Gotcha Day ~ 6 months later & first post placement visit

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.