Our Second Meeting with Alex

We had our second meeting with Alex this afternoon! It started out worse but once he warmed up we saw much more of his personality come out today. 

At the beginning of our meeting, the foster mom told us he was in a bad mood. Then she tried putting him in my lap right away. That started a crying fit that lasted about 10 minutes. He cried much harder than the beginning of our first meeting. It was a little disheartening and I was worried that the whole meeting would be a disaster. But he came around eventually and we got to see him laugh - a lot! This is a big improvement from the first meeting where we only saw one or two little giggles the entire meeting. 

At one point during the meeting he started crying again. For some reason, the foster mom thought it would be a good idea to put him in my lap while he was crying and to everyone's surprise he instantly stopped crying! He laid in my lap while I rocked him for quite awhile. It was delightful. :-)

By the end of the meeting, he seemed to be having a pretty good time and didn't really want to go! He is still a little apprehensive towards Ryan, however. He'll laugh when he does funny things and take stuff out of his hands, but he won't sit in his lap without crying yet. 

As it turns out, our social worker thought it would be good to have one more meeting before we take him on Wednesday. Most people only have one meeting, but we will end up having three. I think this is because Alex has more stranger anxiety than usual and is so attached to his foster mom that she hasn't been able to leave the room yet. 

We received Alex's "pre-flight report" today and it notes that "he won't go to strangers and bursts into tears if they touch him." So, I would like to take this moment to remind everyone that as happy as we are to be receiving our son on Wednesday, it will likely be a very difficult transition for him. To understand more what he will be going through you can refer back to my attachment post. 

Tomorrow is our last day to explore Seoul, but we don't have any plans. We might just take it easy and try to enjoy our last day as a family of two. I'll try and update again after we get Alex, but if I don't, it's because I'm spending time with my son!!! 

Sigh. Finally.