Painting and Brownies!

We had lots of fun this weekend. We painted Maddie's nursery during Dylan's nap times and after he went to bed at night. We got that part done. Next weekend we'll do the trim (chair rail). It's starting to look like a little girl's room!

Yesterday, Dylan and I made brownies. It was so much fun. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Today is Dylan's first day at his new daycare. He did really well this morning. I had to stay a little while, but once they brought in breakfast, he jumped right down off my lap, ran to the table, turned to me, waving and said, "Bye-bye!" LOL. Food will distract him any time. The boy is an eating machine!

His teachers seem really nice and I'm waiting on the webcam to start working. I'm excited about that.

More miscellaneous pictures:

We're almost there!

August 22 will be the one year anniversary of the day we got Dylan's referral. Ironically, it will also be the day that he has been with us longer than he was in the orphanage. That's pretty awesome.

Things are going well. We're loving the cloth diapering. Daycare is doing it, too, without a problem.

We're still #8 on the list, but we're hoping for a referral within a month or so.

Our vacation in Gatlinburg was a dream. It went so smooth! He fell asleep easily and slept all night, right between us like at home. We went to the aquarium, Ober, and walked around alot. He really enjoyed it.

Here's some new pictures!

Our new venture

Sorry it's been so long since my last post. I have some exciting news. We're going to start cloth-diapering (CD'ing)! I've ordered several diapers and plan to start as soon as I get them all in and washed.

So now you're thinking, why in the world would you cloth diaper?? Let me tell you. The biggest reason is comfort. Dylan has never gotten diaper rash, but the plastic really bothers him. He's always scratching at the elastic around his legs, and his lower back. I want to make him more comfortable.

Second is cost. Start-up costs of CD'ing is pretty expensive ($200-$500, depending on the 'system' you go with), but long term it's cheaper. Add in another baby in diapers, and we'll be saving big bucks on disposibles.

Third, they're SO cute! And they're not that much more trouble than 'sposies. People imagine a rectangle of cloth and pins. Well, that's certainly an option, but most CD'ers use pocket diapers (with velcro or snaps and an absorbent insert with a waterproof outer layer), all-in-ones (insert is built-in), fitteds with a cover, or pre-folds and a cover. We're trying a few of each, but I imagine we'll like the pockets and AIOs best.

Lastly, it helps the environment. Those who know me, know I'm not big into the whole environment thing, but it does help, so there's a reason to CD.

Everyone wonders about the poop factor. Here's the deal-for solid poops, you just roll it into the toilet and flush. For more messy poops, we have a toilet sprayer (like the sprayers on kitchen sinks, but next to the toilet) to spray off any sticky stuff. Then it just goes in the washing machine. Easy as pie (so I've heard-I hadn't had to do it yet!).

I'm not sure if I can convince daycare to use them yet. He starts his new daycare on Aug. 21, so I'm not even going to bother with trying it with his current provider.

On another note, we're going to Gatlinburg this weekend for one night. We need to test the hotel issue again and get him used to it before we travel. He had quite the difficult time with sleeping at home over the past few weeks, but we've gotten that under control now, so we're ready to give the hotel a shot. I'll have lots of pics from this weekend, I'm sure. We're planning on visiting the aquarium, and riding the sky tram to Ober.

Here are some pics, including the cloth diapers. Never in my life would I have thought I'd be a co-sleeping, breast-feeding, cloth-diapering, baby-wearing mama. I'm really loving the mom thing even more than I ever imagined.

Dylan playing with my brother's puppy that is actually a friendly stray:


Bedtime (the dog moves when I come to bed):


What Dylan thinks about his new diaper:





Checking out our new lizard (bearded dragon):

15-month appointment

19 pounds, 15 ounces (1st-3rd %tile), 29.5 inches long (10th %tile). He's not growing much, but he's healthy as a horse. Everything was just fine and he did really well with his shots. He's so tiny, he's wearing 3-6 month clothes. We had to go buy some new summer clothes because all the ones we had were too big! Everything is going fine, and I have tons of new pictures and videos to share. I'll have to get them uploaded later. He's getting cuter by the day (if that's even possible!).

Oh, and we got our 171 (adoption approval) this weekend. It's a big deal for most, but since our old one wasn't expired yet, it doesn't change anything for us. We already had our dossier done, so we just have to hold onto this one in case we travel after the old one expires, or if we get twins. We're still hoping for a referral around September/October.

Six months!

Friday marked 6 months since Dylan became part of our family. So much has changed in 6 months, as it always does with new babies. He's so amazing. I love rocking him to sleep every night. He is so calm when I'm singing to him. It always settles him down, no matter how hyper he is. I usually sing "Lullaby" by the Dixie Chicks. It's the second song on our video montage I posted.

