Birthday Girl

On December 21st, we celebrated our little Therese's 6th birthday.  It is hard to believe that she is celebrating her second birthday with us. She almost looks like a different child than she did at this time last year.  She has grown a lot, but she has also matured and the variety of life experiences and school have made her seem much older and more sophisticated.  She is getting very opinionated about her hair and clothes, and loves to style her Polly Pocket doll's hair and pick out outfits for them.  We were so happy that she was out of the hospital to celebrate at home where she belongs.   The kids greeted her like a hero when she got home on the 20th.  They really missed her silly antics, and the house was very quiet without her. 

It has been interesting to watch her grow into family life.  It does take a long time for a child to understand what it means to be part of a family.  The two girls didn't get along very well for about the first 6 months, and then suddenly Therese started realizing that her new big sister just wants to help her, and that being the little sister has a lot of perks.  They play for hours with the dollhouse, chattering away.  Therese usually does all the hair, and she and Catherine spend a lot of time discussing all the options.  I think she is really starting to understand what it means to have a mommy.  Over the past few months, she has thrown her arms around my neck and squeezed as hard as she can, saying "Mommy, I want to KEEP you!"  She will ask me if I love her and wait with a grin to hear my answer, "Of course I do, I went all the way to China to get you!"  One day she looked up at me adoringly, and said, "I wish I had a big nose like you!"  It just warms my heart.  She can be a challenge sometimes, as she tests her boundaries, but you can see the security that has grown in her as she realizes she belongs.

Her recent surgery made the bond she feels with her family very clear.  All her siblings came to visit her a couple of times, and she perked right up when she was surrounded by the noisy throng.  One evening we were all there, as well as Aunt Hannah and cousins Emily and baby Daniel.  Therese loved it so much, and luckily we didn't cause so much of a disruption that we were asked to leave.  (I did consider that as a good tactic if they didn't get the discharge paperwork ready fast enough on the day she was coming home.  Maybe a speed demon in a pink wheelchair loose in the hallways and her 5 siblings would motivate them to hurry up and get us home!)  After they all played in the hospital playroom for awhile, I had to take the other kids home to get them ready for bed.  Therese started crying, really sad and forlorn sobs, so unlike her normally tough little self.  She wanted to be with all of us, and especially Mommy.  When she went in for a follow-up yesterday, she started to cry and said, "Mommy, I want you take me to hospibal!"  So of course I did, and two siblings went along to entertain her as well.

Here is a picture of Therese in her new wheelchair.  Even with the DAFOs and twister straps she really can't get around for long distances.  She doesn't use it much in the house, but when we go places it lets her move around on her own instead of being stuck in a stroller.   This is a rare picture when she is stationary in it--she likes to go as fast as possible.  I could see her racing in the future since she is fearless and loves speed.  The front wheels light up when they roll, so it is funny to see her outside when it is dark, with lights flashing from her wheels.

Cute kid pictures

We have had a very busy time finishing up the first half of the school year, and this week Therese had the ACE procedure.  She went into the hospital on Tuesday, and had the surgery on Wednesday. She did so well that they let her come home yesterday, even though we were told the post-op stay would be 3-5 days at the minimum, longer if there were complications.  In addition to the surgery, the kids have been passing around a nasty flu this week.  I hope everyone gets well in time for Christmas, and that I have the energy to decorate the tree once I get caught up on all the extra laundry these illnesses have been creating.

This is what kind of thing goes on around here....

One recent morning I found this floating in the kid's toilet.  So much for the school's efforts.  Not that my kindergarten kids have been bullying or using drugs, and of course they can't even read this yet, but it was pretty funny.  I really will post some cute pictures of kids instead of toilets soon. 

