Okay, I have to admit that we have now been home three weeks, and I did not journal any for the first week. I was just too tired. Jackson and I had the hardest time getting back on the right time zone. I would wake up COMPLETELY awake at 3 AM for the longest time. I didn't want to wake up my darling hubby who had to go to work, or Ethan who needed to be in the right time zone, so I got up and watched a movie, and went back to bed. This went on for several days. I would get so tired that I would sleep a full night and think I was "cured," but fall back into the same routine for a few more days. I was well into the second week until I could sleep normally.
Jackson kept falling asleep before dinner, but he was waking up in the middle of the night and playing in his closet. His sisters told on him, so I eventually kept him up after dinner, put him in my bed, made sure he was asleep by 10 and didn't let him get up. One night of this cured his time zone issues.
We tried to keep the family routine very simple. I did take the kids out to music lessons and swim practice, but that was the only visiting or travelling we did. Ethan slept, ate and played on the rug in the kitchen. Most visitors saw him in the high chair or on the play rug. He also liked to zoom around the house inside and out in a red coupe.
On the first day, he asked for BaBa most of the day. On Wednesday, I took him to Rob's work for a visit during swim team. He happily came back to me when it was time to pick him up. With most strangers, Ethan would not make eye contact and wanted to be held by me or Rob. We tried to keep the visiting small and infrequent and on our own turf.
During the first week, we were looking at pictures and video of the trip. We watched the gotcha day video and Ethan climbed up on Rob's lap. He began to chew on his hand. I mean really chew on it. It was immediately red. I finally understood the condition of his hand when he first came to us. For the first week in China, I put Neosporin on Ethan's hand, the one where he had surgery at 8 months. I couldn't figure out why it was still raw when it had clearly healed and scarred from the surgery. I noticed the redness in pictures while we were waiting, too. When Ethan is REALLY REALLY upset, he chews on this hand. This was so sad to me. I just wanted to scoop him up and comfort him, to let him know it's okay. I haven't seen this again, but I will surely be watching for it.
Other than a few events, the first week is a blur of not sleeping well, drinking lots of coffee and really enjoying being with all the children.
Hey guys - we were much like you - it took Marie and I a couple or three weeks to get back to our time zone too!!
ReplyDeleteSo glad that you've seen a stress behavior! All three of our adopteds have one - and in particular for the first year or two we learned to watch for it and then take steps to 'reassure' the child that everything was OK - and it really helped with trust issues! You can't always change the stressful situation - but you can scoop up the child and comfort them! For each of them the behaviors were subtle too - but once we had them it was all good!
Happy for you guys - glad that life is starting to 'normalize' and this will continue!
hugs - aus and co.
I can remember the "blur" when we got home with our daughter. As it wears off everything else cleared up. I hope you all continue to settle down into your new family routine. I am with you on the self soothing techniques--it is so hard to watch!
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