We did have a small setback last weekend. We went to a hotel in Knoxville and apparently, it brought back memories of his last hotel stay (in Vietnam, with strangers-us). He really freaked out and screamed for 1.5 hours the first night. He screamed for an hour the second night, so we went home. It was just too much for him and we were all exhausted. Poor guy was just SO scared. You could hear how terrified he was in his voice.

We talked to an adoption therapist and will be going to see her next week. She'll be able to give us some pointers and advice on how to deal with adoption issues. Even though he won't cognitively remember the first year of his life, he will have implicit memories, stored in his body. Certain things will set it off and we will have to work through those. We know we have to handle some things differently due to his history, like discipline (e.g., we can't isolate him in time-out because of his abandonment issues).

We had our 6-month post-placement homestudy done and that went well. We also had to write our own report and submit pictures to send to Vietnam. I plan on sending it all to our agency this week.

We're still #9 on the girl list, though we're ok if it goes slower than planned, since we have the hotel issue to work on. We couldn't handle that every night for 3 weeks in Vietnam, plus a new baby! We'll have to visit a couple local hotels for practice and to reassure him that we'll be there with him all night and when he wakes up.

As always, here's a couple pictures.
At the jungle gym at the zoo:


In the hotel pool:


In his new stroller:


Sleeping with his sick mommy:


Playing at the Splash Pad:


At the water park:

Funny videos

DTV!!

We're officially DTV (dossier to Vietnam). Our dossier was authenticated and sent to Hanoi yesterday. Once it's translated and logged in, we'll be officially able to receive a referral.

I had a weird feeling the other day. I'm not one to have premonitions or things like that, but I got a strong feeling last week (around May 15) that we're getting twins. Crazy, huh? Yes, we're approved for twins, and we'd love to have them (as scary as it sounds), but it's quite rare in Vietnam. In fact, our agency has been placing children for 1.5 years and has never placed a set of twins. We are open to a girl, or boy/girl twins, or girl/girl twins. As long we get at least one girl. Most likely we'll get our one girl, but I just thought I'd throw that out there.

No change in the referral estimation. It will probably be around September (unless we get twins-that could happen earlier because we'd skip ahead of people on the list that are not approved for 2 babies).

It's just a phase

That's what I keep telling myself. Dylan has become a complete Daddy's boy. If I'm the only one around, he loves me to death. But if Daddy is there, he wants nothing to do with me. He will actually CRY if Chris hands him to me! I know he loves me and it's completely normal for babies to alternately prefer one parent over another. But dangit, I'm jealous!

He's also having bad separation anxiety. Anytime we leave him at daycare, or in the church nursery, he freaks out. Screaming, crying, sounding like he's scared to death. It's so sad. I've made it a point to hang out at daycare every day for about half an hour or so until he warms up a little to the toys and teachers.

He won't even let anyone else hold him. I'm talking family! He won't go to Nana, Papa, Grandma, anyone. If we try to hand him to someone, he starts whimpering, then full-out crying. He's also forming an attachment to his sippy cup. If it's empty and he acts like he wants more, we take it to refill it. He acts like we just hurt him or something. He seriously does NOT want that cup out of his hand for a second. He'll take it outside to play and everything.

He's such an awesome little man. He's got a great personality and he's so funny. He knows what he's not supposed to do, and he'll test us by pretending like he's going to do something and looking at us with this sly grin. As cute as it is, we know not to encourage him, so we just frown and shake our heads. He stops. He loves playing outside in his new playhouse/swingset, which we worked on this weekend. We added wood timbers to form a large area around it and filled it in with wood fiber like you see on playgrounds. It was a LOT of work, but it looks great.

Dossier is complete

We got our dossier done and sent to our agency. After a little hiccup with our homestudy (after it was certified and with our agency), we had to go back today and certify a new copy. So it should be on its way to the embassy for authentication next week.

Also, we got fingerprinted today. Ours are good for a few more months, but we know they (and our 171) will expire before traveling, since we've had them since last summer, so we went ahead and applied for a new 171. Which meant new fingerprints (you know, because fingerprints can change SO much in 12 months-lol). That's all the news for today!

Oh, have I mentioned the issue we've been dealing with over Dylan getting bit at daycare? He was bit 7 times in one month (6 by the same kid) and they were not doing anything about it. So we switched daycares. There's a lot more to it, but I don't feel like going into it. Anyway, he started the new daycare last Wednesday. Thursday, he got bit 3 times. Monday, once. Today, once. What in the world?!? I've talked to lots of other moms and no one gets bit this much. It's just not normal. It's normal to get one or two bites while in this age range, but 2-3/week?? Really?? My poor baby. Even the no-chew bitter apple puppy spray isn't working to keep the vampires off of him.

Homestudy is complete, clothes and sprinkler fun!

