felt like many awkward attempts to help, I finally let him do it himself and prepared to ask for a mop. When I finally left him alone, he got one little hand underneath it, one hand on the handle, and curled all the way over and sipped his hot milk like a little old British man. I have a hilarious picture of this. My point, is that this kid has learned to DO stuff and has survived. He is doing something I don't let his brothers do. He spilled a little on his pants, but really people.
6) I'm starting to make an impression. Our time needed to be done for today so we picked up our toys and we walked hand in hand back to the toy room to send him with his nannies. With our visits in the past, he went back to nannies without much issue, because he doesn't really understand that we are mom and Dad. We aren't much different than every other adoptive family coming to pick up their kid in that they give him some attention and he sees them a few times and that is it. Today though you could tell a switch had flipped. He began a "sit in" when I took him back to the nannies. He wouldn't go with them and he sat down on the ground and the little sad eyes came out and the bottom lip came out and he wouldn't look at me or them. I think I turned around to try to lovingly steer him back over there, and the second I did he jumped up with arms up and jumped into me again. I had to pull him off for the nanny.
At that point I made a swift exit because clearly my standing there was not helping them get on with their day or helping him.
I also decided that I likely won't go back until it's custody day, which should be Monday, maybe Tuesday. There is no reason to show up there and play with him and snuggle him and then suddenly walk away and hurt him. He has been hurt enough. He doesn't need one single more tear that Mommy goes away. We've established he likes me and recognizes me, and I don't think he will forget that in the next 2 days. I don't anticipate any issue of him wanting to go in the car with me. So if the goal is to warm up and like each other, we accomplished that goal! No need for any more tears.
So after that, Sisay took me grocery shopping so that I have lunch items for him set up. After that, Sisay is like "I have to take care of you for Ted. How do you like juices?" and I'm like " I love juices!!" which resulted in Sisay taking me to a fantastic juice bar where they servie up bad boys like this.
Then my tummy was full of about 24 ounces of straight raspberry, strawberry, banana, mango, and probably other stuff. It was awesome.
Today I got his toy box in the room all set up and most of the babyproofing. I don't know how much notice I will get before I get to go take custody, so I want to be totally ready Monday morning.
Tomorrow I am declaring "Mommy's Ethiopian B&B" day. It's actually election day here tomorrow so I'm staying in other than possibly going on a walk. Books will be read. Spiritual tanks refilled. I may be getting my 4th son on Monday!
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