Lucas and his family

Luke is napping--IMO, if you are ready for a nap at 8AM, you probably need to sleep a little later in the morning!! That at least gives me time for clean-up, a load of laundry, and some computer time.

As expected for a 13 month old new arrival to the household (and country!), we are having lots of holding and hugging time. Luke can entertain himself for a few minutes a couple times a day, but usually one or both of us are right there with him. It is an important way for him to attach to his new parents, and for us to get to know him and his personality better.

From reading and talking with other adoptive parents, it seems like as a group they (we) are extra-paranoid about 'doing the right thing.' First, we HAD to do the right thing, to the letter, to even have the chance to adopt--piles of paperwork, triple certifications, 'can you fax this today?' requests, FBI checks, home study, etc. We have been ingrained to follow the rules closely. On top of that, we then accept responsibility to raise a child that someone else gave birth to. The bio. mom felt she was not able to provide for him, so we inherently feel like we darn well better! And then we have a dear little toddler who has already formed loving attachments to his foster family, and we pluck him out of the only home he has known. No wonder we are paranoid:) Is the crying typical one-year old fussing, grieving for foster family, confusion, anger, normal requests for food, diaper change, drink, play, sleep, etc? Many of the attachment problems in adopted children are seen in kids who did not develop strong relationships during infancy and early childhood, like children in abusive homes or understaffed orphanages. However, it's still hard not to worry that we might harm him by doing or not doing any number of things--we don't want to scar the boy!

So, we are trying to be mindful of his unique position, while not going overboard into OCD.


On a side note, does anyone know how to change the picture size? I saved most of our recent pics to snapfish, and then from there into 'my pictures' in Windows Vista. Josh pointed out that some just show up as thumbnail size, and I don't know how to change that. Thanks!!