3 Months

It has been three months since Conleigh was released to our custody. How all of our lives have changed in that three months! It never ceases to amaze me how much my kids have had to process in their first months home. It tears me up every time to consider how upside down their lives must have felt that first day, first week, first month. How upside down their lives still may feel from time to time.

Conleigh is a totally different child than Kenson ever was. As in, why does the first child never prepare you for the second? But that's exactly how God created them both. She is so much braver and more confident. I don't mean that she is always confident, because she's not. She definitely still shrinks into herself when overwhelmed. But she has a better handle on who she is and what she wants. She has a lot more spatial awareness and knows how to manipulate her body to get it up onto things. She also came home talking in phrases. Her language seems to almost always be added in phrases, rather than single words.

We are seeing great improvement in her behavior. She does listen to our redirection and has started to stop with just a verbal cue. Not always but much more than when she first came home. She will sit on the stairs for time out with minimal complaining. She no longer cries the entire time she has to sit and doesn't spend her time trying to get up. She is much more compliant in general.

We are still struggling with sleep issues. Our schedule has been a bit inconsistent due to soccer games but the regular season will be finishing up this week so we should be able to get back to normal. With late night soccer games a few times a week, one would expect her to sleep later the next day or take a longer nap or actually sleep through the night. The only one that has happened as been the sleeping through the night. She slept through the night 3 nights in a row this week. But the rest she was up in the middle of the night. The week before that, not even three nights. The lack of sleep really manifests itself in overreactions. She overreacts to just about everything. Kenson brushes up against her? Screaming and loud wailing. The dog gets too close? Screaming and loud wailing.

And the best part? (Truly one of the sweetest joys of adoption.) Watching her real self emerge. Seeing the layers slowly peel back and seeing her real personality come out. She's a tomboyish dare devil who can hang with the toughest of the tough...as long as she's in charge. She is shy and quiet around new people but if they do something she doesn't like, you can be certain she will break her silence to tell them "Don't do that!" A stern look and a finger wag usually accompany those words. She is a domestic diva in the making and loves to diaper her babies, wash the dishes, and make all sorts of pretend food dishes. (Give that a few years; I'm guessing she won't be so inclined as a teenager.) She is stubborn at worst and determined at best. She is curious, always having to be in the middle of whatever is going on. My mother says I'm raising a child who is a lot like myself. (And for some reason, she thinks that is really funny.) Regardless, I'm looking forward to the next 3 months, excited to see what those months hold.