![\"\"](\"http:\/\/katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/7\/presents.jpg\" "\\"b-day\\"")
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I\u2019ve been struggling with what to write about our transition with Little K, but I think I\u2019ve identified the problem. See, I tend to write posts from the point of tension, conflict, grief or some new knowledge. It\u2019s that creative writing 101 anthem of where\u2019s the trouble<\/em>. This is the problem. There is no trouble.<\/p>\n Little K is just pretty much perfect. The transition time in Dallas was great. The foster parents (FP) were so loving and caring and they had fallen madly in love with him. After the first day when we met him at the agency, we went to the FP\u2019s house and we all played on the floor while he moved between us. He was so accepting and it was nice to be able to bring him back to his safe place at the end of every day. You could see him relax, exhale, sleep when he got home. It just gave us all a little breather and took the pressure off for a few hours. By the end of the week, he\u2019d cry when we left the FP\u2019s house without him.<\/p>\n The flight home was trying at times but nothing unexpected for a 1 year old. At home Josie was waiting for us outside and beside herself with excitement. She hugged him and kissed him and continued to play with him even after he captured two fistfuls of her hair. She bought him a red fire truck with sirens and lights and showed him how it worked.<\/p>\n Over the next few days, she gradually came to understand that she did not get to feed, change, and diaper the baby by HERSELF. She, of course, could help or, she could change her own baby while I changed K but that was never good enough. So, we\u2019ve been spending some time coming up with a job description for a big sister and we\u2019re open to your suggestions. What are the big sister\u2019s primary duties?<\/p>\n The first week we were home, Josie went to school as usual and Paul and I watched him while he slept. He slept a lot but he also seemed to be adjusting just fine. He was fascinated by the dog and his favorite thing to do was stand on the couch and stare at her in the back yard. He likes to cuddle after his nap and he loves it when I chase him out of the kitchen. He giggles and shrieks and pats his hands on his chest as if to say hey, how do you like me now?<\/em> He\u2019s recently started clapping and he\u2019s so pleased he can make that clicking sound with his tongue.<\/p>\n Things were going so well that first week that we decided to take long-scheduled vacation to the island the following week. The weather was awesome. We walked on the beach, swam in the lake. What more is there to say?<\/p>\n We see occasional glimpses into the difficult transition he must be feeling. Sometimes he has a hard time falling asleep at night or wakes up in the middle of the night, looks around and for his FP\u2019s or previous caretakers. There\u2019s lots of rocking then and if he really can\u2019t settle down, we try the baby carrier (oh, my aching back!) or watch some Baby Einstein (awesome) at 3:00 in the morning.<\/p>\n Now Paul is back at work, Josie is back to school. I\u2019m here folding laundry, weeding the garden, chasing the baby out of the kitchen and watching Baby Einstein and maybe an episode or two of The Office when I can\u2019t fall back to sleep.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019ve been struggling with what to write about our transition with Little K, but I think I\u2019ve identified the problem. See, I tend to write posts from the point of tension, conflict, grief or some new knowledge. It\u2019s that creative writing 101 anthem of where\u2019s the trouble. This is the problem. There is no trouble. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3,24,12,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adoption","category-mom","category-little-k","category-parenting","category-the-island"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1185"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1198,"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1185\/revisions\/1198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}