A really good day.

Sometimes my posts are all about the trying times so today I want to post a happy one. Yesterday was a really really fun day with Noah Tamirat. From 1:30am to 7am he slept without waking up. Yes 5 1/2 hours of uninterrupted sleep we have NEVER gotten that before and i'm sure we won't get it again soon but it was awesome. He was very cute and cuddly all morning, the kind of morning that makes daddy hate to leave for work.

We had a delightfully messy breakfast which included his first graham crackers. This was followed up with a bottle and a two hour nap.

We played peek a boo with the blanket He really enjoyed this game. He ate lunch and took an afternoon nap of about an hour and a half.

Mommom had to peek in on her sleeping angel. You can't tell really well in this picture but he was holding the handle of his photo album as he slept. This is the photo album we sent to Ethiopia for him and it was always in his crib. Now it stays in his crib at home.

And this is what I found when I went to get him out of his crib after nap time. He had been sitting looking at his photo album and he got up with a huge smile when he saw me.

I think I need to lower my expectations of Noah Tamirat when things seem to be going badly. I need to remember that although he is 13 months old he has only been with us for 3 months and things are probable going alot better then we think they are. Its always nice when people comment on how well he seems to be adjusting and how happy he looks. I think sometimes we get lost in what we think should be happening and we miss out on how well we are doing as a family.

The Zoo

Ok so after my last post I think I left people thinking we had a terrible day at the zoo which isn't true it wasn't all bad. Noah did sleep thru alot of the zoo, it was hot, flat counters are not changing stations and rude people are no fun but there is some good in all of it. Before Noah fell asleep he got to see a cow, donkeys, goats (starting to feel like Ethiopia?). He also saw llamas, lions, tigers (fell asleep before the bears), elephants, orangutans, prairie dogs and turtles. These pictures are for you grandpa. Noah Tamirat pets his first cow.

See the llama's behind that fence. Noah thought it was cute to spit at them. I had to warn my dear sweet child that mama loves llamas and has never been spit on by one but if they choose to spit back at him I was going to leave him in that llama pen for the rest of the day haha.

Transitions update and so much more.

So many things to write about all in one post. First I will start with an update on my last post. As I said we are going thru alot of transitions for Noah Tamirat. At this point he is completly off formula and drinking milk from the bottle. We went against only doing milk in the sippy cup as the docter suggested because we don't think he's ready to give up the bottle at nap and bed times. He is drinking water mainly from a sippy cup during the day occasionally from the bottle. He also gets water in the bottle in the middle of the night if he wants it. We are doing a pretty equal split right now of baby food and table food. We moved him up to stage three foods to get him used to more textures and he is doing very well. Noah will eat pretty much anything you put in front of him. Even carrots and peas which he hated in the stage 1 baby foods he will now eat in the stage 3 or table food. We seem to have taken a step backwards in the napping and sleeping for some reason so we will work our way back to better nights again at some point.
Here are a couple pictures as promised of Noah at his friend Victoria's first birthday party and a few at the duck pond.

Hating the birthday hat.Stealing the birthday girl's shoe.

Eating the bread that is supposed to be for the ducks. Noah Tamirat loves the slide.

And sometimes enjoys the swings.

And now a Public Service Announcement for the people at the zoo.

1. We are just a family no different from anyone else so feel free to stare at all those animals in cages and ignore us. After all aren't the animals what you paid money to see.

2.For the man in the elephant house who thought it was ok to ask his daughter if she wanted to hold Noah's hand and then proceeded to move closer and rub her arm against his hand. 1) Maybe its not ok with me if your child is touching mine and 2) everytime you do that he's pulling his hand away so clearly he doesnt want to be touched. Now move away and let us get back to enjoying the elephants.

3.To the child who stepped in front of the stroller at the tortoise exhibit I asked you nicely to move so please don't feel it necessary to whine to you parent so that they can shoot me dirty looks. To the adult that stepped in front of the stroller at the same exhibit I hope the tire mark on your ankle reminds you how rude you were I'm sure you could have seen the exhibit without blocking my son's view.

4. To the lady who found it necessary to stare at us while we were enjoying our ice cream and the baby was sleeping. I'm not sure what your issue was maybe you were jealous that you didn't have ice cream, maybe you were lonely,,maybe you thought we had stolen this child (because we would definitly do that and then sit around the zoo eating ice cream waiting to see if we got caught). Whatever your issue I feel sad that your so ignorant that you would sit and stare at a family just trying to enjoy their time togeather.

5. To the family behind us in line at the panda exhibit. First of all its HOT stand back and give others some breathing room. Your stroller up my butt is not going to get you into the panda house any quicker. Secondly it's clear i'm trying to keep my stroller moving so that I can get my child to nap its not ok for you to let your child keep creeping up around me to the point i have to stop moving my stroller so she can gawk at my child. Perhaps I should have went about what I was doing and hit her with the wheels and then you would have stopped worrying so much about who was spilling the popcorn and paid more attention to your child bothering others. She'll never learn about boundries and personal space from you thats clear.

6. To the family who let your child come charging up to the front of our stroller and then just stand there again I should have run over your child. Not because I don't like children but because someone needs to teach them not to be rude and if you don't then I will gladly do so.

