Leah Jin-Ri made some more progress today! As part of our transition plan, we've been trying to avoid known stressors the past few days, so we don't create any negative associations with new experiences while we earn her trust. Since she freaked out the first time we put her in the high chair, we have resorted to spoon feeding her while she sits on one of our laps. At dinner, in order for all of us to be able to eat, one of us holds her and the other one spoon feeds her while we all eat. We brought home some jars of her favorite baby foods from Korea, one of which is called cheese dessert, which I assume is like yogurt. She loves it so much that she screeches and shouts in between bites, pounds the table and kicks her legs (caveman style). She actually turns bright red and groans and looks like she's squeezing one out....but we checked, and nope, she just likes it that much. We can't get the next bite to her fast enough! She also clamps down on the rubber-tipped spoon with her teeth and doesn't let go. We have to wrestle it out of her mouth each time. Note to self: buy different baby spoons. She also tries to intercept the spoon before it makes it into her mouth, not because she wants the spoon itself, but because she wants to grab the food off of it. Well, anyway, tonight we decided for our sanity to try the high chair again. At first she didn't like it, especially since we were clumsily trying to figure out the safety buckles, but once that was sorted out, she ended up doing fine. But she sure made quite a mess. We decided not to put the tray table on, since we've noticed she doesn't like things that make her feel confined.
Earlier in the day, just to get out of the house, we decided to give the car seat another try and go out for a short ride. She was too stressed out to sit in it on the ride from the airport, so John had to hold her in the backseat. Good thing we weren't pulled over. But this time, she allowed us to put her in the car seat. She cried for a minute while we were getting her buckled in, but then was fine once we started driving. She actually fell asleep right away. We took a short ride to the grocery store and she sat in one of the grocery carts. She didn't look too comfortable, though, since she's too small for it, and eventually John needed to hold her. But that was a good first try.
Funny story, the foster family said lots of people always thought she looked like a boy, and so they used to put bows in her hair, and still people thought she was a boy. At the grocery store today, a man came up to us and was talking to her and thought she was cute, but carefully asked, "So, uh, I see how you have her dressed, so I assume she's a girl?". I guess we need to get some hairbows, too.
Then we ended up at Babies 'R Us to pick up a few things. Same story. First sat in the baby seat hooked to the shopping carts for several minutes and then had to be carried. We're going to do short little trips every day to get her used to being in the carseat so we can start taking her places. One of these days, we're going to try the baby carrier again, hopefully with more success this time.
We decided to buy a walker yesterday. They don't seem to sell really good ones here, so this is just a basic one. I wish we would have bought one in Korea, since they are used very regularly there and have some really cute ones. This will give her a sense of mobility and will give us some relief when we are in the kitchen and need to be doing something, like preparing meals or doing laundry, she can follow us around and play a little with her toys. She sat in it a few times and it seemed to keep her entertained.
The other thing we've been slowly introducing to her is the pack 'n play. She's never been in one before, and since we know she hates to be confined and hates to be away from us, we've waited until she crawled over to it and saw some toys in there. She went in willingly a few times and sat for a while playing with her toys and being silly. As soon as she wants out, we take her out before she has a meltdown or something, since we want her to think of it as a fun place, not a place to be confined. Eventually, it'll be so nice to be able to put here there when we need a minute to do other things like prepare meals, put away groceries, take a shower, etc.
Nighttime sleeping is getting better. We've been putting her in her crib asleep after her nighttime ritual of a bath in her ducky tub, lullaby cd, a book and a bottle. But after a couple of hours, she cries because her diaper is wet. I usually find her lying on her stomach crying with her butt up in the air, which usually means she has a wet diaper. It's the easiest diaper change ever, since she's so sleepy, she doesn't put up a fight and just drifts off in the middle of it. Normally, she's so wiggly, she never lays still during diaper changes. Once she's asleep, I put her back down in her crib and she's good for another few hours. At some point in the night, she usually wakes up again and wants to be rocked and gets a bottle, which gets her back to sleep for the rest of the night.
Overall, I'd say we're making progress every day. We're figuring out how how to meet her needs, and she's letting us.
