Soooooo Big!

Jonas turned 10 months old yesterday. He's getting so big already. Not that he needed to, but he's gained 4 pounds since mid-November! He's completely grown out of his 6-9 month clothes and some of his 12 month clothes are getting a little snug around the middle. He still has plenty of room length-wise though. I have to fold up the arms of most of his shirt sleeves up so they don't cover his hands!

This picture was taken in his bathrobe (that's really too small). I love how it shows off his chubby legs.

We were watching an afternoon Steelers game a few weeks ago. The Steelers scored and Ray threw his hands in the air and yelled "Touchdown!" Jonas looked startled for a minute and then laughed and threw his little hands in the air and yelled something like "Ah dee dah!" We can usually get him to do it again by saying "Touchdown", but one arm raised was the best we could get for a picture. :)

He is such a happy and funny baby. He gives us slobbery kisses all the time. One of his favorite things to do is to kiss Ray's cheek and then reach for me and kiss my cheek. He'll go back and forth giving mommy and daddy kisses for a few minutes. I think he is teething again because he is chewing and biting anything and everything he can get his hands on. So sometimes lately his kisses end with a "love" bite. Ouch. He still loves his hands and is always waving or clapping them. We think he might be a natural drummer. He can entertain himself forever by just tapping his hands on a table or drum. His favorite toys are two toy drums that play music when he hits them. Once the music starts he bops his upper body up and down and dances to the beat.

He's still not sleeping any better. Sometimes when I'm rocking him in the middle of the night I think about the fact that we're his fourth home in his little life. I think about how, out of love and desperate circumstances, he was abandoned by his first family and I wonder how long he laid there alone in the city before he was found. I wonder if he fell asleep in the arms of his birth mother and woke up in the arms of a police officer. I wonder if he can comprehend that we're his forever family, and not just another stop along the way of caregivers in his life. When I think about these things, no matter how tired I am, or how hopeless I feel about his sleep (or whether we'll ever sleep again) I hug him a little bit tighter and hold him a little bit longer. I feel convicted again that no matter how many times he wakes up, we will go to him. We will let him know that we're here for him anytime he needs us. We will draw on God's strength, endure sleepless nights, and marvel in the wonder of the fact that God has given us such a beautiful, silly, demonstrative baby boy as our very own son.

Sleep (or lack thereof)!

We've been having some trouble with Jonas sleeping ever since we got home. It actually got a little worse the longer we were home and the more attached to us he became. He's always needed to be rocked to sleep, which we did happily. When we first came home we knew that he was experiencing a ton of change all at once, and didn't want to throw him off even more by expecting him to fall asleep on his own when he never had before. We were told in the transition home by his nanny that she always waited until he was asleep to put him in his crib. So for us, it was a way to continue to earn his trust and build attachment. The more attached to us he became the more frequently he started waking at night. First about 2 times a night, then more and more until he was sometimes waking every hour or two. When he woke up all he wanted was for us to pick him up and the majority of the time he would fall right back to sleep again. We contemplated co-sleeping, but it didn't seem to work for us, and Jonas didn't seem to like it either. So, night after night we'd take turns going into his room when he cried out, holding him, and putting him back down when he was asleep. It wasn't that bad at first, and we kinda secretly enjoyed that special time when we could comfort him and cuddle him in the middle of the night. After all, we missed out on nurturing him for the first 7 1/2 months of his life. But, recently we've been so TIRED! Ray went back to work the week before Christmas (which was a horrible sleep week. We noticed later that Jonas' 2 top teeth came in that week!). I will be working again part time within the next week or two. So, it seemed like now was the time to start trying to train Jonas to sleep better. We talked to our pediatrician about it and he recommended the Ferber method. Basically, go in after 5 minutes of crying, after 10 minutes, after 15 minutes, etc until the crying stops. In the doctor's office I felt I was completely prepared to do this, but once I got home I lost my nerve. Ray and I talked about it and decided that for now, crying it out is not an option. Jonas has only been with us for 2 months, which is only half the time that he was with his nanny in the transition home. While his attachment to us is strong and secure, we just can't bring ourselves to let him cry it out when we feel that Jonas is crying at night for a little extra love and reassurance. I don't judge anyone that uses the crying method, we're just to weak to do it! So I researched some books on-line, and the day after Christmas I went on a mission to buy the book "The No Cry Sleep Solution". It doesn't promise a quick fix to the sleeping problem, but to slowly and steadily help your train your child to sleep on their own longer and better without being left to cry. It gives a bunch of suggestions, and then you pick what you think will work for your child and make your sleep plan. We haven't implemented all of our plan yet because we were away from home, and then Jonas got sick with a cold. But we have started using some of the ideas and his sleep started to improve pretty quickly. He started waking only twice. Then one night he woke at 1am, but then slept straight through until 6:45am. The next night he woke at 10:30pm and then slept until 5am. It felt amazing to be able to get that many uninterrupted hours of sleep! I have to admit, I was feeling a little proud of myself for doing such a good job getting him to sleep. :) Last night he regressed. I actually felt like he was going to have trouble before I even put him down for the night. I had trouble getting him to eat much that day and he didn't drink much formula either, even though I tried offering it to him more frequently than normal. Then we had to run some errands and were out a little later than we wanted and he got hungry for dinner before we got home. We gave him a late dinner (still trying to be pretty creative to get him to eat a normal amount). By the time we were done with dinner he was tired and we started his bedtime routine, but even that got a little messed up. So I was kinda expecting some more wakings for bottles, etc. He was back to waking every hour pretty much all night long. I felt so defeated! But I had some great discussions today with other adoptive moms on a Yahoo Group about sleep. It seems that sleep is a pretty common problem and it was good to see what others are trying to do. Basically I feel reassured that we're on the right track. I guess sometimes you just take two steps forward and one step back. I've been trying something new to try to help him to learn to fall asleep on his own. Instead of waiting until he's completely asleep to ease him into the crib, I've been waiting until he's completely relaxed and falling asleep, but still awake. Then I put him down. If he cries I pick him up wait until he's relaxes and then put him down again. So far today the most I've had to pick him up is 3 times. Then he usually smiles at me, rolls on his side, and falls asleep. I hope we're making progress. I hope he sleeps tonight. We'd appreciate your prayers as we work through this! In the meantime, I remind myself that someday he WILL sleep through the night. He'll be a teenager all too quickly, and then I'll probably miss those cuddle times in the middle of the night when I could scoop him up and make everything all better. At least, I tell myself I'll miss it. :)

The Snoopy Hat

We had a great New Years and spent it with the Hammond side of the family in PA. While we were there Mom and Dad Hammond gave us a large box filled with some clothes that were Ray's when he was a baby. Today I washed the clothes and we pulled out Ray's old Snoopy hat to see if it would fit Jonas. He looked so cute in it we just had to take some pictures. Here they are: