Happy, curious and engaging

Those where the terms our IA doc described Lucas during our visit into Boston yesterday. She said these were the 3 top things she wanted to see in babies his age. Not all moments were happy mind you...the attachment and removal of the urine bag, throat check and blood draw drew some might big tears but all-in-all he did so great. The purpose of the visit was a detailed developmental assessment as well as a medical evaluation. Developmentally we were not surprised with the results...on target (15 mo) for EVERYTHING but receptive (understanding) language. He's been walking since 14mo, does a couple pieces of a simple puzzle, mimics like crazy, says 'bye-bye' with hand motions and 'wow', flips through books, has become much more proficient with feeding himself with fingers and spoon, sleeping well, etc...I could go on. All but the walking he's done since he's been with us...3.5 short weeks. Medically we were surprised that there are no concerns right now whatsoever...a couple lingering questions from the pre-adoption eval and the earlier weight concerns are gone and they just said to keep up what we were doing (hmmm avocado....). Hopefully the blood work will show he's healthy as well and that most of the vaccinations don't need to be repeated.

Also, in some ways more importantly to me, we got to see glimpses of his attachment to us. We really haven't exposed him to people since he's been home...except for one-time visits to library, doctor, grocery store and well, I think that's it. But not lengthy interaction with others. Our experience is somewhat clouded by the fact that Alexander was anxiously attached to me for quite a long time and would scream/cry with doctors, strangers coming into our house, etc. Lucas on the other hand has a completely different personality and is pretty calm and friendly....likely he'd still go to almost anybody. Yesterday, he gave his what I've come to believe is his "stranger face" to everyone which is a little hard to explain...he scrunches up his face and 'tries' to look menacing...he's too cute so it doesn't quite work. But no blowing raspberries which he did to strangers a few weeks ago. Anyway, after he became a little comfortable and played with the developmental therapist for a while he walked over near her and lifted his arms up. She picked him up, he looked at her for a couple seconds, turned and wiggled down and came right over to me. And at one point with the doc, he gave her a 'mean' face, shrugged his arm away from her and walked away. He also is starting to accept and look for comforting from me when he's hurt...it's so sad but you can tell this didn't happen much before. Attachment is a looong road, but these where encouraging signs.

Today we have our first post-placement with our social worker...busy couple of days! Time to get off the computer :).

Laura