Thoughts after a year

In some ways it is hard to believe it has been a year since we added two children to our family, yet in others this has been a very long year.  We have spent a tremendous amount of time in doctor's offices and advocating for our new kids, and a lot of time just trying to figure out where they were and what we needed to do for them.  Adopting two children with complex medical issues with virtually no medical history or records makes those first medical appointments very interesting.  The most difficult issue is really the emotional--both the bonding as a family and the new kids adjusting to their new lives.

We made the decision in the summer to put the children in school.  There were times that I truly loved homeschooling, but this past year of constantly running to medical appointments as well as having more children of school age made homeschooling just too much for one person.  I am personally very opposed to unschooling, and there were not enough hours in the day for me to help 6 kids who cannot really work on their own much yet.  The three older children started this fall at a classical school.  I have been an advocate of classical schooling for some time and was attempting to follow The Latin-Centered Curriculum as a homeschooler, so that was an easy choice in schools.  John and Therese started Kindergarten at our local public school.  They are able to get physical and occupational therapy there every week, and they have the staff to help with the medical needs.  The logistics of packing 5 lunches and dealing with two separate schools requires a lot of careful scheduling but it has been very good for the kids.

Therese has changed tremendously in a year.  She has a very happy, silly, and spunky personality.  Her English pronunciation has gotten much better.  We really had no way to assess her verbal skills in Chinese but she was delayed at least to some extent, and she had a lot of trouble speaking clearly in English.  She is learning how to live in a family, but sometimes you still see that instinct for self-preservation that she used to survive in the orphanage.  She can be a bit of a troublemaker and tries to work the system wherever she is.  Usually the most annoying thing she does is talk.  I have never been around a child who was such a motor mouth.  I have to tell her to stop talking or she will never finish her food.  Her adjustment to her new sister was hard at first.  Catherine was ready to welcome her with open arms, but as a younger sister.  Therese was used to seeing other kids as competition and they locked horns constantly.  Catherine is a very tender and emotional person and didn't know how to relate to a little girl with such a tough shell.  Thankfully, they have become very close and spend a lot of time playing dolls together.  Therese especially loves dolls that she can do hairstyles for.  She LOVES to do hair, and she is obsessed with washing her own hair.  She would wash it until it fell off, if I let her. 

The biggest physical difference for Therese, of course, is walking.  After her clubbed feet were corrected, she got AFOs and was learning to walk, but after the first few months she was actually getting worse, not better.  She operated by crashing in between furniture or grabbing onto adult's legs, and she fell constantly.  It was very frustrating. I felt she needed physical therapy and pushed until we got a referral.  Since she started PT, we have gotten her fitted with DAFOs, made by Cascade.  I would do commercials for those things.  They are so much better than the AFOs she had.  Just the fact that they had some air vents at the heel was enough to sell me on them, after dealing with the horrible pressure sore she got in the spring.  The air vents combined with the extra strap at the ankle to reduce slipping have made her feet healthier.  We also got her fitted for twister straps, basically a wide nylon webbing belt, with straps that wrap around her legs and hook onto the toe of her DAFOs.  They fit under jeans and inside her shoes, so no one can really see them.  As we were working on helping her walk better we figured out that she just couldn't keep her toes pointed to the front, due to the muscle imbalances from the neurological damage.  She was walking by almost dragging her lower legs, with her weaker knee cranked in at a horrible angle that stretched out her ligaments.  The physical therapist told me that the way she was walking would destroy her knee joint in a few years.  I knew she looked horrible when she walked but I needed someone who would listen to me, watch her walk, and figure out how to solve it.  I love the physical therapist we found!  The twister straps have revolutionized her walking, and cut her falls drastically.  

I think I was very prepared for her medical needs, but deep down I really did hope that when we got her feet straightened she would be walking.  We had no idea of how much more difficult walking would be for her.  She has a significant scoliosis and her weaker leg is nearly an inch shorter than the other, which makes walking even more difficult.  Even with the PT and all her equipment, I don't know how growing will affect her abilities.  We are in the process of getting her a custom wheelchair, since she really cannot do long hallways or distances.  I will admit that the process of fitting her for a wheelchair has saddened me.  I really didn't want her to need it.  She, on the other hand, loved trying out the demo wheelchair and was whirling in circles like a waterbug and deliberately jousting with walls.  Luckily the pricey wheelchair was still in one piece when we had to return it, but little turkey had a black eye.  She was mad we were sending it back, but I pointed out that she wanted a pink one, so after that she relinquished it cheerfully.

