One month down!

Yesterday, we had our 1-month post-placement visit with Diana, our social worker, and it went great. Leah was a totally different girl this time. If you remember, during our first visit, she had only been home one week and basically went into shut-down mode as soon as we sat down and started talking. But this time she was really active and entertaining, being her normal, funny self. She wanted to get down off our laps and onto the floor, cruised around the ottoman and the couch, showed off her standing and balancing skills, approached Diana with a big smile, bowed to say "an-nyong-ha-se-yo" to get our attention, kept trying to grab the papers and pictures off of Diana's lap, inspected her purse and bags and sandals and toes, and was basically just being silly and smiley the whole time. After Diana left, Leah was fine and didn't seem to have been affected by the visit like last time. In general, yesterday was a really good day. She took 2 nice long naps and was well-rested and happy all day.

A visit to the doctor

Yesterday, we took Leah Jin-Ri downtown to the Cleveland Clinic's main campus for a post-adoption check by an international adoption pediatrician. We wanted to give Leah a few weeks to settle in before putting her through that ordeal, plus we needed to have her added to our medical insurance plan first.





Before we went, I was truly dreading the whole day since the last several times we took her anywhere in the car, she screamed her head off. I was expecting this to be another difficult day for her. Boy, were we surprised! She did great in the car. She didn't even cry when we strapped her into the car seat, and she didn't cry the entire way there. She just sat there contently. We came prepared this time, and we brought several toys just in case, and we played her favorite Korean children's cd and sang along. She eventually fell asleep along the way.

When we got there, she was very drowsy, and I strapped her into my baby carrier and we brought her upstairs to the doctor's office. She did such a great job. She was cheerful and playful. She smiled and cooed at the doctor and didn't put up a fuss at all. She needed to get a couple of immunizations in her thighs, which wasn't fun for her, but luckily, that only took a minute and was over. Here she is waiting for the nurse to come back in and give her her shots.





The hardest part came when we had to take her downstairs to the lab to get her blood drawn. They only allowed one parent to go in with her, so I sent John in since I knew I couldn't bear to watch, plus I didn't think I'd be as good at holding her still. John said it took 3 people to hold her down for about 15 minutes, and they had to try both arms because she was struggling and twisting so much. Poor thing! I winced as I heard her screaming bloody murder from the waiting area. It seemed to go on forever. Several nurses came out front telling me how incredibly strong she is. I was not surprised to hear this since I know she is definitely one strong little girl! Eventually it was over, and they gave her some ice for her arms and said she'd probably end up with bruises. We let her calm down first, and then ended up at the cafe to have some lunch since we were starving by then. I strapped her onto my front and gave her a bottle while we ate lunch, and she fell asleep after gobbling down her bottle. The ride home went really well, too, and she only cried a little bit from all the stress. You could tell she had just been through a lot. But she was amazing and we are so proud of her!

Here she is back home with band-aids on her arms. What a trooper!



By the way, it happened again: We had her dressed in pink girly stuff with these cute panda pants on, and the baby carrier is also very girly, yet we still got 2 comments, "Oh, he's so cute!". Hmmm, I guess we'll just have to wait until her hair grows out for her to look more like a girl.

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.