Attachment Plan for Isaiah and Kaleb

Brad has taken the time to right down some of our thoughts about the boys as we are preparing to come home. We have had the boys for 8 weeks now and we have seen great signs of bonding from Isaiah, but not so much from Kaleb. Please support us as we try to foster the bonding with Kaleb. All this being said, we welcome everyone to hug and kiss the boys at the airport. As long as Kaleb is comfortable we don't care who holds him and loves on him on Saturday. But on Sunday we will be putting the following plan into place. Isaiah can't wait to meet everyone and is so looking forward to lots of hugs at the airport.

Kaleb:

We love this boy!!! His laugh will melt your heart and his "Kaleb" language will make you laugh. His eyes will make you want to say yes to everything he wants. Kaleb has made us question our parenting skills multiple times. To say that parenting him has been difficult would be an understatement. We have some very specific requests when you are around Kaleb. We know this is unnatural but please do not pick him up. We will most likely have him in the ergo, however, if we don't please do not pick him up if he comes to you. We are trying to teach him that we are the ones who will meet his needs. Along the same lines, do not feed him anything. He will ask constantly for food. Please refer him to us or let us know if he is wanting to eat or is acting like he is hungry. Not that anyone is standing in line to do this, but.....please do not change his diaper. This action, again is associated with bonding and us meeting his needs. We may have a time of cocooning in order to best meet the needs of all of our children. We are unsure of how this will go and will wait to see how things are going when we get home. We do, however, welcome anyone who is willing to bring us dinner...just kidding...ok no we are not.

We feel like the bonding and attachment process is going slow with Kaleb. We are trying everything we know to speed this process up. The things above are just a few ways that you can respect our process and help us bond with him. We know that this will take time and perseverance and most of all prayer.

Isaiah:

Isaiah is doing incredible! We are so proud of how far he has come. We truly believe that God has protected his heart through all that he has endured! Please feel free to hug him and tell him how happy that you are to finally meet him. Guys, please do not freak out if he grabs your hand and wants to hold it! This is a completely normal and acceptable behavior in his culture. Everywhere you go in Ethiopia, there are adult men holding each others hands. Please keep in mind of how much his mind will be taking in. This will be a whole new place with different scenery, sounds, smells, and people. Although he will be thrilled to be home, he will at the same time be grieving the country that he loves. Isaiah thinks that all Americans (including us) are "rich". Do not let him play with any of your possessions unless you are ok with them being broken. He does not take care of things very well. He thinks that we can just buy a new one (i.e. the mp3 player that he was told to put up when he was not using it...needless to say the mp3 player does not work anymore). Isaiah's response was "no problem, we will just buy a new one".

Isaiah's English is very good. He can understand 75-80% of what is being said. Keep this in mind when you are around him. He can understand what you are saying. Please do not talk about anything that you do not want him to or anything he shouldn't hear (we learned this the hard way, LOL). Please, Please, Please do not ask him offensive questions about his birth country or his birth family. If you are wondering if the question that you want to ask is offensive, it probably is and shouldn't be asked. If you want to ask him questions about Ethiopia, please run them by us first. We have a couple of reasons for asking you to do this...One, we may have not asked that question yet and want to hear his answer. Two, if we have not asked the question, we may not no how he will respond to the question and we want to be around to comfort him if he is feeling at all uncomfortable.

Thank you so much for your consideration of our requests. We can't wait to introduce you to the new additions to our family. They are amazing!!! We appreciate all of your prayers over our family. Each day, we can feel them working more and more! We know that all of this could not have happened without God. He is the master planner!!!