When you take a young child from everything they have ever known, you can imagine it is difficult for them, but until we lived through this past year with John we had never seen what it was like.  The grieving has been very intense, and in most ways it has not improved a whole lot over the year.  He doesn't have the daredevil personality like Therese, plus he had about the best life an orphan in China could have, living at Eagle's Wings.  He was too young to know that the best future was in a family, and how much he needed the medical care he can get here.  His anxiety adds to his fixation on food.  In the month after he got home he gained a pound every week.  I hesitated to restrict his eating too much in the early phases as we were bonding, especially since we eat a very different diet and he wasn't eating junk food.  Then when it became two pounds in one week, we had to put him on a diet.  Over a year, he lost 10 pounds, and it has made him so much more mobile.  He can climb up the playground equipment on every side now, and he can walk to the park and back home again without puffing and panting.  Food is still a major issue for us and we are going to seek further medical help to sort out the emotional and physical causes of his desire to constantly eat everything in sight.  

In other ways, John is doing very well.  His English is fluent and his pronunciation is very good.  He is doing much better academically than his classmate sister, which I think shows how important programs like the one at Eagles' Wings are in giving kids a good start in life.  He is very intimidated by trying to interact and play with the more rambunctious boys, but he has made friends in his class and is learning how to deal with having three brothers, not to mention two bossy sisters.  He is getting better at pitching in at cleanup time.  It was apparent even before he could speak English that picking up toys was not one of his favorite activities.  It has been funny to watch him develop his new hobby of coloring.  I got him a coloring book when he had surgery early in the year, and since he didn't feel like playing he sat down and dutifully started working through the book like it was an assignment.  He would carefully color in the picture on a page, for example, of a bear, using one color, then using the same color he would carefully color the entire page.  I found this very amusing since to my logical adult mind it would have been easier to just color the whole page in the beginning.  Over the months, he has gotten into color and will spend a long time on each picture in his newest coloring book, making every detail a different color.  If they grade on coloring in Kindergarten, I think he will get a very good one!  

So there it is, the long-postponed update I have meant to write for nearly two months.  Mommy has to get up at 5 AM on school days to get everyone ready on time, so I do need naps, but we are doing well.  Now we just need to figure out how to get the laundry folded more often, and keep the house cleaner.  The clutter with 6 kids is unbelievable.  Tripping on toys all the time is making it hard for me to get enthusiastic about Christmas lists.  I suppose it wouldn't be very joyful if I gave each kid their own mops and scrub buckets, so I will probably allow gifts again this year, but smuggle out some of the old stuff when they aren't looking.  Auf Wiedersehen!

Food as a priority

I know this poor blog is sadly neglected--I have so much to write but things have been so busy that I am finding it hard to get more than 5 hours of sleep on a consistent basis, let alone finding time to blog.  My kids think that the most important thing I do is provide food at least 10 times per day.  So just to prove that I do cook, here is a picture of a tasty dish I astonished my family with in the recent past.    Can anyone guess what these are?

I am thinking about changing the name of this blog, because the laundry mountain theme is becoming less of a joke every day, as it grows to frightening proportions.  So if you don't ever hear from me again, it is probably because I got buried under a landslide.

One Year since meeting Therese

August 19th, 2012

August 19, 2013

 

I don't have time for a long post, but I had to commemorate today--it has been one year since I met Therese in China.  She wore 18 month clothes and couldn't walk because of her clubbed feet.  Now her feet are straight and with AFOs she can walk, and get into everything.  She now wears size 4T.  More importantly than her physical improvement, she has a family now, and she knows she is loved.  She is so much more secure and has a lot fewer night terrors.  She is starting school this week for the first time.  We love you, little turkey!

