More Isaiah (and a little bit of Jonah!)

As planned, we got Isaiah together with his big brother last week and it was... disappointing.  They honestly didn't acknowledge each other at all.  They didn't even seem to notice each other, let alone interact in any way.  And it made me really sad.  I also learned that Jonah's foster mom was asking for him to be moved, so he's now a couple hours away from us and in his third home, the poor guy.  I found it all very defeating-- I felt like if his mom could quit, then maybe I was an idiot for continuing on.  (Can someone be a sympathy quitter?  Like, if you and I are running buddies and you want to walk for a bit, I will stop jogging the SECOND you slow down.  No question.  Probably not my most impressive trait...)

It was super hard to even get them in the same frame.  Props to Jonah's mom for managing to get his hair out of his face!!!

They definitely LOOK like brothers!

Anyway, I haven't quit.  Yet.  Although part of me finds it that much harder because in the back of my mind, I know it's an option.  You just don't have that choice with your biological kids!  But yes, we still have Isaiah.  We're still struggling with ups and downs and trying to figure out how to get him to sleep better.  When his pediatrician gave us the go ahead to try melatonin at night and he promptly slept 11 hours straight, we thought we'd cracked it, but the next night he was up from midnight to 4:45 and we despaired.  Just a little bit.

Fighting me over nap time.  (YES, I'm wearing a muumuu.  So sue me.)

Literally five minutes later.  This kid needs so much more sleep than what he's getting!

In our training, they warned us that foster kids love to try and hoard food.  Because they've often had spells with no food in the house, anything they can find, they'll try and hide it under their beds or in weird places for later.  Isaiah isn't really old enough to do that, but I think his version of this is to grab whatever food he can find and eat it immediately.  Or if he's in his high chair and I'm actively giving him food, he'll throw it all on the floor for later.  It's not that weird for a 2-year-old, but that doesn't mean it isn't really frustrating.  For now, all we can do is try to be better about keeping food out of his reach, but it's a tough habit to form now!  And clean up all the mess...

This is what happened when we left a box of Cheerios within his reach.  And he'd just eaten!!!

Who sleeps like that???  How exhausted do you have to be to finally fall asleep like this?

A rare picture where you can see his face and he's awake!  I'm really hoping we can get permission from his father to cut his hair so he can actually SEE.

The kids have continued to be WONDERFUL with Isaiah.  Their love for him is the one of the best parts of this whole adventure.

I love that protective arm around him

Another best part is watching him just casually playing with toys like a normal 2-year-old.  He didn't do that the first couple days and it's just so healthy and great!

This is still really hard.  But we're not giving up yet!