On the Edge of a Cliff and Ready to Fly

Josh has been asserting independence lately and showing strong dislike when you don’t give him what he wants in a quick fashion. (I am trying to frame this as positively as possible)

Josh has been throwing full out, screaming, throwing himself on the floor tantrums.

Just today, while at Uncle Drew’s house, Josh was hungry. I gave him a mum-mum. When the mum-mum was half done, he spotted a cup of carrots in his diaper bag. He grabbed the carrots and handed them to me. I told him to finish his mum-mum first.

He threw the mum-mum on the floor, pointed vigorously at the cup of carrots, and thew himself down on the floor, hitting is head in the process, while I was trying to open the container and take it to the sink to drain!!

Tonight, he was crying and his face was beet red. I had given him tylenol earlier, and was working on giving him some orajel. He was laying on our bed and wailing just as loud as he could. I picked him up, carried him into the kitchen, and started to warm up a sippy of milk. When Joshua saw the sippy of milk, he started reaching for it and crying. I had to set him down so I could get the lid on the cup.

He folded himself over on the floor, placed his forehead down and started wailing loudly. I decided to take the sippy cup and walk away from him because he was so upset, telling him, “if you want your milk, you need to calm down and follow me.” When he saw me walking away with the sippy cup, he followed me into our bedroom, then threw himself on the floor again. I waited a bit till he calmed down some, then got him into our bed, and Donald fed him the milk.

I am not sure what is going on – I guess it’s normal (I should get out my parenting book and see.) I think his cousin Jaxon has had some terrible two type fits as well…. need to start reading all the parenting magazines and books that have been recommended to me over the years for ideas!!

Joshua’s first birthday party was a blast! It was fun to pack the house full of family and friends. Josh wasn’t really into opening presents, but he kept clapping and wandering around the living room. He knew it was his special day. One of his favorite gifts is a plastic, rubber ball that he loves to kick and bounce on (I didn’t even realize he knew how to kick a ball!) He got some cute clothes and lots of toys.

It’s been so slow, yet so fast, how this year has gone by. Sometimes, when I was up at 2, 4, and 6 in the morning and had to go to work the next day, it felt very long and slow. I have felt strangely about this – I am happy that Josh is growing up: eating more and more on his own, talking, responding to us, giving hugs to us and his cousin, smiling and jumping up and down when daddy comes home, smiling and trying to climb into the computer when we skype with Grandma and Grandpa. He knows people, and I just love that he knows that Donald and I are mom and dad, and how much he responds whenever kids come onto the scene.

I loved him as a little bundle of baby – but I am loving getting to know him more and more. He’s a sweet child and loves to meet new people. When we went on a walk tonight (Josh was in his stroller) he was pointing to things and talking. He noticed a group of kids playing with a ball and was saying “UP” (unsure why.) I took him to a small park by our house and held him while he went down the slide. He was grinning so big and laughing when he slid down it, and he jumped up and down to get me to pick him up and slide down again. He saw some dogs barking in back yards as we walked around the neighborhood “Dog.” When I called Donald to let him know we were on the way home, I told Joshua “that was daddy on the phone.” He replied “daddy.”

On the stroller there is a little “window” That you can see through the cover of the stroller to the baby inside. Joshua kept turning around, grinning, and waving at me as I was walking him along. He would tap the tray in front of him and continue to bounce up and down, turn around, smile at me, and continue.

I know he’s going to keep getting bigger and older every day, and I do miss him being a baby sometimes. Most times, I am so happy that he knows who I am and he talks (small words) to us. I love him so very much I can’t believe it. So many times Donald and I will just, even still, start to cry thinking about how much we love him.

We had talked about starting the adoption process for our second one when Josh turned a year, but I think we’re going to wait a little bit. I am starting training for a new job (I will still be a supervisor) but in a different department. I am hopeful that I’ll be able to move up a little quicker since I have some more expertise in that new department. My goal is to move up and make enough someday so Donald can stay home with the kids and work on websites from home.

1 year ago today Donald told me we were chosen to adopt a baby boy!

Our social worker, Susan, had called and emailed us about 4:30pm on year ago today, advising we were going to adopt a boy set to be induced on April 16th. This sent us into crazy 12 days of waiting, registering, calling our social worker and attorney almost daily, moving items out of our spare bedroom and turning it into a nursery.

I can’t believe it’s been a year!

On another note: Octomom. Everyone at work talks about her and her kids. Well, I think it’s interesting, because if she applied to adopt, I don’t think a social worker would have approved her. No job, living at home with her parents, I can’t see how she would have been approved to adopt 8 children when she already had 7 children already at home. Now, I’m not saying what she did was wrong, but I just want to draw attention to the difference between trying to adopt and having infertility/fertility treatment. For her to have 8 babies naturally, a social worker did not have to be involved, she did not have to disclose how much money she made (other than paying for the treatment), and she did not have to have friends and family write recommendation letters advising that she was a good mother.

Again, I am not saying getting infertility treatments over adoption is wrong. I just am drawing attention to the fact that adoptive parents have to go through a lot more “certification” than parents who chose infertility treatments. I feel badly for the kids, because they don’t care about my opinions or what anyone else thinks; they just want to be fed, and loved, and cared for. I just hope that she is up to the task and there are others in her life that can help support these children.

I also am finding it strange about Madonna trying to adopt a second child from (I cannot remember which African country). Why did they let her adopt her first child from there without staying in the country the mandatory 9-18 months but now they won’t let her adopt a 2nd child? Is it because she is now a single parent?