Monkey Class continues

I am getting ready to make dinner, and Fermin came in to tell me that monkey class was going to be held while I got it ready.  I asked him what they learn, and he said, "oh, we learn martial arts, marching like soldiers, and we go to the library, just the regular stuff."    I wish I had a hidden camera to spy on them with.

Monkeying Around

Overheard this evening:

Fermin (dialing a toy cell phone): I'm calling the teacher.
Mommy:  Who is that? 
Fermin: Jose is the teacher.
Mommy:  What does he teach?
Fermin: Monkey lessons.  Come on, John, we need one more student.

I asked Jose whether he was teaching monkeys, or teaching people how to act like monkeys, and he told me it was the latter.  It ought to be interesting to see how this develops.

A few minutes later the class assembled.  Therese told me she was hungry and wanted a banana.  The other monkey students have gone outside to play soccer. The monkey-trainee named Thomas is wearing a Chicago Bears jersey and goalie gloves.  I had no idea how important soccer was in a simian curriculum but at least it will help them burn off some energy before bedtime.

June--Picking Blackberries

A highlight in June was a trip out to Grandma and Grandpa's house to pick blackberries.  The kids love blackberries and they also love riding 4-wheelers.

The older boys were the first ones ready to head out:

 Waiting for Grandma.

"If I could just get this thing started......."

Mommy with two happy little boys.

 The kids showed off the blackberries as they found them.

 John wasn't so sure about the picking part:

 After he picked one, he decided he really didn't like the idea of tasting it.

The camera wasn't fast enough to catch a blackberry in Catherine's hand, because she ate them as fast as she could.

Therese decided that flowers were more fun to pick than blackberries.  "Smile, Therese!"

After we picked and ate blackberries, we went home the long way

with just a few stops to take pictures of wildflowers.

 This grasshopper is small but a few more flowers and he will be a regular, disgusting, large grasshopper.

Happy Mother's Day!

This Mother's Day I have two more reasons to celebrate than I did last year.  They are hard to get a good picture of together, but they are cute even when they are looking silly.  This picture is from last week.  Therese got her boot off on Friday and has two AFOs now.  She is excited that she can wear two shoes.

 

 

Distractions During Mass

In an earlier post, I wrote about how difficult it is for a Mommy of many small children just to keep my clothes on during Mass.  That was one of my favorite posts to write, except the fact that it shows everyone just how well I manage to concentrate on worship most Sundays.  Besides keeping your clothes on, there is the greater challenge of managing to actually pray at Mass.  We attend the old liturgy, the 1962 version, where the Mass is in Latin, except the Kyrie, which is in Greek.  (The sermon is in English, since we aren't so well-educated that we could understand it in Latin.)  Some of the prayers are said at the altar in a very low voice, so those of us in the pews cannot hear them anyway.  All the prayers are contained in the missal, which gives the Latin and English.  The missal is equipped with multiple ribbons so you can mark your place in the propers and flip over to the readings for the specific day.  Yes, you can manage a missal and small children, but you will not always be in the right place in the missal at the right time. This is a very reverent liturgy, and as I mentioned, quiet, so keeping children quiet takes priority.

On a typical Sunday, we arrive early, take everyone to the bathroom, and proceed into the church.  First stop is the holy water font, where the children jockey for position to be first to stick their fingers or entire hands into the water.  Then, blessed and dripping, they shamble to the pew.  Often one child falls down in the few feet from the font to our favorite pew, or a couple of them run into each other.  That is always a sign it is going to be a great day.  When you get to your pew, you genuflect.  The children do variations of this.  Some genuflect, facing the correct direction.  Some genuflect towards the choir and the exit door.  Some bob up and down very quickly so they can jump into the pew first.  We sort out the children and arrange them around us.  Certain children do better next to Papa.  Thomas has to sit by Mommy or the world will come to an end.  Then you have to watch because the children love to deploy the kneelers, and some of them are likely to come down with a resounding crash on the bare floor.  We kneel piously to pray, which triggers someone to throw a fit because they are not sitting where they want to sit.  Another child offers me a booger.  I'm just thankful when they offer it to me instead of wiping it on my skirt. 

