Ash and Trav have dreamed for years of bringing Toby to their favorite place.....St. Andrews State Park in Florida. They have chatted on and on about all they would show Toby and he was jumping with excitement. But through the packing and driving his excitement turned to anxiety. We had just left everything he is learning to love and going somewhere new. He was surrounded by us and his favorite things within reach yet we could see him elevating in anxiety. (Let me just say those are some hard moments for parents! To watch your child growing more anxious and yet knowing that he still does not trust us enough to find comfort from us. Heartbreaking).
The first two days were lessons in patience and trust for all of us. When uncomfortable or when approaching new things, Toby cannot be shown anything. You cannot show him, teach him or point out anything. It just adds to his feelings of insecurity. He cannot handle not being equal or behind in anything and showing him something makes it worse. So here we are.....two kids jumping with anticipation and one pushing everyone away. Honestly, it wasn't pretty. But, our third day here and things are coming together. Toby experienced everything in his own way. Usually that meant on his own with us close by but not touching. He slowly started trusting us.
We became a divided family for a few hours each day (which is very typical of adoption families and can be a huge struggle) with one parent taking bios and one taking the adopted child. We refuse and reject this but it became necessary to allow him to explore at his own pace. We each took turns working with Toby while still take Ashley and Travis out for their own adventures. By the second night we were all playing together. Toby announced that he was having more fun WITH us than he had the first day without us. Huge! Success! Today he actually played with all of us at the bay, the sand and the pool and we all had a blast!
Adjustments are hard.
Expectations kill!
This vacation did not start out as any of us anticipated but it has grown into something even better than we imagined!
It wouldn't be 'us' without the comical moments. Here are a few:
-In true Toby fashion our little guy would not let anyone show him how to use his new sand toys because 'he knew what to do". Which meant he took the plastic molded shapes (crab, turtle and fish) down to the water and immediately got frustrated when they did not swim away. ?? When he finally let me show him he said they were dumb. Lol.
- Now that he has learned to go under the water in the pool he firmly believes a moment above water is a waste of time. He loves (truly loves) to watch things from under water. Last night a little girl came to play with him. He was mute and just stood and stared at her...from a foot in front of her face. As soon as she moved he would dive in the water to 'watch' her. When they both popped up he became mute again. Nothing like stalking people so you can swim beside them and watch them underwater. Needless to say her mom didn't let her play with us very long. Lol.
- Toby is all about play. Anything without play is useless. We discovered this when we went hiking. He was so excited until he realized it was walking. "Why? It's a tree? Lots of trees? I no want to see trees? Why we look at trees? This no fun. Why we just walk?" At first he had the same opinion about walking along the bay. And then to his horror his sister reached in and picked up a hermit crab. He about died. Then he realized she picks up, chases and searches for all kinds of things. It took him a few minutes to determine if she was crazy or cool and it took him a whole day to actually touch a hermit crab. She won him over.
- Boogie boards. Oh my word. I bought him a small one before leaving home as I knew Ash and Trav had some in the attic. He carried it all around and we kept showing him what to do. Nope. Not having it. He firmly believed he was going to stand on it. He ran down that beach so fast, put it on the edge of the water, stood on it and of course just stopped. he came back to tell me he wasn't moving. "Make me move mommy". When he realized he could not stand on it while in the water he was furious. Threw the board and was so mad. Day 3 and he still won't touch it again.
- Have you ever seen anyone at the pool or beach when it is 90 degrees and they are shivering like they are standing naked in Antarctica? That's Toby!! He shivers and shakes to the point he can hardly walk....and it is 90 and sunny! We are all sunburnt and he is shivering. We spent the first day in the hottub so he could sit still.
-We are 'that family'. We treat our kids the same. Equal. If I comb Travis's hair I comb Toby's hair. (I was stopped by a women at the store the other day as she told me I needed to comb Toby's hair. No, I did not know her but she felt the need to tell me. I told her I wasn't selective. Look at all three of my kids...as they all stood there with bedhead. Actually, Toby's looked the best. Travis's was in 15 directions. I smiled and walked away). Fast forward to the beach.....we all wear sunblock. Totally. Yes, Toby will burn and we certainly didn't want that so we slathered it on. It took about 2 seconds to realize our mistake.....we use WaterBabies. Anyone laughing yet? Yep. Turns white. Never noticed it on the four of us. Toby was Casper for the first day. And, true to it's name the darn stuff won't wipe or wash off so he was just a white little black boy. I should have taken a picture. We would have laughed about it now. We weren't laughing then. Lol.
More adventures await.
More stories to share.
Love seeing Toby allow Ashley to help him! 
Ready for fun! 
LOVE this one....everyone go under on the count of three...one, two, three......haha.
