Highlights from Monday

Well, today was the big day we've been waiting for - the day that we get to start knowing this little boy *in person* and not just through photos and a little video snippet, AND, the day that he got to meet us - his Mama and Daddy! We will get two visits each day this week, and today was the same - an hour in the morning, and then we had a longer visit (almost two hours) right before supper. This morning he was rather hesitant, and didn't like being held. He didn't actively resist it, but he was not comfortable, and was whimpering a bit. In many ways this was encouraging to us - he recognized that we were strangers and was not automatically okay with being held by strangers. We laid him down on a soft play mat on the floor and spent the rest of our time near him there. For a while we were there, a man who works with some of the children came in, and K definitely recognized him. He responded to his voice, was reaching his hand out to him, and when the man held him, K was reaching up to touch his scratchy face and appeared quite relaxed. But even this morning, we noticed some things that showed us that K was not opposed to our presence. A number of times he would reach his hand out to Matt's open hand, and enjoyed holding on to him for a few moments at a time, and he was not opposed to us sitting near him, or stroking his hair, or rubbing his back.

[I had this whole post written, and then went to view it one last time before shutting down the computer for bed, and realized that it somehow disappeared! So I'll try to write it a second time. It will likely be shorter than it was the first time!]

We have been so prepared to meet a very small, very delayed little boy that there were many ways in which he exceeded our expectations. We found out this morning that he is able to roll over! After realizing he did not like being held, I laid him on his back on the mat, and he was able to roll himself over onto his belly! Once on his belly, he is able to lift his head for long periods of time (though this does seem tiring to him, and he will periodically lay his head down for a rest), and he can push himself up on his elbows, and sometimes even beyond his elbows. Here is a photo from our afternoon visit where he's showing off how strong he is!

We really enjoyed our second visit. Although he still seemed somewhat apprehensive about sitting on our laps, we spent over an hour and a half on that play mat with the toys. We learned that he really likes balls (something we had already noticed this morning), and he is quite adept at picking them up with his right hand and moving them around. Sometimes he uses even finer motor skills than that - using his fingertips to pull one closer to him so he can grip it, or purposely flicking it away with his fingertips (and then Daddy rolls it back, though I wouldn't say we were quite playing "roll the ball" but it sometimes worked almost that way.)

One very enjoyable part about our afternoon visit was the way he was seeking out Daddy's hand. Numerous times these two were holding hands, starting with Daddy's open palm invitation, and then K would work his hand over and place it on top of Daddy's. It was too much for K to hold eye contact with any touch like this, so he would usually look at Matt's hand, then place his hand there as he turned his head completely away. Even toys seemed to be difficult for him to hold in his gaze for too long. This seemed to be more of an avoidance thing (too intense for him to handle) than an inability to maintain eye contact with either people or things.

 

We think we may have heard one or two breathy little noises that almost sounded like laughter. Once or twice we caught glimmers of what might have been a smile, but nothing like the one in the photo from January. We'll see what the rest of the week brings!

One last favorite moment of the afternoon was when we started introducing him to the idea of cats since we have three at home. Grandma made him a little mobile with photos of our three cats which he enjoyed grabbing at, but he also really enjoyed this touch-and-feel cat book that we had brought from home. We never made it past the first page, but that's the best page of the book, anyway, since it has the cat "fur" on it.

The photo above makes him look a lot more engaged than he really is. This little boy has a long road ahead of him, but we figure this week is going to give him a good start at one of the most important realities he needs to know for life: he is our little boy, and we love him and are so happy to be with him.