It is always interesting to see who will need to go to the bathroom first.  This is always announced in a very loud hissing whisper.  When you suggest that we wait awhile, it is followed by the child holding his crotch, jumping up and down, and announcing he will pee on the floor if he doesn't go IMMEDIATELY.  When you have a child in diapers they will always save up so they can produce a huge poop during Mass.  When my youngest child was still in diapers, I once smelled a suspicious smell, and tried to discreetly do the manuever where you pull the back of their pants out a little and try to peek down into the darkness to see if anything is in there.  In this case, my charming son said, loudly, "I'm not poopy, it's just GAS!"  This is the child who frequently has these eruptions on Sunday mornings, and of course he sits on my lap.  Sometimes I feel sorry for the people who sit near us, but of course I try to act nonchalant, even when my skirt is flapping in the breeze and the whole area around us smells like a sewage lagoon.  I have one child who whenever it is inconvenient to go to the bathroom, has the bladder capacity of a thimble.  I think one Sunday I took her to the bathroom at least three times in an hour.  You start smiling apologetically at the other moms you meet in the bathroom.  "We're back!"  It is always tricky getting out to take children to the bathroom during the part of the Mass when everyone is kneeling.  You have to climb over all the sets of legs to get to the aisle, lifting the child over each one, avoiding losing your skirt in the process. 

I addition to bathroom trips and diapers, not to mention the gas problems, I have one child who is prone to nosebleeds.  I keep a small blanket in the bag that we call the "sacred sack", which contains our missals and the even more essential large stash of tissues that I need when the kids present me with finds from their noses.  It isn't uncommon to look up and see Jose holding his nose, with blood running down his arm.  I have gotten very quick at grabbing the blanket to keep the blood from getting everywhere, but a few years ago, before I started carrying the blanket, he had a major nosebleed while hanging over the back of the pew in front of us.  I rushed him to the bathroom while Mr. B. used tissues to sop up the puddle before someone sat in it.  Usually one trip to the bathroom for a mopping up operation and a cold wet paper towel is enough, but one time his nose started bleeding again several times--I think we left four times that day.  I have learned how to act nonchalant with a big blotch of blood down the front of my blouse.

Things that come from noses brings me to the other fun part of being a mom--booger collecting.  My children present their finds to me with great fanfare, holding them up so that all the other people in the vicinity can enjoy them as well.  Sometimes they impulsively blow their noses on my arm, but boogers are usually presented more formally.  One of my daughters is famous for explosive, wet sneezes.  These happen seemingly without warning and have to be smothered with the emergency blanket, if it isn't already soaked with blood from a nosebleed, before everything in a 5-foot-radius is splattered.

During the Mass we stand, sit, and kneel. I have learned through experience not to do any of these things too quickly, to avoid sitting or kneeling on a small person.  They pull on my clothes, stand on my skirt, and sometimes get into fights.  This may show my failing as a mother, but as long as they aren't making a sound, I piously ignore most scuffles, while pretending to be concentrating very hard on praying.  Maybe Mr. B. will take care of things if they get out of hand.  The kids also fiddle with any jewelry that I have on, and not long ago Jose unraveled part of my scarf.  He got a thread loose and made several holes, and actually had the nerve to act like he had done a great thing.  I wasn't about to congratulate him on his great hand-eye coordination in that situation!