We got the final, notarized copies of our homestudy Saturday. We should get the notarized copies of the rest of our dossier back today or tomorrow from our notary. Chris is taking a half day this week to take everything to the Sec. of State for certification. Then it's on its way to VORF, then to the embassy for authentication, then to Vietnam!!

They're still projecting a referral around September.

We cleaned out Madison's room and put up her crib this weekend. We also went through Dylan's clothes. He had so many, we couldn't get to them all. We found some cute new outfits for the summer. He's not gaining much weight (19 pounds at 13 months old), so he's still in 6-9mo clothes! We boxed up all the 18+ month clothing since it's just taking up room. Even the 12mo stuff is too big, but he'll be into that soon, we hope. Anyway, we used big diaper cases for the clothes. He has 1 case of 24mo clothes and 2 cases of 18mo clothes. Then a whole 4-drawer dresser full of 12mo clothes (I counted 18 pair of JEANS!) and 2 huge drawers of 6-9mo clothes. Needless to say, we no longer need more clothes for the boy. Oh, and all overalls, outfits and button-up shirts are hanging. The drawers are just for pants, t-shirts, onesies and rompers. Yikes. Most of you know, we go yard sale-ing almost every weekend in the spring and summer. That's where we get all of his clothes. I've never bought a brand-new outfit for him. He has a few new ones from baby showers, Christmas and birthday. But the majority of his clothes are really nice, second-hand clothes. I never pay more than $1 for any one piece, and he has some really nice stuff.

We've been doing the same for Madison. She has about the same amount of clothes. A dresser, 2 huge drawers, a closet FULL of dresses and right now, her crib is piled high with clothes just from this weekend. I think I'm addicted to baby clothes. Is there a support group for baby clothes addicts??

Dylan is cutting his top incisors and having a rough time of it. He cries in his sleep. He has trouble going to sleep. He wakes up early. He's not eating much because it hurts, then cries because he's hungry. I feel so bad for my little man. I wish I could take away his pain. He gets Tylenol before bed, but I don't want him to be on it all day, too.

Saturday, it was in the '80s here, so we broke out the swim diapers and sprinkler. He wasn't too impressed. I do have to admit, the water was really cold. Afterwards, we let him run around naked in the backyard. He enjoyed that. LOL.

One year ago today...

...our initial application for adoption was approved by the agency. We had just begun the journey. Now we're home, raising our wonderful son, and working hard on the second adoption. Amazing how much our lives have changed, for the better, in just a year. We love Dylan SO much, and just gaze at him, knowing how incredibly lucky we are to have him. And sad about the huge sacrifice his birthmom had to make. And the fact that she will never see what a wonderful little boy he's become. I really just can't get over how awesome he is.

He said his first word (other than mama, dada, baba, etc.) the day after his birthday, at his doctor's appointment. It was SNACK. I don't remember if I already mentioned that. Oh, and his updated stats at 1 year-18 pounds, 14oz (only up 7oz in 2 months-3rd %tile), 29.5" tall (50th %tile). The doc isn't worried, though. All the extra activity now that he's walking has kept him from gaining much. He eats like a champ, too. We went out to dinner one night and he had ribs, corn on the cob, fries, chicken, and a corn muffin! He gets this little pot belly after he eats that's so cute. We call it his Buddha belly.

He's doing really well in school. Although one of his classmates is a biter. He's been bitten 4 times now-twice on the arm, once on the back of neck (broke the skin and bled), and once on his back. All 4 left teeth marks. I think they daycare is threatening the parents to kick out their kid. I just hope Dylan doesn't pick up on that behaviour.

We had our final homestudy Tuesday. It was delayed because we had to switch HS agencies. Our original one decided (after the first visit, and signing the papers) that they would no longer do homestudies/updates for clients not using them for the adoption. So we had to start over with a new agency. Hopefully, we'll have it back next week and can proceed with getting our dossier sent to Vietnam. We're still hoping for a September referral and Dec/Jan travel. We're anxious to go back to that beautiful country and add a daughter to our wonderful family.

You know that saying that you're supposed to make a wish when you look at the clock and it's all the same digits? I got up the other night at 11:11 and thought, "Oh, I need to make a wish." Then I just stood there, not able to think of anything to wish for. My life is perfect right now. Sure, I could use a few million bucks, or instant weight loss, but as I stood there looking at the clock, I thought about how great my life was. Perfect marriage, perfect son, great life. I really couldn't ask for anything better. And so different from the misery I was feeling a year ago today.

First Easter with Dylan

Things are going wonderfully. Dylan is such an awesome little boy. I gave him his first haircut last week. He had a great Easter, although busy. He had an egg hunt at Nana and Papa's and loved that. He doesn't even care what's IN the eggs-he just likes putting them in the basket. He also got a new swingset/slide playhouse for the backyard for his birthday. Here are some pics.
Swinging:


Before haircut:

During:

After:


Easter:

1 year pictures