One Month Update

Arie has been home 1 month already, can you believe it? He is doing so well. He knows that we are his family now, and he LOVES his big sister!!! He has been so much fun, and it has been so amazing to watch his personality change over the course of the month. He is really beginning to open up. He's smiling a TON and even laughs out loud now. He is doing much better with "strangers" too. His fear of them seems to be dissipating, which is great. We've even let two other people hold him in the past couple of days and he didn't cry, in fact he smiled at both of them. He still wont touch baby food or rice cereal. Oh well,we'll try again after Halloween. I'm not looking forward to that again. His sleeping issues are a little better. He is on a schedule with two naps a day included, although sometimes he decides to wake up like 10 times during those naps. Ugh. He really isn't a very good sleeper, but my other two children are, so 2 out of 3 ain't bad, right? He is rolling over both ways now, and he can push his chest off the floor now, so sitting up and crawling are right around the corner. We are so proud of him, and we feel so blessed to have him with us!

Although Arie is home, he still isn't legally our child. We have 6 months of supervision where we are visited by our social worker, and our progress as a family is closely monitored. We also have post-placement reports that we have to turn in every couple of months along with pictures. Once we finish the 6 month period, we are allowed to finalize the adoption in the U.S. courts. I think that process takes a couple more months. I hope it's not that difficult! Although I was a paralegal once in my life, I'm not very good at understanding legal jargon. I might have to enlist the help of my attorney friend (you know who you are!) Anyway, after we are finalized we can apply for a U.S. birth certificate, passport, and SSN. The "passport" that Arie came home with was actually a "travel certificate". It's basically a one-way/one time use passport that expired after he entered the U.S. One day we will be finished with all this paperwork, but we still have a ways to go. OH! Forgot to mention, Arie is going to be a chicken for Halloween. He looks SUPER cute in his little costume. Elaine has started calling him "Boo Boo Chicken". "Boo Boo Chicken" is the name of Donald Duck's pet chicken (in case you were wondering... and I'm sure you were). Of course, she calls him "Arie-Punchkins" too. I can't explain that one.