Invisible Milestones

“How’s Ty doing?” –such a complicated question.

Mostly, people mean, “How is Ty adjusting?”

Adjustment, attachment, bonding–such complicated subjects.

After a couple days home, we were super-excited that we had left the constant, incosolable crying in Korea.  After a couple months home, he was sleeping through the night, calling me “mom,” loving the older kids, and seemingly attached all around.  On all accounts, he seemed to be adjusted, bonded, and attached, and we had all emerged relatively unscathed. 

Or so we thought.

After about 6 months home, we realized that Ty had been functioning in some kind of shock-induced fog as his true personality replaced the kid we thought we knew.

Every time we though we had “arrived” something else would happen.  One day he started spontaneous affection which I didn’t realize was missing until he started doing it.  Previously he would offer endless hugs and kisses but only if I was asking. 

Lately Ty’s senses of humor and drama seems to be the next invisible milestones up which we are encroaching.  All of a sudden, he is quite the jokster and give us pieces of his mind complete with dramatic sighs and hands on hips.

The coolest milestone?  Realizing that I actually liked Ty.  I’ve spent so much time disciplining, dragging him to doctors and evaluations, trying to understand him, disciplining, catching him up cognitively, doing damage control around the house, and finding precious moments of quiet time that it’s only just recently that I’ve really come to appreciate his personality and sense of humor.  I’m finally starting to enjoy him more than I resent him.

Here’s to the next invisible milestone that is hiding around the corner!

NOTE:  Ty came home at 2 1/2.  He’s been home for a little over a year.  Rule of thumb: multiply his homecoming age by 2 to get the age at which he will likely be all caught up or the age at which we will exit the fog 🙂  Therefore, we still have almost a year and a half of invisible milestones awaiting us.