The advantage of taking small children to Mass is that I usually do not have any problem with falling asleep.  The best Mass wake-up call was when I was sitting quietly, and maybe actually praying for a change, when a sudden sharp pain jolted me back to paying attention to my little lambs. My darling youngest son was ripping out my arm hairs one by one. I whispered to him to stop, and his reply was, "I don't like those hairs on there."  I guess that is just one more opportunity to offer it up.  Who needs a hair shirt when they have children?  They are determined to make a saint out of me, in spite of my best efforts.  When I first had children, I had a lot of trouble concentrating on the Mass, but this is an occupational hazard that we mothers have to offer up.  Now I have gotten so used to re-directing myself in between the bio-hazard duties, that I think I wouldn't know what to do if I did go to Mass by myself.  I would probably be distracted by not being distracted.   As it is, I love going to Mass, in spite of the challenges.  And when the incense is in the air and the bell rings, and my children are all around me (several of them on my skirt) it is one of the best times of the week.

It all comes down to thread

Thread is how you can tell what my stress level is like, specifically if I have time to floss my teeth and whether I get to cross-stitch at least once per week.  It has been a stressful month, but I have flossed my teeth most nights, and I have managed to make progress on my current stitching project.  I started working on it in January, while we sat around the hospital for the kids' MRI scans, and it is shaping up very nicely.  I think I can finish it in a few more weeks.  Of course I have about 10 projects lined up in my basket, waiting.  I can probably finish all of them by the time I turn 40.  Maybe.  I'm on the shady side of 35 now and it is hard to fit in time for hobbies.  I really wish I could figure out how to read and cross-stitch at the same time, but I find that trying it means you don't do a good job at either.  I do manage to read about 500 pages per week, almost always non-fiction.  I can read and style my hair, or read and shave my legs.  I just can't manage to count threads and read a cross-stitch pattern and a book at the same time.  My idea of a great break is to cross-stitch while listening to audio lectures from the Great Courses, or of course watching my favorite show, available on YouTube, Time Team.  When I was about 8 years old my main goal in life was to be an archaeologist.  It seemed a perfect fit, since I loved digging in the dirt and loved studying history.  When I found out that I could watch old episodes of Time Team online I felt like I had hit pay dirt!

Here is my current project.  It is from a painting called the Madonna of the Streets, and I am using a Holy Needle pattern on evenweave, 28 ct. Jobelin.  This is my biggest project ever on an evenweave fabric where I have to count over two threads.  It is a bit wrinkled since I'm trying stitching without a frame and just rolling and folding it up to hold in one hand.  Mary's cheek has a crease in it, but I will iron it before framing.

Here is a close-up of where I am working.  Baby Jesus' little arm and hand has taken me several weeks.

Funny kid sayings

Last week, John was feeling his head at breakfast, and said, "My hair stick up to Jesus in heaven!".  He does have some impressive bed head and it does stick up very stubbornly.

Therese said, awhile back, "I love Jesus!"  I thought how sweet that was until she said that Jesus was good on pasta.  It turns out she meant cheese sauce, as in my famous cashew cheese sauce.  She is still working on English pronunciation. 

Almost Easter

The past two days we have enjoyed the special services at church that lead up to the Easter Vigil tonight.  I was going to do a post about those and some of the beautiful prayers we heard in the liturgy.  Yesterday Therese said she got her foot stuck in the door and that it was hurting.  By the time the Good Friday service was over, her ankle and lower leg were alarmingly swollen and purple.  Bryan took her to the ER and an x-ray showed that she has a badly broken leg.  Her tibia is snapped completely in two.  The doctor at first said he thought she must have a skin infection.  He didn't believe that a child with a broken leg or ankle would be sitting there smiling and charming the nurses.  The x-ray was very clear, however.  The orthopedist on duty splinted her leg and we have to take her in early next week for the orthopedic specialist to look at it and decide how to set and cast it.  Today she is perky and cheerful, scooting around the house in her splint, but I feel so badly that she has such a huge setback just when she was learning to walk for the first time.  She could be in a cast for several months and we could lose the clubbed foot correction again since she can't wear her Ponsetti bar at night now.  I guess I should be glad that the wrap they put on her splint matches her Easter dress, and we will face each challenge as they actually get here.  Tonight we will rejoice!

