.... coming soon! I know... booh!
My laptop has a virus, that hopefully will go away tomorrow. A friend of mine is going to take a look and I am confident he will be able to get her back to health!
So be on the lookout for pictures. Once he got the hang of it, we couldn't get him to stop ripping paper. It was indeed a very Merry Christmas for our sweet Nicholas
Update!
Noticed the Spiderman attire? Someone has become a little obsessed with "Spidey" since his feet got big enough for the slippers that his godparents got for him.
Yes, he now poses for me and is starting to like the camera, and I like this crazy hair of his. A little on the long side (no, I am not letting it grow on purpose, just busy and he is getting it cut on Saturday), and not combed.
Nick may not know Santa from a pork chop, but Target's toy catalog keeps him entertained!
Yes, sooner or later I will get over the "my kid looks so cute on a hat" obsession. In the meantime, here's another one I snapped yesterday as Nick and daddy made a mad dash to get sour cream. You know, 'cause I had been to the store twice already and both times forgot the sour cream.
I am officially in the minority, Nick does not like tapioca pudding, neither does Bill. But I hate to waste food, so intead of throwing it out, I just ate it, as I was finishing up my glass of cab from dinner. Yep, I am the mom of a 2 year old!
On a different subject, the crib tent did not work. We don't have the right crib for it. So we have removed the rail and our boy is now sleeping in a daybed. It's gonna be a long night, good thing there's still a half bottle of that cabernet downstairs.
Tomorrow we will drive our sleepy selves to Babies R Us and get this. For now, we have the floor next to the bed lined with pillows.
Monday update - he didn't like the idea of sleeping on a daybed, so the rails are back up, and the floor lined with pillows, should he choose to attempt another escape.
.... rumble... rumble.... ***THUD*** and he was out of the crib, twice, today. For now, we have turned the crib around so that the lower side is against the wall. Just for now, till our UPS man delivers this:
http://www.onestepahead.com/catalog/product.jsp?productId=309775&cmSource=Search#tabs
We met our sweet boy exactly one year ago. Where did the time go? I remember leaving Novokuznetsk, wondering how long it would be before we could get back for court and to bring him home. Those had to be the 4 longest months. The time after that, has simply vanished in front of our eyes and it feels as though Nick has been here since day one.
We hit the Pumpkin Patch this weekend with another Novokuznetsk family that lives very close to us. Nick and his little buddy J had a great time at the patch, which included a petting zoo, hayride, visit to the pumpkin patch and climbing up a haystack about 10 feet high.
Nick continues to surprise us. They had pony rides and considering how much he likes animals we figured he would want to see them. He wanted to get closer, and closer, and closer... and next thing you know he was riding the pony and took to it like he had been doing this for years!
Here are some pics of the weekend. As I spend more time with these guys I get better at getting pics of them together. Can't post proof of that though as I didn't ask J's parents for permission. Enjoy!
This is what happens when your child starts tumbling classes, the mattress suddenly becomes a trampoline and your child a jumping bean. We are **this close** from turning the bed around so that taller rail faces the outside.
On another subject, Nick was just tested by First Steps, Indiana's Early Intervention Program. He didn't qualify. I knew the gross motor, fine motor, social and cognitive skills were on target but wondered about the speech. They told us they had no concerns, especially with him learning two languages. This re-iterated what my speech-pathologist friend in Chicago had already told me.
We also had the opportunity to speak at our agency's (FTIA) informational meeting this past Saturday and share our experience. Lots of families considering adopting from Russia... yaaay!!!
We got "the call". It was approximately 5:15 PM and I was walking out of my downtown office. I remember looking at the caller ID and wondering what FTIA could want. In the time it took me to press the green button on my phone to take the
call, I had run through what the next couple of days looked like, and wondered whether or not I could get one more document ready before we left for Europe two days later -- surely this call was about more paperwork, not a referral, we had submitted our dossier a mere 32 days before!
Yes people, I took Nicholas to the State Fair. I have told several of you over the phone and in person, and I know you are still picking up your jaw from the floor. The things motherhood makes you do ***sigh***. It was a spur of the moment decision, hence the lack of pictures from the fair. Nick had an ENT appt a week ago Friday, and right after that, we trekked down to the Fairgrounds. Nick was in looooove with the goats at the fair. Don't get me wrong, he liked all the animals in the barns, but the goats were his favorite. He even got to pet a baby goat.
In keeping with the farm theme, last Sunday we took Nick to the Traders Point Creamery. This place is a real gem, and just a 10 minute drive to our house. They milk their cows daily at 4:00 PM, so we went to see that, and to enjoy some fresh ice cream. The grounds at The Creamery are absolutely gorgeous. If you have a Whole Foods, you should be able to get their products. Their yogurts, milk (especially the chocolate milk) and cheeses are to die for.
And to round up our farming days, we spent some time picking apples at Stuckey Farms in Sheridan. We have been going to Stuckeys to get our produce for the past three or four years. Now that our time is more limited, we stick to our local Farmers Market. However, we wanted to let Nick roam around the farm and ride the tractor. Needless to say, he had a great time, despite the heat.
