Cuddly Baby

After our big adventure (or misadventure), I put Kien down for a nap. He slept for 4 hours!!! He had missed a nap on both Tuesday and Wednesday. And this morning, he only napped on my lap in the doctor's office. This has been a big week for a little boy!!!

When he woke up, I carried him into the living room and sat on the couch, and he snuggled up to me and even put his head down on my shoulder!!! Kien knows how to cuddle -- and he actually loves it!!!!!!! Wow!!!! When I hold him, he often clings onto my shirt. But not in a scared way. He just loves to be held close. :) He is doing REALLY well!!!

So he ended up falling asleep on me for half an hour. Soooo sweet!!!! :)

Eventually, I needed to change my position and lie down. He woke up, but he just lay there with me for another half hour!!!!!! In my book, this is unheard of!!!! Kevin NEVER would have done this!!! Kevin now does love to cuddle, but he's still too squirmy to do it for this long. ;) ha. But when he was a baby, he had no interest in cuddling - which made it difficult to do bonding activities. Obviously, Kevin is beyond bonded at this point! ;) And he does love to cuddle -- a little!! ;) But he is our squirmy guy!! I can't believe how easy this is with Kien thus far!!!! Praise God!!!! And when I feed him a bottle, he stares straight into my eyes for the longest time!!! (You can just get lost in those big brown eyes!) I'm actually the one who wants to look away first!!! That is just incredible as well. Making eye contact is huge in terms of developing attachment. I used to fight with Kevin (I would develop little tricks to get him to look at me) to look at me while bottle feeding or while singing to him at night. So this is all just amazing to me!!!! (Of course, I don't say any of this to compare my children directly! They had different experiences before coming to us, and unfortunately we had a harder time doing bonding activities with Kevin.... well, I'm assuming it was tougher than this will continue to be with Kien, because he's already doing soooo well with bonding activities!!!)

This is how Kien looks when he wants me to pick him up. :) He seems to be doing awesome in this respect too!! It's quite amazing. He is fine with Steve or my mom holding him, but he wants to be with me. So he's bonding mostly with me -- yet he's not overly panicky when someone else holds him. This is pretty amazing! He will often come to me though, when he can. He is content to sit and play on the floor. But then he'll eventually come crawling over to me and pull himself up by holding onto my clothes. :) One time, he was on the floor with my mom, and suddenly he wanted me. So it actually inspired him to take the most steps we had yet to see!!! He probably walked about 6 feet to flop over onto me!!!!! :) :) He is soooo sweet!!!!

Praise God for these amazing blessings!! I had been very nervous about bonding now that the wait had become so much longer. Yes, Kevin was even older when he came home and I know that bonding can be successful even with a much older child. But I was still worried as things took longer and longer... and I'm thrilled that it's already going so well!!!! :)

Oh -- and Kevin is doing great at understanding that I need to care for Kien!! He hasn't shown a bit of jealousy!!!! :)