9 months old today

Still too busy to post anything, but just wanted to mark Leah's 9 month birthday before the day is over. She has done 3 more steps on 2-3 different occasions the past few days, so we think she'll definitely start walking this month.

Home invasion

I haven't had much time to post the past few days. There's a little creature here who has invaded our home and has been holding me hostage. She doesn't let me leave her sight, will only sleep if I'm in the room with her, and poops five minutes after I've changed her diaper. I'd better get back before she knows I'm missing....

The Jin-Ri diet

What a week! I think I've probably aged 10 years over the last 4 days. I'm spent. Even Leah is starting to look pooped out. I feel like I've been through Jin-Ri boot camp the last few days. This was my first week taking care of Leah by myself, which has been extra challenging since she is still very insecure and clingy right now, for obvious reasons. John's business trip ended up keeping him out of town for three days instead of two. The tough part was that Leah would not let me out of her sight for a single second, and sometimes I couldn't even turn my back on her, let alone walk to another room. I barely managed to sneak away for a second to use the restroom every so often, and when she would catch me, she would scream her head off. After carrying her around constantly, barely having any time to eat, getting almost no sleep, and chasing after her all day non-stop, I've managed to lose about 5 lbs already and build some pretty strong biceps, which is not a bad side-effect of all this work. I'd say this one of the best exercise and diet programs I've been on.

The good thing is that Leah and I have had lots of time to bond, and she is actually starting to prefer me over John, which is a huge accomplishment, and a big relief for John. She didn't fret over his absence or try to search for him the way she has before, but was very happy to see him again when he came back Thursday night.

Let the record show that yesterday around 1:20 in the afternoon, Leah took 3 stable steps by herself! She walked from the ottoman to the couch. John saw it, and I was in the kitchen so I missed it. We're waiting for a repeat performance and have our video camera at the ready. She hardly ever sits down, cruises along the furniture and practices walking all day long. She really has an urge to walk, so we think it will happen very soon. Having short little legs and a low center of gravity obviously helps!

I'll add pictures later...

Life with one arm

Yesterday was John's first day back to work since taking paternity leave. Over the weekend, we started trying to get Leah accustomed to not having her daddy around as often during the day since he really needed to get some work done, and me accustomed to taking care of her by myself. She's a handful for 2 people to take care of, so the last couple of days have been pretty tiring for me. She is such a busy, active baby who needs constant supervision, first because she is a hazard to herself, but also because she suffers from pretty intense separation anxiety, so it's almost impossible to do anything else besides sit with her or hold her. She wouldn't even let me go to the bathroom all day yesterday, and believe me, I tried. Luckily John came home around 3:00 to work from home, just in time since she was having a major crying episode because she was not able to find him anywhere.

Since she is being very clingy and wants to be held all the time, I did manage to strap her into the baby carrier without any drama, which is a major accomplishment after our failed first attempt in Korea. I made it fun for her by dancing around in the mirror and making faces and playing peekaboo. She ended up doing great and I was able to make a few phone calls and get organized while she took a 1.5 hour nap on my back. I put her in it again today and she slept again. This might be my new way to get her to take a mid-morning nap when the bottle doesn't work.

I also got her to sit in her highchair with the tray table on. I put a whole bunch of stuff on it to keep her busy, like tupperware, wooden spoons, a book, blocks, which she proceeded to stick in her mouth, bang together, and then let drop to the floor over and over again. She was having fun, and I am glad she isn't afraid of being restained in the highchair anymore. We did the same again today, and I was also able to feed her with the tray table on, which is a first.

Today and tomorrow, I'm completely on my own for the first time, since John is out of town. It actually went really well today and there haven't been any major meltdowns except for trying to get her to go to sleep tonight, which is always really hard. She fights sleep with all her might. You can see her dozing off, and then she starts kicking her legs and waking herself up and crying. She didn't even search for John or have a problem with his absence today, which is normally a big source of grief for her. Things are getting better and better every day.

New Formula

Yesterday we used up the last of the Korean formula Leah was eating. So we had to switch over to new formula this morning, cold turkey. We ended up getting Nestle Good Start formula. We weren't able to bring enough of the Korean formula back with us to make it worthwhile mixing old with new, and we wanted to keep her formula the same for as long as possible during her initial transition. I was pleasantly surprised and very relieved that she didn't seem to notice the difference and drank it up easily and has had no apparent digestion problems so far. After using the Korean formula for a week, I can say that I liked the silky texture of the powder much better than this new coarse stuff, plus the can design with the straight edge inside for leveling each scoop, and the scooper itself was much easier to use.

This is a picture of the type of Korean formula (on the right) and supplemental grain drink she was taking. In the middle is a really cool container for pre-measuring formula that the foster mom and sister helped us pick out when we were shopping. I'm not sure if they sell these here, but they are probably pretty common in Korea and very handy to have. You just fill them up every morning and fill bottles with pre-measured water, and you can take them with you or just use them at home to make a bottle really quickly.

Leah just loves this grain drink (on the left). It has a much thicker consistency than regular formula, and since it usually coincides with naptime, it seems to put her right to sleep after drinking it. I'm going to be sad when it's all gone since it's the only way we can get Leah to take a nap.

