9 Weeks

We are nearing 9 weeks home and the changes that are coming over our family still are staggering.

Ivan continues to surprise us daily. He is still reluctant to hold items that are too big to fit into his mouth and feed himself bites from them BUT he does it anyway, on occasion. Every single time I witness it, I punch the air and silently yell "YES!"
He is beginning to do things that are adorable and the building blocks for shared communication. A week or so ago, he started blowing kisses (with minimal prompting and assistance). Then he began randomly giving kisses. Sometimes it is a big slobbery open mouthed kiss that is similar to one given by an 8 month old baby. Sometimes it is a sweet little kiss where he manages to pucker his little lips together and press them flat against mine. Sometimes he just licks my face. *shrugs* Sometimes, although rarely, he will make the "mmmmmmwah" sound during the kiss. It is precious and I cherish those even more. I praise him and thank him for the kisses every single time.
He randomly offers hugs as well. He's beginning to offer hugs that feel real. They do not feel like empty interaction and it is glorious.
He is making eye contact, unprompted, more and more frequently. It is playful and fleeting but it is happening.
He has become SO confident which, in turn, has shown us how very curious he is. He is confident to wander the house and explore now. He is comfortable being in a different room than the room I am in.  He will wander into the bedrooms to play while I stay in the living room. This doesn't sound like much but it is a huge difference from the child we first brought home who needed to be right by my side every moment of the day (if he wasn't strapped to my chest, that is). It shows how comfortable and confident he has become in our home environment.
Yesterday, I was cleaning the kid's rooms and I was moving from room to room, stepping around Ivan as I moved toys from one room to the other, and he never once followed me around the house. He was able to maintain playing with the bowl he was tapping without being distracted by my activity around him. He was able to play without focusing on "Where's Mom?" It was really a big deal.
He has started trying to do the sign for "All done" when I demand it (which is at the end of every single activity we do through out the day, I'm such a fuddy duddy and so insistant) and he is beginning to do it with less and less prompting and assistance. Where I spent weeks puppeting his hands through the motions, now I can say to him "Say 'all done'!" and he will offer his arms to me. I hold his elbows to steady his arms and he does the movement with his hands himself. He is fully capable of doing the sign completely on his own, just as he is capable of blowing kisses all on his own but he INSISTS on having me hold his elbow before he will do it.
I don't get it but I'll do it. Maybe 3 weeks from now, He won't even need that.

He is generally a happy child. He runs through the house jumping, laughing, and making various sounds. He climbs onto the couch and bounces, rocks, sways. He laughs, randomly, to himself. He discovered the air vents in the floor one day and spent a considerable amount of time with his face pressed against one, peering down through the slats and feeling the air blow against his face and laughing.
He plays on his own in a way that actually resembles "play" now instead of being solid stimming. It is still stim-like in that there is stim-like movements of bouncing, rocking, swaying, jumping, flapping, swatting, flailing but he does these movements in a way that interacts with his environment. He will sit in Charlie's recliner and sway and rock and flail to cause the chair to rock back and forward.
I've caught him trying tasks on his own as well. Sitting and trying to slide his feet into his shoes on his own. Trying to climb into the stroller on his own. Trying to PUSH the stroller on his own. Picking up the clothes hamper and trying to put it over his head on his own.  (It's a game we play, don't judge.)
I've caught him trying to interact with Magda and Mork, unprompted and unassisted. I've seen him approach them, showing interest in a toy they are holding and reach out and touch the toy. I've seen him pet Magda's hair. I've seen him sit on Mork's back while Mordecai was laying on the couch and they stayed that way, happily, for a long while.
I've caught Ivan and Mork in games of mimic and back and forth, especially if it's bedtime and they're neither one ready to sleep.
He is interested in toys and how they work, what they do, sounds they make, how they feel, how they taste. He is actually playing with toys the way they are made to be played with. Of course, they are toys made for 6-18 months but I figure that's about where he's functioning.
I firmly believe Ivan understands the majority of what we say to him. If he isn't understanding English, the child is much more clever than anyone has thought because, without understanding spoken word, he is able to read body language and situational cues to figure out what we want him to do.
(I'm an adult that knows English and sometimes I can't pick up on body language or situational cues enough to figure out what's going on, let's be real, y'all.)

Last week, in a surprise turn of events, Magda started Pre-K and the change in schedule has really thrown us all for a loop. However, the change up of Mork only having Ivan to play with in the Mornings has made for some uncharacteristically quiet mornings here. Mork, when left to play on his own, is generally quiet.
We've found that Ivan is much quieter, as well. With less excitement, and as he settles in more, there is less creaking (from grinding his teeth) and less chirping (a stim vocalization he picked up once home) and more baby like babbling.
Pre-K is challenging Magda gently but it is forcing her to be away from home in an environment that she isn't familiar with. She seems to be settling in well, though. She is a little more clingy at bedtime.
Mork has been more clingy during the morning while Magda is away at school. He misses her but he is learning to play on his own and he is also learning how to play with Ivan. It is cute watching them learn each other.
I am still exhausted at the end of the day. We've cut down on nap time to the point that Ivan doesn't nap at all most days. However, he's started sleeping MUCH better at night, sometimes up to 11 or 12 hours. I've found a herbal sleep aid that I've been giving him for about a week now. We went from almost 3 hours of stimming fighting sleep until he finally fell into an exhausted sleep to about fifteen mins of quiet restful chatter before he falls into silence without any stimming.
It is beautiful and makes our evenings and bedtimes much less stressful for everyone.

We are looking forward to our appointment with the International Adoption Clinic in the city. It's a few weeks away still but we are hoping to learn exactly where Ivan is developmentally as well as hopefully having an official diagnosis and maybe even the beginnings of therapy. (Please?!)

Also, We received  Ivan's Certificate of Citizenship in the mail yesterday. Now we get his SSN and then we can have him assessed by the school system for therapies, as well.
I'm excited.
(No, Really. I'm SO VERY ACTUALLY NOT SARCASTICALLY EAGER TO START THERAPY.)