So that about sums it up for today. It was hot at the zoo and lots of hills made me tired and perhaps a little grouchy. For just one day I wanted to be a family and not the side show for someone's circus. I'm not a person that likes alot of attention so the staring and comments when we are out in public bother me probable more then they do Sean. So for you other adoptive mom's & dad's with your beautiful Ethiopian children..How do you handle it day after day because I know your going thru this as well. Leave me a comment or email me PLEASE.

Transitions.

So what's new in our world? Well we are going thru some transitions with Noah. We have cut him down from 5-6 bottles of formula a day to 3. Starting today we are working on going from formula to whole milk so we are doing half & half in those 3 bottles until we run out of formula. It was suggested that we start him on the whole milk in the sippy cup but I don't think we are ready to give up the bottle at nap and bedtimes yet. We are doing water in the sippy cup during the day and we will give him water in a bottle at night if he needs something after the formula.
We are also trying to cut out baby foods and go completly to table foods. This is going well considering that up until the time he came home with us ( a little over two months ago ) the only thing he was eating was formula and some rice cereal. The sleep thing at night still isn't consistent but we are getting some good sleep nights mixed in with the not so good so we have definitly seen enough progress to keep us from being in total despair.
Noah is definitly showing signs of being comfortable in his home and testing his limits, we have also seen good signs that he is attached to us which other people have noticed as well.
So thats it for our crazy life right now. Soon I will have pictures of Noah at the first birthday party he has attended. My friends little girl turned 1 on Saturday.

Our holiday weekend.

We stayed home for the 4th of July but we did see fireworks on the 3rd at the baysox game. Here is mommy & Noah riding the carousel at the baysox.

On Sunday Noah got to meet more of his relatives. Aunt Kera, Uncle Ryan and his cousins Christian and Camden came for a visit. Unfortunetly we didn't get any pictures of Aunt Kera and Uncle Ryan with Noah.
One of the many attempts at a photo of the cousins.

Noah Tamirat and Camden Cheesin for the camara.

Camden is a couple months younger then Noah so it will be fun to watch them play togeather as they grow up.

* An update on my last post*. We have had a couple really good sleep night and a couple not so good. For now we are just keeping some advice in mind other advice we have laughed at and we will just do what we feel is best. The couple really good nights have given us hope that we can keep going without trying to cry it out which I know i'm not ready for and I don't think Noah is either.

Busy day ,Horrible night.

Yesterday was a busy day. It was time for Noah Tamirat's 1 year check up at the docter which we knew would include more shots. Before the doctor Sean came home and we went over to his job so all his co-workers could meet Noah. This was a big deal since his co-workers had a shower for us and Noah has been in the company newletter twice already they were all excited to meet him. Of course Noah loved all the attention and even let people hold him for short amounts of time never taking his eyes off mommy or daddy. All to soon it was off to the doctors.

Noah is growing very well and appears to be healthy. All his lab work came back fine and the shots he had in Ethiopia are fine so thats 3 less shots he is going to need here. Yesterday's visit however did include two. He cried thru both which broke my heart and I had to grab a lollypop on the way out ( stressful for momma). Of course his doctor wants us to put him on whole milk as soon as we finish the formula we have and also to start getting him off bottles. We have been trying him out with sippy cups but so far not much progress. Another thing she said is no more formula bottle at night at his age he doesn't need it if he wakes up give him a bottle of water. Ok no problem the bottle might just be for comfort so we can switch to water easy peasy lemon squeezy right?? WRONG. Yes big fat capital letters WRONG.

About quarter to 2 Noah woke up so I went in and handed him the bottle of water, layed him back down and rubbed his tummy for a minute then put the blanket on him and left the room. Before I was even back in bed he was standing in the crib crying. So I went and took him out of the crib and changed his diaper, put him back in layed him down with the bottle of water, rubbed his tummy covered him up and left the room. Lets keep in mind with a bottle of formula this is all I need to do and then he falls back to sleep. I get in bed he's screaming and whailing again. Sean is awake so we said lets see if he'll work it out on his own. We waited, he screamed, we waited , he screamed..momma started crying..it was gettin ugly..I couldn't do it any longer. I got up and took him out onto the couch and layed him in my arms with the bottle. He would just about fall asleep and then wake up crying again. I tried bringing him in bed to see if the comfort of being near us would help..no go still screaming at this point its about 2:30 in the morning and he was very upset(so was momma). I gave up I went and made him a bottle of formula and brought it back to bed with us. Noah drank about 6 oz' and fell back to sleep at which time sean carried him to his crib and layed him down and all was right in his little world. Momma was left feeling horrible. Clearly the kid was hungry and I let him cry and scream because the doctor said he doesn't need a bottle in the middle of the night. How is this good for bonding to not give him what he needs?

So years from now when you see me on Nanny 911 still rocking or holding Noah while he falls asleep and still giving him a bottle in the middle of the night , still not sleeping for more then 3 hours in a row remember this post. I don't think cry it out will ever happen in this house i'm not strong enough and i'll gladly give up sleep for my son to be happy. And now i'm gonna leave you with a picture because pictures make us all feel better.