A few steps forward, a few steps back

We surprised Leah Jin-Ri this morning with her new jumper toy. She didn't quite know what to make of it at first, but then once we played her favorite Korean children's CD she was dancing and jumping around. She figured out that when she jumps, it makes sounds and lights up, and we taught her how to spin the seat around to look at all the different toys around the circle.



She also received a cool new Leapfrog counting musical toy from Grandma & Grandpa this morning, and she really liked it. She really loves music and responds immediately to it by dancing and swaying. We get such a kick out of it.



But Leah was a bit out of sorts today after our first social worker visit. This was the first stranger we've had in the house so far, and it made her quite nervous. Our social worker was great and knew not to focus on her too much, get right in her face, or try to hold her, and we all just went about our business for the 1-hour visit. When we sat down in the family room, Leah sat on John's lap and was very shy and wouldn't smile. We could tell she knew we were talking about her. She sat in John's lap and put her head down on him for comfort and fell asleep right away. It was probably a stress reaction, since it's very abnormal for her to just fall asleep like that without a lot of effort on our part. After a while, she woke up and started coming to life and smiling a little, but she wasn't being herself at all.

After that was over, we played and had fun as usual all day. Here are some more pictures of her playing in the mirror. You should see all the slobber on the mirror at the end of the day!




But later, when we took her out for her daily excursion, she had a major crying fit in the store and in the car on the way home.



This evening, it was difficult to get her to sleep. It's only been a week and she's obviously still grieving her losses and feeling overwhelmed by all the changes in the last week. It'll just take time, understanding and patience.

First week home

Playing peek-a-boo with herself in the mirror


We can't believe that a week ago, we brought Leah Jin-Ri home. She's been adjusting so well and attaching and bonding with both of us. She's so snuggly and loves to fall asleep in our arms at naptime and at bedtime. Since I'm still feeling sleep deprived, I don't mind sharing naptime, but eventually I'll need to use her naptime as a time to get other things done. It's not always easy getting her to her crib at night or during naptime since she wakes up and cries, but we're working on that. She smiles and giggles in her sleep, which is the big bonus of holding her. She's such a playful and fun-loving little girl. We couldn't have wished for more.



We took Leah out for another short car trip again, to get her used to the car seat and being in new environments. This time, I don't think she even protested at all when we buckled her in. She usually falls asleep pretty quickly in the car, so I think it'll soon be easy to take her places. We ended up at Target because we needed a few things, and it was fun to see her look around and take it all in. We showed her the big red Elmo doll that talks and dances when you push a button on his foot. She watched him with great interest and thought he was pretty funny.







We also decided to test drive a Jumperoo to see her reaction. She was fascinated by all the toys on it, and jumped a little bit, but the one in the store didn't have working batteries so she couldn't get the full experience.



But at least we got our answer about whether it's worth opening up the jumper we already bought her. We've been hesitating about opening it since she's getting so close to walking and the weight limit is only 25 lbs. But we figure, even if she doesn't get much use out of it, it'll still be a another nice containment/entertainment device for when we need to walk out of the room for a minute. We put it together tonight, and John even had to run out to the store to get batteries at midnight. We can't wait to show it to her tomorrow morning. Every morning, we play a CD with Korean children's songs, and she sits on the playmat with her toys and sways and dances to the music through the whole CD. I think tomorrow, she'll be jumping to the music.

Tomorrow is our first post-placement visit with our social worker. Since we live in Ohio, we'll have 6 monthly face-to-face visits over the next 6 months before we're cleared to finalize the adoption. Holt only requires 3 visits, but Ohio is one of the strictest states in terms of adoption laws. Lucky us.

Mirror games

Since she had so much fun playing in the mirror at the hotel in Korea, I got the idea to bring down a large floor mirror from upstairs and set it up in the family room. It was a huge hit. She had so much fun playing in the mirror all day, kissing her reflection, playing peekaboo, and getting drool and hand prints all over it. She loves it whenever we carry her around the house and bring her in front of a mirror with us holding her.

Lots of firsts

It looks like a bomb went off in our house. Everywhere you look, there's baby stuff on every surface. Also, we used to hang out in front of the TV a lot, but nowadays, I haven't even watched any TV except for the news and kids shows. Talk about a major life change!

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.

The long journey home

It's been 3 days since we arrived home and we can't believe how well Jin-Ri has adjusted so far. She's been quite a handful, but such a joy to have in our lives. She's having so much fun exploring and touching everything in the house. Since she's so mobile, but wobbly, and likes to stand up and pull herself up on everything, we can't let her out of our sight for a single second. It's quite exhausting keeping up with her!

We put her to bed tonight at 8 pm after a bath, bottle and a book...and so far, so good. We're still getting the hang of things, and definitely needing to tag-team since she requires constant supervision and lots of night-time parenting as well. So far, we've barely unpacked our suitcases, we've been so busy with her.

So, a brief flashback to the day of the handover. It was Thursday morning, the 19th of March. We ordered a beautiful bouquet of flowers from the hotel florist to bring to the foster mom, and took a taxi to the Holt office for our 10:00 am appointment.