Therese's AFO fitting

Therese had molds of her feet and legs made, for her AFOs, on the 18th of March.  After casts, these were very quick and easy.  The orthotist is such a kind and gentle man and puts the kids at ease.  Therese really liked the pantyhose they put on under the plaster.  She said that it was like what Mommy wears to Mass.  It will take a little over two weeks before we get the finished product.  She was so excited to choose the color and pattern--pink with pink and purple stars on them. 

Silly Sisters

These pictures are from Sunday, March 17th.  The girls looked so cute in matching dresses that I wanted to get a picture of them together.  For some reason, Therese didn't want to cooperate.  She has very good nonverbal communication skills.

 I don't want my picture taken.

Well, maybe just a little smile.

 Catherine's over-done silly smile:

 Silly girls.

This is a goofy face that we see when Therese is kidding around:

I think I'm done with this photo session.

 Maybe not.

 This is her mad face. She gives the best (worst?) stinkeye I have ever seen from a person so young.  When the upper lip goes into a beak shape and the glare starts, you know someone has not made the princess happy.

These aren't of sisters, but the boys are very silly.  The boys all had matching shirts, but they changed so fast when we were home from Mass that I didn't get a picture of them together.  Next time I will do it before we leave. 

 This was supposed to be a smile, but it has fake written all over it.  He does have nice teeth.

John did consent to look at the camera in the second one but he was very busy unbuttoning his shirt in imitation of his big brother Fermin, who was already halfway out of his clothes.

Context, Context, Context

Without context, a lot of things Therese says don't make any sense.  For example, last night she told me, "Papa put my barf on me."  For some reason she puts an "f" sound on bar, as in the Ponsetti bar she has to wear while she sleeps.  The braced shoes snap into a bar that hold her feet out.  She will need to wear this at night for a long time.  We found out that she was waiting until we tucked her in, then unbuckling herself and sleeping without it.  It is frustrating because her feet want to go back over and we could end up back where we started.  She looks like a little shackled inmate or maybe a very tiny snowboarder in her bar and I'm sure it isn't very comfortable to be stuck in one position all night.  I talked to her and told her that if she doesn't sleep in her bar(f) that she will have to get casts again, and she won't be able to take baths.  Not getting to take baths is the ultimate threat, since this little girl loves her baths. 

 

It has been a long few weeks since the casts came off.  Therese has been super cranky and whiny.  I think she is frustrated at how hard walking is.  Her ankles flop over when she tries to put her feet down.  I got her a tiny walker and she can get around with that but complains about her feet hurting.  They are very swollen and of course the bottoms of her feet have never been walked on so the skin is very tender.  She has enough feeling down there to notice that.  She often just gives up and scoots around on the floor, or asks to be carried.  That is quite a change from our little girl whose motto was, "I do it by self!"  She got fitted for her AFOs last week and they will be done next week.  I hope those will help her. She is also complaining about her teeth hurting.  Now that we have almost finished her dental treatment plan she has only a few teeth left without enamel, and she can feel the difference.  When she had a mouthful of them she didn't know any better.  In schoolwork, I am reading her nursery rhymes and she is learning some phonics.  She has trouble with vowel sounds, I don't know if that is because she is a new English learner, or if she needs speech help. She is trying to memorize her first poem, and she can now color in the lines on a coloring page.

 

The good thing is that John is cheerful most of the time, and he has started the great adventure of potty training.  For him to be able to get out of diapers is a great step for his future.  We are seeing results from his new shunt--his balance is much better and he doesn't fall down nearly as often as he was.  When he falls he isn't falling as badly.  He used to just fall over, and hit his head.  Mostly when he falls now it is just to one or both knees instead of a total wipeout.  He is starting to learn phonics with the other kids and he is really enjoying his special coloring book.  He takes each page very seriously.  Most of my kids were uninterested in coloring books when they were that age or smaller.  I bought them, trying to be a good mom, but they only wanted to color on the walls, or scribble on plain paper.  Maybe he will like workbooks.  That could be a help for a homeschooling mom.