We have been kicking back the past couple of weekends, well, kicking back is a relative term. Nick got some more pool time with daddy and continues to do well overall. His six month checkup at Cincinnati Children's Hospital was on the 11th of this month, and we had a great evaluation. He is now on the charts for both weight and height, and right on target developmentally. We are going forward with speech therapy, just to give him some additional help as he learns two languages, so that's our next project. Can't wait to get him talking, considering how much he babbles and jibbers, this should be fun!
Looking forward to cooler temperatures and fall weather, definitely my favorite season! And, the one year mark from meeting our sweet Nicholas.
I am trying a Bubbleshare slide show in lieu of pictures, just too lazy to load them all up. Hope you like it!
BubbleShare: Share photos - Create and Share Crafts
The pictures in this post speak 1000 words! It was 6 months ago on Friday that we became the Brockmann Trio. Today, the child with the empty look, hesitation, and unwilling to trust; who walked out of Baby Home #1 with us, is no longer there. Nick is vibrant, happy, loving, and full of energy. We certainly had our bumps along the road as we molded together, but I must say, it has not been nearly as tough as I thought.
We took these yesterday after dinner. Nick was clearly not interested in going to bed yet. I spotted an empty laundry basket in the laundry room, and the light bulb went off! We used to pull full laundry baskets using a belt back in the day, when we had to haul our laundry to the basement, living at the Purdue dorms.... so I figured this could also work as a "special car" and be fun with a toddler. He enjoyed it and then the next problem was getting him to go to bed. Yep, no good deed goes unpunished.
All along we thought we were making progress with attachment, and we were re-assured last week by our social worker that have indeed come a long way! We had our first post placement visit last weekend. Wasn't it just yesterday that the three of us (J, Bill and I) were sitting down to coffee getting ready to start our home study? Nope, that was March of 2007, but it sure feels like yesterday.
Our social worker assured us that Nick is doing great with attachment and is on par developmentally. She also noticed some personality traits that we had also noticed, and that funny enough, Bill and I also exhibit. He is very determined and independent. He will be the kid who will try to do everything on his own first before he asks for help... we can deal with that! We definitely have fun years ahead of us with 4 Type-A personalities under one roof... I say 4 because even the dog is stubborn... I mean... determined.
(yes I wrote this a while back and I finally getting around to downloading the pics from the camera...)
Oddly enough, Nick does not care for cake of frosting, he just wanted to kiss Elmo!
Enjoying his new sandbox
All equiped to hit the course
We took Nick to our community pool today for the first time. Bill started out with him at the kiddie pool, but Nick had little interest in playing in water that came just to his calf... so off to the big pool they went.
Our Niko is a natural, a few minutes in the water and he was kicking his legs and wanting his dad to put him down on the water and just glide him as he kicked away. I stayed long enough to get som pics. Yes, I am a mom and I get paranoid!
Our first Father's Day celebration was a low key, yet fun one.
Bill's parents were here for the day and we all met up at the Children's Museum. After much enjoyment of the many amenities and play areas the museum offers, we grabbed lunch and headed home for nap time and some down time.
We wrapped up the day with dinner at one of Nick's favorite places, Red Robin Gourmet Burgers. He gets handed a balloon the moment he walks in and the fries are tasty!
The Brockmann men
Like father, like son. We may have another Simpson's fan in the house. ... hmm better call Classic Cakes soon and order it. These people make the best cakes and book weeks ahead. I have ordered cakes from them on several occasions and have made it my mission to order a different flavor each time. Plan is to keep on doing this till Nick has a preference on cake flavors. With my luck it will be chocolate, like his dad, and I will be SOL. Not a chocolate cake fan here, unless it is the Stout Chocolate Cake from the September 2002 issue of Bob Appetit! All that said, a lemon cake with raspberry filling sounds like a good birthday cake for Nick's 2nd birthday next month.
Now that I have written an entire paragraph about cake, let's talk about Nick....
* He is getting acquainted with his other grandfather this week, dad is up here visiting from Puerto Rico and in complete shock about how much energy Nick has. I think he now understands why he gets the standard "busy as always" when he asks how I am doing over the phone. He has also witnessed a temper tantrum or two. Either I skipped the terrible two's stage as a toddler, or he doesn't remember, because he sure looks shocked at his grandson's reaction to not getting his way.
* We will be taking advantage of Celebrating Adoption and have scheduled a professional photo session for Nick on June 14th. I am really excited about this. We will be doing outdoor shots near the White River State Park, downtown Indy.
* And the sole purpose of this post, today, my baby turned 23 months. Saturday marked our fourth Gotcha Day and Friday will mark our fourth month at home.
Here are a couple pictures of the family comedian who likes to empty one of his toy boxes and climb inside them... and the future football player. He even has the look in this picture!
Father Rodas, Bill, Monica, Nick & Grandma Lucy
Monica, Bill, Grandma Lucy & Nick, Godfather Israel, Godmother Maribel
Grandma Ellen, Grandpa Bill, Monica & Nick, BillToday, he went on strike. He insisted on participating in the spreading task, but wanted to be carried instead of pushing or walking along. 
