What else? More Mattix stuff!

Mattix is really starting to show affection. It’s unbelievably precious. It’s hard for me to know whether he understands what hugs and kisses are, or whether he just gives them because we do. I read up on it in one of my books and it seems like the consensus is that children definitely begin to show physical affection by the age of one, so all of the hugs and kisses aren’t in my head! It obviously starts as an imitative behavior that is encouraged by parents and therefore continues because of the positive response. However, kids are quick; they learn that affection brings good feelings. So is Mattix doing it because we do and for no other reason, or because we do AND it makes him feel good?!

I have so much trouble with this. Not the affection thing, but looking at Mattix’s behaviors and thinking about what they mean. I don’t obsess over it at all, don’t get me wrong, and I certainly don’t look at everything he does and think all of this stuff.  I admit that I was a bit preoccupied with it in the beginning. When he would do anything new, I would ask my mom or my best friend,  ”Do bio kids do thatat this age?”  Not because I wanted him to do exactly what bio kids do. At all.  As I’ve said a million times, I don’t have particular expectations from Mattix. I just want to understand him from the place he is coming from.

On Friday night, for the FIRST time, not only did Mattix not throw a stuffed animal we gave him on the floor immediately, but he nuzzled it into his chest, then hugged it (his hugs involved pulling us/the dog/whatever else into his forehead and then holding on for a few seconds). It was precious. He didn’t know Ed and I were watching, so it was really interesting to see. He pulled back, looked at the pink pig, smiled, then hugged it again. He did this about three more times. Then he crawled across the floor to Slinky. (Who, by the way, is crapping in my house far less frequently.  I’d say we’re down to once very three days, and considering this dog poops more than Mattix, I feel like that’s not too bad. Plus, because Mattix really seems to like her a lot, I guess she gets to stay. Too bad for my dad.) Anyway, he crawled over to Slinky and they engaged in this strange staring thing. They just sat about four inches apart, face to face, looking at each other. About 20 seconds later, Mattix leaned in and gave her a big, wet, open mouthed kiss on the face. Slinky responded in kind.  Then he grabbed a hold of all of her loose puppy skin and gave her a “hug” (quote because his hugs are a little rough, but they’re clearly hugs and they’re amazing). Of course I couldn’t stay quiet any longer. I used my excited, annoying-parent voice (the one I used to about throw up when I heard other people using) and said, “Soooooooo nice, Mattix. Niiiiicccceeeee gentle. We loooooovvvvveeeee Slinky!” And then, responding to my annoying-parent voice, Mattix bounced up and down and clapped and giggled. (I’m not totally weird; I just want Mattix to receive the positive reinforcement when he is kind to Slinky vs. just the negative when he smacks the hell our of her.) Since then, he has hugged the dogs and the pink pig more times than I can count. He also hugs and kisses Ed and I a lot now.

As it turns out, I love being a parent. You probably wouldn’t have known that about six weeks ago if you were reading my blog, I know, but I truly do. I love interacting with Mattix more than anything, but I also love watching him when he doesn’t know I’m watching. In addition, I love being an adoptive parent. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Sometimes it just confuses me because I have no frame of reference. This is our first go at parenting, and we’re started off with a ten month old we didn’t know. I watch him and wonder whether whatever it is that I’m wondering about would be the same if he’d been with us since birth. When he kissed the dog, was he kissing the dog because he felt affection towards the dog? Or was it because he knows that Ed and I give kisses, so he should, too?  And would I even think about that if he were with us since birth? Would it really matter? And does it really matter now?  

