11 months old!

Jonas is 11 months old today. I can't believe he'll be a year old in only one month. We brought him home when he was over 7 months old, but he seemed like such a little baby then. He couldn't roll over, bear weight on his legs, or sit unsupported. He hadn't really started solid foods yet. He's come a long way since then, and he's growing up too quickly! He hasn't started crawling yet but he's working on it. When he's on his stomach he will push against our hands and move across the floor like an inch worm. Here's a little video we took of our inch worm after dinner one night.


Even though he isn't crawling, he manages to get where he wants to by scooting around on his bottom. Yesterday I put him on the floor while I was making our bed, and he opened our closet door, pulled some of my shoes down, and scooted himself inside the closet. Ignore the mess inside the closet in these pictures!


He learned how to pick up food with his thumb and forefinger about a month ago, and since then he hasn't wanted to eat much food off a spoon. He still lets me feed him yogurt, cereal, and some pureed fruits off a spoon. Sometimes he'll grab the spoon and guide it into his mouth. Other than that it's all finger foods now. His favorites are little spears of cooked broccoli, pinto beans, peas, banana, cheerios, freeze-dried yogurt bites, and little pieces of salmon, chicken, or tuna. Here are some pictures of the first time I let him feed himself his lunch all by himself. I stripped him down to his diaper because I expected a big mess. I was a little disappointed that he kept himself pretty clean.


He says Dada, Hi, and Gitty (for kitty). He does not say Mama, as much as I try to teach him. Anytime we ask him to say Mama, he says Dada. :)

Our first couple of months at home, Jonas was usually a little overwhelmed by all the people at church. He'd smile at people sometimes but wouldn't let anyone hold him. Around the first of the year he started getting more and more comfortable with other people. He now lets people hold him and even lets us out of his sight sometimes. I haven't left him in the nursery yet though. I think he'd be fine, but I'm not ready for that yet! :) We've been blessed to have our friend Sarah babysit Jonas on Monday and Thursday mornings when we're both working. Sarah is great with him, and he gets excited when he sees her. Last weekend our friends Dawn and Cory babysat while Ray and I had our first date since becoming parents. Jonas had so much fun with them that he barely noticed when we came home! Sarah, Dawn, and Cory all grew up in our youth ministry, and we trust them with Jonas completely! It's great to have good babysitters. :)

Jonas is still sleeping well! He's down to waking up only once or twice in his crib before Ray and I go to bed, and then once in the middle of the night. It's such a drastic improvement over waking almost hourly for so long. He is also napping much better. He can make it through both his morning and afternoon naps without waking up to be rocked back to sleep in the middle of it. And, most amazing of all, he has started to sometimes fall asleep in his crib without us in the room and WITHOUT CRYING! Letting him sleep in our bed when he wants to seems to have helped him to feel secure enough to sleep longer in his crib. I wish we would have tried co-sleeping sooner! It was really hard to be extremely sleep deprived for 3 months. Right before we tried co-sleeping we had reached a breaking point and were seriously considering letting him cry until he fell asleep. Looking back, I'm really glad we never did that!

Every day I thank God for choosing Ray and I to be Jonas' parents. People have told us that Jonas is lucky to have us, but we're the ones that are truly blessed!

Sleep Update

I am happy to report that we've all been sleeping really well for the past week! We discovered our sleep solution sort of accidentally. Ray took the youth group on a winter retreat last weekend, and the thought of getting up 8 or 9 times a night with Jonas by myself was a bit overwhelming. I had been dreading it for weeks and came up with a plan. I was going to try a little experiment. So, our first night alone together I put Jonas to bed in his crib at his normal bedtime. Then the first time he woke up when I was ready for bed, I brought him into bed with me. I couldn't believe how much better he slept. He still woke probably as frequently as normal, but as soon as he would cry I would pull him a little closer to me and he would stop crying and go back to sleep right away. We were both sleeping again in less than a couple of minutes. The next night was the same way. No more rocking him in the rocking chair, standing up and swaying with him, trying to ease him into the crib, trying to calm him back to sleep by patting his stomach if he woke up on the way down to the crib, picking him up again when that didn't work, and starting the process all over again. So I told Ray the results of my experiment and he was all for giving it a try when he got home. We've kept the arrangement and we've continued to get better and better sleep each night. Jonas isn't waking nearly as frequently as he used to. He still starts out the night in his crib and he's even sleeping a little better there. Last night he slept from 8pm to 11:30pm in his crib without waking up. That doesn't sound that great, but trust me, it's a huge improvement for him. We're so happy to be getting good rest! It really makes all the difference. I've been a bit surprised by some of the very strongly negative reactions we've gotten from some people when we share our good news though. It's as if our new sleeping arrangement somehow directly affects them and they feel obligated to tell us "You'll never get him out of your bed!" So, if you feel compelled to tell us that, don't worry, we've already considered it. We've decided that getting Jonas to sleep well on his own is going to be a struggle no matter what. So we've chosen to get good sleep now, let him feel secure, and work on transitioning him out of our bed later when he has some verbal skills and can understand a little more that we're not going to disappear in the middle of the night.

Last weekend we also had our 3 month post placement visit by our social worker. Ethiopia requires reports at 3 months, 6 months, and 12 months post placement. The visit went very well. I mentioned to our social worker the problems we had been having with Jonas' sleep and that I had tried co-sleeping the night before. The social worker said that he sees major sleep problems with a lot of the adopted kids he follows. He said it's a combination of these kids' personalities and separation anxiety. I confessed to him that I sometimes felt like I must be doing something wrong to cause Jonas to sleep so poorly. He reassured me that we have done nothing wrong, In fact, he said he thinks we've been doing everything right. Yay! I've been trying to convince myself that Jonas' sleeping problems were not my fault, but have had trouble believing it sometimes. So it was good to hear it from our social worker's mouth. He thinks co-sleeping in our best option at this point. He doesn't recommend any kind of sleep training that involves leaving Jonas to cry alone in his crib for any time. He said it's obvious that Jonas is very attached to us, but not responding to him could cause him to regress in his attachment to us.

I've found that knowing that Jonas is going to sleep at night has given me a lot of freedom during the day. When he wasn't sleeping I analyzed and over-analyzed everything we did during our day. Anytime Jonas was exposed to new people or a new situation I would worry that it would make him wake up more at night. I was afraid of doing anything outside of our normal routine. I tried to do everything "by the book" and stressed out when Jonas decided he didn't want to cooperate with what the books said about when and how long he should be napping, how much he should be eating, etc. Now, I'm throwing the books away! I learned some good things from what I've read, but I've also realized that I need to follow my instincts, pay attention to Jonas' moods, and forget what the books say sometimes. Dr. Sears would be proud of me. :)

Our Beautiful Boy

Giving Kisses