Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Post Placement Visit #1

Today we had our first post placement visit for Ivan. The Kazakh government requires that we have post placement visits at 6 months post adoption, 1 year, 2 years and 3 years. It is the governments way of making sure that Ivan is in good hands and that all is well. If the social worker were to report that things were not going well, the Kazakh government could not actually do anything, as our adoption was finalized and closed while we were in Kazakhstan. However, if something was amiss the social worker would involve our local DSS.

I love our SW, she is so easy going and showed a true affinity for Ivan. She is that same SW who did our homestudy in August 2004. We developed a great repoar with her back then and it was still there tonight. She asked some questions about Ivan's transition as well as ours. It was all very low key. It was great having such a captive audience for once! Usually, I try not to go on for more than a couple of minutes about Ivan (or anyone, for that matter) because usually people don't want to hear much more than that about anyone or anything!!

Anyway, post placement number 1...in the bag! : )

Sunday, December 11, 2005

Bumps and Bruises

Ivan is 20 months old. He has been walking since the middle of July and usually has great balance. However, when he is tired, he bumps into everything. He is also at that height. You know the one that I am talking about...where their heads are the same height as every table in the world. Within the past two weeks Ivan has reached that height and boy does his face show it! The little man currently has two bruises on his head from running into various tables in the house. He gets going so fast and then before I am able to say or do anything...WHAM into the table he goes.

Friday morning's bruise, however, was all my fault. We were playing in the living room and I scooped him up and kissed him all over. He was laughing and having a grand time. I laid him down on the ottoman and walked towards the kitchen to start breakfast. As I looked back to make sure that he was sliding off of the ottoman safely, I saw him start to roll instead of slide. I had put him on his back and not his stomach as I usually do, so Ivan wanted to flip over so that he could slide off on his belly. He rolled right off of the ottoman and onto one of his toys. He bit the inside of his mouth and blood was gushing out. It all happened so fast, there was no way to stop it. Ivan is fine, but there is a nasty bruise on his chin...I, of course, was a mess for the rest of the day. Ahhh motherhood.