Six Months

This Sunday marks six months of Ephraim being a Klassen! It’s crazy to think that six months ago we were arriving in South Africa and hadn’t even met him yet and now it’s like he’s been a part of our family forever.

Ephraim has been adjusting so well. If you talk to anyone about adoption for more than a few minutes you’ll probably hear the words “bonding and attachment”. In a nutshell after adopting you need to make sure that your child knows that you are his parent and main caregiver. This can be tricky with some kids just going to other people willy-nilly and struggling with bonding and attaching to their parents. This has not been the case with Ephraim. This guy knows bonding and attachment. He has been great at being friendly to others but not too friendly and if people pick him up and hold him he is often okay to be there for a few minutes if he knows them but he knows when his time is up and will start squirming to get away.

Ephraim loves to help. He’s always throwing things in the garbage, cleaning up and helping empty the dishwasher. He loves it so much that if you tell him the dishwasher is dirty and he can’t put the cutlery away he will fall to his knees and start to cry. Haha, it’s pretty cute. Hopefully this helpful behavior continues (and rubs off on his sister).

Health wise he’s doing pretty good. We’ve got an appointment coming up in a few weeks with a specialist for his eye and we’ll see what they decide to do about that. Unfortunately he did have another seizure (fever related) a few weeks ago but now that we know how to handle them we were able to stay home and a few hours and a couple of naps later he was back to normal.

He actually had his last seizure on May 1st which was his second birthday! It was fun to celebrate this “first” birthday with him. He loved listening to people sing happy birthday, his expression when he realized we were singing to him was just priceless. He became professional at opening presents (always putting the wrapping paper on a neat little pile), and has loved playing with every toy he got.

He is a little parrot and will copy any thing we say. And he often says 3-5 word sentences on his own, “look at, Mommy” or “look at this” being his current favorites. Considering the fact that he’s only had six months of consistent English I feel like he’s doing pretty great! He has also initiated using the toilet quite a bit in the last few weeks which has been neat since we weren’t actually trying to potty train yet (we will probably try for the summer some time).

He’s a boys boy. Rough and tumble all the way. He can fall down and smack his head and get right back up, but if his feelings get hurt he can be sensitive and want a little cuddle.

I can’t wait to see how the next six months go!

P.S. I know this place has been pretty quiet lately, and I’m hoping to change that! I miss my blogging time and hope to start blogging more consistently again. Thanks to everyone who has stuck around!