The appointment was originally scheduled for 3:00 pm, but the foster mom had a scheduling conflict, so we had to do it in the morning instead. I felt very sad that the foster mom was going to miss out on 5 precious final hours with Jin-Ri.

When we arrived at Holt, we went upstairs and pretty much saw Jin-Ri and her foster mom right away. We were all led downstairs to the medical office and met with the social worker and the nurse and doctor, who did one final, quick medical update of Jin-Ri.



Then we all moved to another room where the foster mom changed Jin-Ri into a brand new outfit, provided by Holt. We gave her the flowers and received some clothes and things from her. Then the social worker gave us the Holt baby bag with the immigration paperwork and her medical file and extra formula, bottles, diapers, wipes, medicine, clothes, a baby carrier, etc., and a small gift from Holt, traditional Korean rubber baby shoes. I received these same shoes when I arrived from Korea so many years ago, so it was neat to see the same ones again.









Then it was time. The foster father, son, and daughter weren't able to come, so it was just the foster mom, the social worker and us. Since we had spent so much time together all week getting to know each other and the needs of Jin-Ri, there wasn't that much left to say except for goodbye and thank you. We were escorted out to a taxi, and the foster mom was crying as she said goodbye to Jin-Ri. It was very difficult for her, and we can't imagine how much pain she must have been in, and is probably still in. It must be the most difficult job taking care of a baby, loving her as your own, and letting her go into an unknown future. Jin-Ri was their 7th foster baby. But we do plan to stay in touch with them and bring Jin-Ri back to visit them, so we hope that provides them some comfort. We don't consider this a final goodbye.

In the taxi back to the hotel, Jin-Ri was ok at first because she didn't know what was happening, but soon started wailing and sobbing really hard for her foster mom. She was inconsolable, and we could only do our best to comfort her. Since the taxi ride was about 35-40 minutes (that poor taxi driver!), her angry cries eventually softened to quiet sobs and she finally fell asleep in the taxi. We were very relieved she was quiet when we walked through the hotel lobby and went back upstairs to our room.

The rest of the morning and early afternoon were very difficult. Jin-Ri cycled through her grief and we took turns holding her and trying to comfort her while she sobbed. Since we were in a traditional style room, it was pretty uncomfortable not to have any chairs or beds to sit on. We made a makeshift chair by sitting against the mirror with cushions, but it was still back-breaking by the end of it.





By the early afternoon, Jin-Ri was lightening up and started smiling and being playful and cheerful. This lasted a couple of hours, and we were so relieved she was starting to recover a little. But when it got dark out, she was having a difficult time again. She was anxiously watching the door to the room, and every time either of us turned our backs or had to leave the main room to go to the closet area or bathroom as we were packing, she would cry and crawl to the door. It took us till about 3am to get her to sleep, and we had to wake up at 4am to get ready to leave. So needless, to say, we were pretty exhausted. She slept restlessly on the floor mats between us, and kept tossing and turning and flailing about in her sleep. I think she finally got into a deep sleep for only the period from about 4:00 am to 5:30 am, while we were getting ourselves ready to leave.



But we were so impressed with her on the trip home. From the taxi ride to the Incheon airport, all the way back home to Cleveland, she was so easy-going. She was relaxed, smiley, and laid-back. We couldn't believe it. She even provided in-flight entertainment for the passengers and flight attendants on our trip from Seoul to Tokyo. She was being her silly, charming self, jumping in John's lap for the people behind us, giggling, smiling and bowing for everyone in our section. The flight attendants remarked what a happy baby she was.







By the time we got home, we had been travelling for about 27 hours, after layovers in Tokyo and Detroit. It was a long, long trip, and quite a new challenge learning how to take care of an infant in airplanes and airports, but we managed it quite well. Luckily, we had a chance to practice diaper changes and bottle feedings in the hotel.

Jin-Ri zonked out in the car ride home from the Cleveland airport, but when we got home, we purposely made sure to wake her up so she was conscious when we brought her into the house. We showed her all around the family room, kitchen and her room. She was really lively and curious, and enjoyed jumping and playing in her new crib. She was amazed by the high ceilings and the moving ceiling fans and couldn't stop looking up. She also had never seen carpeting before so it was interesting to see her stop and check that out, too.

Our first couple of nights and days home, we've had to hold her as she cries herself to sleep. We've been taking turns holding her, since it can get pretty tiring. I didn't get a wink of sleep the first night home since I had to rock her in the glider chair all night. She likes to take long daytime naps on John, which has left him incapacitated for many hours every day. At night, when I try to move her to her crib or even shift positions in the glider chair, she cries again, so I end up having to carefully hold and comfort her all night. But each day and night is getting better and better.

During the day, she's a real joy. She's so playful and funny. She's doing all the things we saw her doing in Korea; bowing at us, dancing to music, jumping, playing with all her toys, cruising around furniture, babbling, shrieking, screeching, etc. So we are very optimistic that over time, she will come through this transition just fine. She's making great progress every day.

Check the link to the right for Jin-Ri pics of her first days home. We have about 90 pictures on there so far.