[Forever_family]

We have had our foster/adopt baby since he was 12 months. We had several vistis from 11-12 months before he moved in with us. I feel there are some issues including attachment but feel he is attaching. He was clearly a mommy shopper. He would go to anyone. Now he virtually ignores people, its sort of opposite of what he was doing before which worries me in a different way. He has his moments where he will turn on the charm but nobody is allowed to hold him and he will run to my legs if somebody is just too much in his space. He is not overly clingy but wants to know where I am. I would say much like my bio children were at his age-w/ wanting to know where mommy is. He still avoids eye contact at times but then he makes a lot of eye contact at times so I'm not sure if I'm looking into this too much. We do not co-sleep because as foster parents it is a no-no and I personally can't do it with a toddler, too much movement and I worry so I don't know that even when we adopt him if we will ever co-sleep. I use a Mei Tai and we go on walks or clean the house for at least an hour a day. If he sees the Mai tai he will give it to me because he loves this snuggle time. I am doing a lot of attachment parenting, bottle feeding w/ eye contact, eye contact games, only I take care of his needs etc. He loves to snuggle, he is very happy, he listens to me when I say "no"-okay not always but he is 15 months. I just know that he is responsive like what I would expect a child his age to be. He is a very happy child only gets fussy and upset when he is tired or hungry, normal. He is however extremely busy but I have never parented a toddler boy before, well take that back the other baby boy had a serious illness so not a healthy toddler boy. He also has asthma like breathing issues and the albuteral wires him.

At first we had SEVERE food issues that are night and day better, some tantrums, some obviouse defiant behavior-I know hard to imagine in a 1 year old (my house is 99% child proof there are only a few things kids can't do but he loved to do them; pull dd's hair was top on his list and pull animals hair) we worked on main behaviors that bothered us, instead of pulling hair we taught him nice/gentle touch. He doesn't pull hair anymore and will show affection by touching in a nice way. He's actually very sweet. He shows a lot of affection towards all members of the house and pets and is now very gentle with them. Could this be a honeymoon stage or is he showing signs of real attachment? When do you know your baby is attaching for real as in time frame?

I honestly enjoy every minute with him and notice when he is napping too long I want to go and wake him up, he is so much fun. We've had several babies/toddlers as foster/adopt parents and he is by far the easiest and sweetest baby. I'm totally in love with this little guy.

The other question is that we were in the process of being approved through a private adoption agency when we got word of Eli. We are now approved through private agency and our SW came out and met Eli. We have been put on "hold" for now. We know we want one more baby, how long should I wait before we become active with our agency? Is a year to bond a good amount of time? He is my priority when thinking about our timeline. I was thinking of waiting the year and then activating with our agency, his adoption should be finalized by then or we won't activate, also he will be 2 years. I don't like to be spread too thin. I was thinking of waiting until he is 3 years old and in pre-school...I dont' know that scenerio would give us 2 years and would really mean several more updates on our homestudy. Dh and I haven't talked much about it as we are currently concentrating just on him just wondering if there are any suggestions.