Post-Move

We had a meeting with someone from Limelet's daycare yesterday, where we compared what we see of his behavior at home with what they see there.  It seems clear that he's having a hard time getting used to being in an environment in which there are 12 kids and two caretakers, and so he does what he knows how to do:  sits down and reads a book.  Poor little thing.  They were initially concerned that he was autistic or something.  Luckily, I have the training to know that he isn't even close to meeting diagnostic criteria.  However, it makes me feel very bad to think that he's overwhelmed and lonely for 40 hours a week, which is how I picture it.  

They do say he usually seems happy, just off in his own world of reading or playing with toys.  I realized from their feedback that he tries to get the adults to talk to him in the way we would, but they think he's just muttering to himself, so they don't respond to what he's saying. At home, he's used to having what he says matter.  He's used to being one of the people who matter, not one of 12 minions in a tall hierarchy.  Poor critter.  

We are supposed to meet with his teachers and talk about ways to help him feel more comfortable so he can get more involved.  He has good teachers, but the lead teacher is very extroverted, which he's not so used to given us as his parents.  It's good to have other examples than us, but if it's all at once, it can be simply overwhelming.  Furthermore, in my experience extroverted people have a lot of trouble understanding introversion (though the opposite is not as common).  I don't want Limelet's general personality devalued, as much as I hope he can become more relaxed and happy in the setting.  I do want him to have the chance to develop some friendships now that we've stopped moving.

Yesterday Limelet began counting to ten in Spanish all of a sudden out of the blue, so I guess he's getting something out of those Spanish lessons they have.  It was really pretty cute and made him seem very sophisticated.  He really loves counting now.  His Sesame Street counting videos are his favorite--a combination of counting and catchy songs!  Wow!  ("Five-teen!")

He's been doing pretty well with the night-weaning, although he has never stopped asking for it entirely.  He does go back to sleep without nursing; just wants to be rocked or picked up.  Which in some ways is going backwards, for me, but we haven't had the time to implement the second half of the protocol (learning to get back to sleep without picking up) because it will probably involve several nights of being awake for hours and with a lot of crying.  So we're waiting until I'm not so swamped, maybe even until my contract is over here.  (Soon!)

However, we've had several nights of all that crying and waking stuff lately, anyway.  I think he's had a sinus infection or something, since he's had a "cold" for nearly three weeks and lately has had green stuff in his nose.  Eww.  Especially bad when you can't blow your nose, although he is actually learning this skill right now.  Last night I gave him guafenisin syrup to help with the nose stuff (also used a bulb to clear his nose, and swabs, and some other similar steps).  That seemed to help.  He had fitful sleep and stirred a lot between 11 and 5, but wasn't ever awake for long, unlike many other nights this past week.  Poor kid; poor us.

He seems to be at a developmental juncture right now and is changing in a lot of ways.  This is always the case, I guess, but this seems like  one of those times when there are inexplicably larger underlying changes occurring.  He's changing from echoic second-person speech ("Do you want the drill?" [meaning himself] to third- or first-person speech "I want Daddy's drill" or "Jack wants Daddy's drill.")  

The other day he told me he wanted a present.  Join the club, kid.