One Month In

As of today, Huckle has been here for one month.

I can hardly believe it.

We are so lucky to have him here with us. Huck's spirit is amazing. He is resilient, loving, considerate, and smart. The bonding and attachment is coming along so well -- The Hub went to the butcher today, and Huck wondered about him, sang "Daddy's shopping," to the Frere Jacques tune, I went shopping later and when he heard the garage door open, he ran through the house screaming, "Mommy's back, Mommy's back!" My family members are his favorite toys, to be sure, but they can now leave our house without causing a full-blown anxiety attack. Huck's learning that all of us come back.

Have I mentioned what a sneaky little bugger he can be in the mornings? During the week, he'll often wake up when The Hub takes a shower, and I'll notice him crawl into bed next to me. There've been times when I open my eyes and see him sleeping, then there are times I wake and there he is, sitting up in The Hub's side of the bed with a dozen stuffed animals set up all around me. The second I open my eyes, he says, "Mommy, I'm hungry for yogurt now," and pats my hand. See? Stealthy. This morning we woke up to find him sleeping between the two of us, under the covers and everything, with a hand touching each of us. (When we notice him getting into bed, we bring him back to his room, by the way. He does get past us sometimes, but we don't encourage him to sleep in our bed, we're always fully pajama'd, and we try to reinforce that he is safe in his own room.)

Huck hasn't asked about his mother or grandmother. He hasn't asked about any of his other foster parents, not even the ones he was with for a year (I am so grateful to them, by the way). On Thursday we received a package from Huck's mom (via CPS) -- a talking frame with three photographs. Huck recognized the photograph of himself at 15 months, but didn't say anything about his mom's pictures, just seemed to lose interest. It didn't look like the pictues upset him, he didn't get quiet or sad or angry, he just wanted to read a Carl book and snuggle up.

In unrelated goings-on, one of my girlfriends is very upset with me. She and her husband have been trying to have a baby for over 2 years, and around the same time we started fost-adopt training, they began paperchasing to adopt from China. My friend and her husband haven't even been able to get all their paperwork together to send to the CCAA yet, and now we're on track to finalization. I think it is too much for her right now, that she chose the "safe and stable" path (why is the China program touted as that? It changes just as much as any other program) while we were the crazy risk takers, and now here we are with Huckle (the most wonderful child to ever exist, of course), and there she is waiting on a dossier translation. So I guess I'll just wait until after the holidays. Christmas is rough when you're sad.