Progress

I've let Katie do all the blogging here lately.  Here's my 2 cents worth:

How is Zac doing?

I'd say great.  He has been home less than 5 months, and the progress is awesome.  I was pondering some of the everyday moments that we go through and how much they've changed over the last 5 months.

Teeth brushing:  We used to have big explosions from Zac about brushing his teeth.  HE wanted to do it!  But the books told us that we needed to do it for him b/c of attachment.  I used to dread tooth brushing.  Now it's 100% fine.

Getting dressed:  Same thing.  He used to throw the biggest fits about getting himself dressed.  And I will admit that he is very good at it.  When you've got 3 kids, it's kinda nice to have them all dress themselves.  But we took the stance of:  When you can handle us dressing you, THEN we'll let you dress yourself.  In 5 months time, we've successfully flipped it around.  Zac requests, "Help please!" and we have to help him out.  I even find myself saying, "Just do it yourself".   How funny is that?

Time outs:  Don't even get me started here.  They were awful and they were frequent.  Now, they're maybe once or twice a day (at most) and they're much less intense.  Today, Zac was being a little whiny during dinner and I simply said "Go give yourself a timeout and come back when your happy".  And guess what?  He did it.  He got up from the table, was gone for about 1 minute, and returned to the table with a big smile on his face and said, "HAPPY!!!"

Siblings:  This has been VERY fun to watch.  There wasn't much of a sibling interest from Zac at first.  Most of his relationship capability circled around me and mom.  It was as if there was some sort of wall around Hallie and Jake.  But over the past few months, all 3 kids have grown into "Brothers and sister".  Jake and Zac play outside for hours sometimes.  Hallie and Zac will play "mom and baby".  Today, Hallie was carrying Zac all around the house like a baby.  They just starred into each others faces and smiled smiled smiled.  Very cute.

So if anyone if recently home with their newly adopted child.  Be encouraged.  The first few months were a bit of a mess for us, but it turns quickly.