First Visit/Respite Care

This is such an exciting weekend for me. I am providing respite care for the little guy that we are going to adopt! Unfortunately Gary is out of town for his monthly military obligation so they still have not yet met.


Yesterday at noon I picked him up from his foster mom's day care center. Before this time I had only met him once on July 31st for a couple of hours while he was still having visits with his bio-mom. When it was time for us to leave he started crying as she put him in my car, actually foster mom got a little misty eyed too. I talked to him and tried to comfort him on the way home and by the time we got to our house he was just softly whimpering. Then as soon as he seen our dogs he just lit up and there hasn't been any crying since. After he checked out our house and got aquaninted with the dogs we went our our first field trip to Wal-Mart to stock up on toddler snacks, buys some toys and find the right kind of sippy cups. (I really had no idea they make forty-thousand different kids of sippy cups) Gary and I had been to Wal-Mart the night before to buy this stuff but without knowing his developmental level we were totally lost and left the store empty handed.


When we got back home from Wal-Mart it was nap time and I had no idea how this was going to go. Although we have been going through the process of becoming foster to adopt parents for months I have refused to convert our spare bedroom into a child's room until we had a license in hand. I guess this way of thinking may have come from all of the disappointments involved in fertility treatments. Anyway, since we received our license last week we have not had time to do anything with the bedroom so we only have a queen size bed. I rocked him for maybe five minutes and he fell asleep and I put him in the big bed with pillows protecting the edge and he slept for three hours. He was the happiest little boy when he woke up considering that he was in a strange bed (he normally sleeps in a crib), strange house with a strange woman.



Later that evening we went to a local pumpkin patch with Shelly a long time friend, her husband Bill and their daughter Reese. It extremely windy (even for Kansas) and chilly so we didn't stay long but we got some really nice pumpkins and had fun. After that we went to meet my family, (mom, dad, brother, sister-in-law, nephew & niece) at a restaurant for dinner. I hadn't expected to do so much on the first day for fear that I would totally overload him but in my life nothing ever goes according to plans. He was pretty apprehensive about all of the new people and really clung to me at first. My family is very understanding of his situation and that everyone/everything is new and different for him so they let him lead the way.


When we got home it was bath time and found out he loves taking a bath. He never even flinched when I poured the water on his head to rinse out the shampoo. As I had him bundled up in the towel he kept opening his mouth wide showing me his teeth. I finally figured it out that he is used to having his teeth brushed before pajama time. So all bundled up in his towel I sat on the edge of the tub and he leaned back with his mouth wide open and let me thoroughly brush his teeth.



After getting ready for bed and playing for about 10 minutes he crawled up in the rocking chair with me and fell asleep with me holding him. He slept the entire night from 8:45 p.m. until 8:15 the next morning. I don't know how many times I got up to look in on him but I know he got WAY more rest than I did.



Today we have played, went to Wal-Mart (again) and played with Reese and after nap time we are going to my parents house to help make scarecrows to decorate for fall/Halloween.



He is such an even tempered little boy and is absolutely adorable and I'm already dreading him going home tomorrow night. I don't know what the future has in store for us regarding visitations and transitioning him into our home but I will keep everyone updated.