Anyway, too much for my ever-shrinking brain to handle. I do want to let you know that the nights, while by no means ideal, are not the seventh circle of hell adventures they were before. We’re not even close to sleeping through a night, but there’s definitely progress there. On Friday, we were able to transfer him from the car seat, where he’d passed out, to his bed, where he slept until 11:00 (four hours total). He woke up and wanted to be rocked and fed a bottle for an hour and a half, but then he went back to sleep with only two more wake-ups, each lasting about half an hour. His new morning call comes at 5:30 or 6:00 a.m., which does not please this mommy, who is not and has never been a morning person. (If I had it my way, I’d sleep from about midnight to 7:00 a.m.) However, I feel like we’re making a little progress. The past few nights, he has slept from about 8:00 or 8:30 p.m. until somewhere between midnight and 2:00 a.m., woken up for a diaper change and a little bottle in the crib, then slept from that point until 5:30 or 6:00 with only two wake ups during that period, each lasting from 10 to 30 minutes or so. I find it strange that he doesn’t seem to need too much sleep. I don’t necessarily believe that he doesn’t need it, but he sure doesn’t get it. I would expect him to be one cranky little guy just about every day of the week, as he gets an average of eight or eight and a half hours of sleep during a 24 hour period  (if you subtract the time he’s awake during the night), but he’s not cranky. At all. Maybe once or twice a week he’ll bust out cranky, sleepy Mattix (like today), but most days, he’s really in a good mood. Mattix is SO insistent and definitely lets me know when I’ve irritated him, but he’s a very smiley little kid. (On a side note, good mood or not, I don’t feel that eight hours is not enough sleep. Mattix’s specialists and Ed and I believe there is a very concrete reason for his sleeping patterns – or lack thereof – and nighttime issues. We are addressing them, but it’s hard to say how long it will take before his body regulates itself and learns to sleep on its own. I’m well aware that eight hours probably doesn’t cut it for an eleven month old child.)

I know I say it all the time, but he just does the cutest things. He expresses a lot of emotion. In the beginning, once we were home, he mainly expressed frustration and anger. The rest of the time, he was just “himself.” He certainly seemed happy, but even at the time, I wasn’t sure whether it was genuine. He’s a pretty good natured kid, so I don’t necessarily know if he was honestly content.  It’s hard for me to explain and I’m sure other parents who have gone through this could better verbalize it because I’m obviously struggling. Many of the things he does now that he also did six weeks ago are the same, but his emotions that accompany them are so different.

I’ve talked about the clapping a few times and I’m sure you’re sick of hearing about it, but the contrast is so real. He quit for a while, then started again, but now when he claps, he makes his goofy face and lets out the cutest high pitch squeal because he honestly seems excited.

 We received ten sets of photos of Mattix during the nine months between his referral and the day we met him.  Each set contained anywhere from two to nine photos. I want to say that we ended up with somewhere between 45 and 50 pictures. From the first photo, even though he was just a tiny little baby, I thought he was adorable. The older he got, the more beautiful I thought he was. However, I kept waiting and waiting for just ONE picture where he was smiling. Not until September did we get one where he was sort of smiling. My heart melted. It was the cutest little smirk/half-smile I’ve ever seen. And that was it! The second and next time I saw him smile was on December 9th, after we met him. 

 Mattix wasn’t a big “smiler” in the beginning, nor did I anticipate that he would be. He smiled here and there, and if we really acted extra stupid (not much of a stretch for either of us), we might get a good smile, accompanies by a giggle. As Mattix became more comfortable, he would smile a bit with us in our hotel room, but almost never when we were out in public. When we came home, he wasn’t very expressive with smiles, either.  As we’d guessed from his photos, he was a contemplative little guy. It always seemed like he had a lot of thoughts inside, but he just sat there and processed them and never acted in a way to let you know what his thoughts/feelings were – scared, happy, sad, etc. You never really knew.  I used to joke that he was constantly judging me. He would stare at me, cock his head back and forth, squint one eye, and just look for a few minutes. Then he would stop and it would be over.

Now, he smiles, smiles, smiles (don’t worry, he does lots of other things, too, like yell, cry, screech, and grunt). But the smiles are by far the most expressed emotion.  He has his crazy, mouth-wide-open smile when he’s really, super, extra excited. That one is often accompanied by some serious bouncing and squealing. He has his adorable grin – the one where he throws his head back, squints his eyes all tiny, and makes a funny little exhaling noise (I love this one). And he has this great smile when Ed or I walk into the room. His face lights up, he lets out a short little happy noise and flashes a cute, happy baby smile. He gives that one almost exclusively to us when he sees one of us.

So I could go on and on and on, I know. I’m thinking of a million more things to share, but I won’t bore you with my stories of my oh-so-cute kid. I’m just amazed by this process – the one where we all get to know each other. We obviously have such a long ways to go as far as helping foster a secure relationship between Mattix and the two of us. However, I never expected to be at this point right now.

Oh, and I’m still sick, but I think we hit a turning point today. Good news ’cause it’s getting a little old. Plus, my third ass is starting to droop again from the lack of physical activity. Yuck. Probably doesn’t help that I dined at a lovely assortment of Rocky Mountain Chocolate factory treats for dinner, but I excuse that b/c I’m sick and don’t have a good appetite, so something has to sound really good for me to eat it. And nothing else sounded really good. What? What do you want me to say?