On Her Feet

Today for the very first time, Therese stood on her own two feet.  Her legs are very weak after being in casts, and adding that to not having much sensation from the knees down made it impossible for her to take off walking like she wanted to.  She was so excited to try out her new feet but is very wobbly.  She was frustrated because she wasn't able to walk by herself.  Soon, very soon little girl!

6 Months Home!

Today it is exactly six months since John Francis and Therese, along with Aunt Hannah and Mommy, arrived home after our long trip across China. 

Then:

  (I always think this picture is funny--the kids look a little surprised at the family that was awaiting them in America!)

 

Now:

John has gone through a lot of emotional upheaval with the big changes in his life, then just when he was getting comfortable, he had to have surgery.  The surgery was very upsetting to him, and even after he got home, got over the nausea, and got his equilibrium sorted out, he just wasn't himself.  He spent a lot of time just sitting around not wanting to play.  Fortunately, he is finally back to his normal self.  The sparkle is back in his eyes and he is entertaining everyone with his goofy dance moves.  This boy loves music and he improvises some pretty funny dances.  Since John had a happy childhood at Eagle's Wings and was in good shape when we got him, he hasn't changed drastically like Therese has.  Except for his medical issues he is just a really normal little boy.  The biggest change is that he is speaking English very well.  He was the best of the two verbally in Chinese and he also speaks English much better than she does.  We are hoping that the fluid in his spinal cord will go down now that he has a new shunt, so he doesn't have to have any more surgery in the next year or so.

Therese has changed so much, and developed so much, that sometimes it feels like watching a miracle unfold.  When I think back to what her official adoption file said about her, and then what bad shape she was in when I got her, I am amazed at the little girl we see now.  When I got her she could barely scribble on paper, and now she can use crayons and can write several letters.  She hadn't ever put together a puzzle or used scissors.   (She can definitely operate scissors now, and has added decorative touches to the sleeves of several of her dresses.)  She was filthy and dehydrated and her hair was dull and lifeless.  She has a plumpness to her cheeks now and her hair is smooth and shiny.  We haven't been able to weigh or measure her very well because of her feet, so it will be interesting to get her casts off and see how tall she really is.  She has gone up two sizes of clothes since I met her in China.  

She chatters all the time in English, but some things are hard to understand when she tries to talk too fast.  I miss the punchline of her jokes sometimes because I'm trying to process her accent.  She does have a cute little voice and is doing better all the time.  A bad thing she has mastered is whining.  I would say she has a virtuoso level whiny voice when she wants to.  She has bonded very well with us and is a very happy girl most of the time.  She does have some nightmares and will cling to me like a life preserver and cry and cry when I get her out of bed to hold her and comfort her.  She had told me recently that there was a monster under her bed in China, and due to her recent nightmares I have speculated on whether she thinks there is one here.  She tells me wild stories about her life in China as a joke, but she was very serious when she told me about the monster.  When she tells tall tales, her eyes twinkle and scrunch almost shut as she can't stop chuckling while she watches my reaction.

In spite of what her file said, she seems quite bright.  She has excellent hand-eye coordination and she is very quick to learn things.  She knows her colors and can count in English, and she is learning letters.  She knows what letters Therese starts with, and anything that has a word on it that starts T-H, she will ask if it is for her.  We haven't had her evaluated by a developmental pediatrician yet but I have every hope that she will live a normal life, and she will be helped by her happy and charming personality.   That will be an excellent outcome for a little girl who had so many labels and who was so chronically malnourished during her early years.  Whatever she does accomplish, she has a family to cheer her on.