weekend recap

we took O on a little road trip.

this weekend was our friend's oldest daughter's 9th birthday.

(that's a mouth-full huh?)

we've been to almost every birthday party for their eldest daughter except last years.

(trip to Indiana the same month kept us home bound.)

the parties are always a blast and we get to see their family and friends

who we've come to know pretty well.

 

 

 so we woke up early on Saturday and drove north to our friends house.

it took us a little over 4 1/2 hrs and O was ready to get out of the car by then.

i had been talking to him all week about E's pool party

and how there would be lots of kids and there would be a BIG pool.

i told him that he would need to wear his swim trunks and his floaties in order to get in the pool.

he liked the idea of the pool but when you asked him if he would wear his floaties,

he would reply NO.

 

 

Oliver had never been in a big pool. he had only been exposed to little kiddy pools,

 so i wasn't sure how he would react to seeing a big pool.

i wasn't sure if he would be excited or afraid of it.

after many recommendations from friends,

 i bought these floaties just in case he wanted to dip his toes or maybe jump in! ;)

 it only took four trips to four different stores to find them. ha!

so glad i did though!

 

it took O awhile to warm up to everyone, then a little while longer to warm up to going by the pool. once i put my toes in the water, he sat down next to me and did the same thing. this helped him warm up to the water.

b eventually got into the pool and after a couple tries and many "baby" steps, O did too!

he was all smiles. he liked it!

after "swimming" around with b on a noodle,

he wanted to go down the water slide!

that's my brave boy!

(this is how i got the floaties on him. thank goodness i did!)

we let him go down the slide and b was at the end to catch him. our friends instructed us to let him go under water before "catching" him. so with floaties on, he went down and under the water

 (very quickly) he went. as soon as he surfaced, he wanted out. he-he.

he did not like going under water...but that didn't stop him from wanting to play in

the pool. :)

 

my baby's got back!

i brought extra clothes, i brought sunscreen and bug spray and his beach towel and of course the floaties....but the one thing i could not find was swimming diapers.

can you tell? ha!

 luckily i brought a ton of diapers and actually changed him three

different times while we were there

because our little guy had a lot of weight in the rear! ;)

it was quite comical and actually did not bother him at all. he he.

 

 

after many trips around the pool with b 

(sadly i have no photos of this, hoping our friend Julie took some!),

Oliver went into the pool with our friend Cory.

it was sweet because Cory was really good with O and taught him how to let go and kick his feet.

 

it was a quick trip but we did stay overnight.

we were a little nervous since this was only our second time sleeping away from home

in the 15 months that Oliver's been with us.

the first time was a year ago!

side note:

some of you might be thinking, why in the world did you wait so long?

and yes, i know....most kids his age have already traveled quite a bit with their parents

so why hasn't Oliver?

well it has everything to do with attachment.

in the adoption community, this is often spoken about

and all kids attach differently.

some quicker then others.

with our Oliver, it took a very long time for him to "attach" to us.

this of course was hard to deal with at times because as a mother, you want your child to come to you when they get hurt, afraid, need help..pretty much anything really. 

we knew it would take time and it wasn't something that we could rush.

honestly, we did not want to mess up any progress we made with him, so we kept him home.

i am so glad we let Oliver take his time before rushing into traveling

and exposing him to other people because it all paid off.

it's such a wonderful feeling knowing he wants you

(or his Appa) and no one else when it comes to taking care of him.

 

since we were staying in the same room as Oliver and he always sleeps in his own bed,

i told b that i wanted to get a cot for O to sleep on. i purchased this one a week prior and when it came to the house, O and i opened it up and tried it out.

 

it was the perfect fit for him. not too big and not too small. we brought his pillow, blankets and a big stuffed animal. it took him a while to fall asleep at our friends house but eventually he did until the big storm came through. that scared the crud out of him. we put him in our bed for a while to help calm his nerves and then he was ready to go back to this cot.

he slept until 6:30 the next morning.

i can't tell you how happy we were that the sleeping arrangements worked out!!

 

after getting ready, packing up the car and saying our goodbyes, we drove back home.

 

with of course promises of more visits in the future! ;)

 

with this visit under our belt, we feel more confident about traveling overnight with O

and it actually feels really nice.

it really makes us excited about future trips.

 

overall...it was a quick but great weekend.

 

how was yours?