The First Night

Call me a terrible person, but the first thing I did was give Joshua a bath and change him into Nix-approved clothing.  There is something about a baby in a jean jacket that just screams CUTE to me.  I figured I would make him appear all socially conscious too and put him in a rainbow #LOVE shirt I had gotten when I took Bram to New Jersey in June.

Joshua didn't cry, but he seemed... shellshocked, like "who the hell are these people and what am I doing here."  I didn't know if he was drinking from a sippy cup or a bottle, what his bedtime routine was, what brought him into foster care.

A quick read in "the binder" showed progress notes from former foster parent that said that Joshua was "getting used to" sleeping in a crib.  Uh oh.  Did that mean he hadn't slept in a crib before?

Tiernen was raised in the family bed, now known as co-sleeping.  I'm all for it, but it is a big no-no in the foster world for obvious reasons.  I'm okay with that, but how do you explain to a 13-month old who had only slept with his parent(s) that suddenly solitary sleeping was the way of the land.  So, so many transitions in such a little life!

We gave him a bottle which he happily took.  I didn't know if he had been breastfed, whether he was allergic to anything, whether he had food preferences.  He had a full set of teeth, so I knew that baby food probably wouldn't be needed.  We put him in the high chair and gave him portions of what we were having for dinner, and he ate it without complaint.  He babbled on in baby talk that we did not understand. He called Darryl "dada" almost immediately and me "mama." (we soon learned that he called almost all women and men who were older than children mama and dada and still does). We figured Tiernen was too hard to say, so we had him call her T, like we had all little ones call her.  (Only Miles has ever called her Tiernen right from the start, brilliant boy that he is!)


After dinner, we put him in his pajamas, read him stories, cuddled him, gave him another bottle.  I had no idea how this bedtime thing was going to work.  

We kissed him and hugged him and rocked him.  He seemed very tired.  We put him in the crib, the one that had been occupied by Baby O only ten days before, and said goodnight.  He whimpered a bit, but went right to sleep.  Poor baby.