Now I Remember...

All day long I have felt like I was forgetting something.  I have been wracking my brain.  Appointment? No.  Phone calls that need to be made? Made them and still didn't shake it.  Soccer game? Not until Saturday.

Just now I got an email from a family waiting for their TA so they can go get their little boy.  They asked me a timeline question, so I hopped over here to my blog, where my adoption timeline still lives down there in the bottom right-hand column.

And there it was.  On September 27, 2011, I got an email with FW: Adam: Su, Yin Tao in the subject line.  And I knew.  I knew it was a kid from Suzhou.  I knew it was my son.  I opened up the email and saw this face:

It was 5 o'clock in the afternoon.  Everyone was headed home for the afternoon.  Within an hour I had left a frantic message on the voicemail of our agency rep, called the agency that sent me the email (different from our agency) and left them a message, and called my husband. Within 24 hours I had found his finding ad online with another picture and had consulted with an SLP, a pediatrician, and an audiologist.  Of course, it took until October 3 before we were able to lock him in.  But on September 27, 2012, I knew. 

Jack, I am so glad that God directed our steps to you.  You bring our family so much joy.  I love you more every day. 

Because they will outgrow these before the end of winter...

All About Kate

I seem to have several short, Kate-centric anecdotes to share, so I thought I would combine them all into one post.

Story number 1:
Kate has lost her first two (non-cleft related) teeth.  The first one came out while she was playing July 2 at her buddy Olivia's house. (Yes, I am a belated blogger.) It was so loose I could've plucked it right out, but she insisted she wanted it to "just fall out."  And it did.  It bled a little bit, and she cried.  I asked her if it hurt, and she said that it didn't.  So then I asked her why she was crying.  She looked at me and said, "Oh, yeah," and immediately stopped crying and gave me a huge smile.

 

The second one came out between Sunday school and church one Sunday in August.  It just fell out.  No crying this time.  The end.

Story number 2:

Kate loves soccer.  In the spring she played in the 6-7 league with her brother because a) It meant less driving for me and b) She can totally hold her own.  So even though big brother Will moved up to the 8-10 league this fall, we left her in the 6-7 league, even though she is only 5 1/2. On Monday she played in the pouring rain (no lightening at all), and scored her first two goals ever!  The team won 5-2, and she was very proud of herself.

Story number 3:
At school, Kate was nominated for the "Take Pride In Your Work" award. When she came home with the paper and a note from the principal, I bragged on her and talked to her about what that award meant.  I thought she understood it, until her Mimi called an hour later.

Me: Kate, your Mimi is on the phone.  Come here and tell her what your award is for.
Kate: (shrugs) Being a little Chinese person?

Apparently I have done such a thorough job of instilling ethnic pride in my daughter that she thinks she gets awards for it.  Either that, or she has more personality than I know what to do with.

Story number 4:
Will wants me to add that he just taught her to play piano without any lessons.  Seriously, she is downstairs playing a song he taught her.  Good job, Will and Kate!

Jack: Two Weeks Post-Op

Thankfully Jack is on a solid diet now.  We are still keeping it fairly soft (no pretzels because Mama is mean like that), but he is mostly eating regular foods.  If he could talk, I am pretty sure he would say that he is never leaving the kitchen table ever again, thankyouverymuch.  He is that obsessed with food. He thinks about it all. the. time.

Also thankfully, his signing vocabulary has probably doubled since his surgery.  He was already signing more and milk, with an occasional - water, up, and down - thrown in there.  He now signs water all the time, and also signs: banana, food, shoes, socks, and please. We are very impressed.  And he is very impressed with himself.  There is something magical about that moment when a child realizes that he can communicate what he wants, and that mom and dad Understand! It is beautiful.

We are still watching one of those spots in his repaired palate to make sure it isn't a fistula, but no amount of watching will make it be or not be a fistula.  So I am trying my best to leave him alone and wait for the surgeon to look at it again in two weeks.

I have lost track of how many health care professionals my children have seen in the past month.  Seriously.  Dentists, surgeons, speech therapists.  I am not a soccer mom.  I am a waiting room mom.  Go team.

And now for some pictures.  I took these about a month ago, but forgot to post them.  I was probably in a waiting room when I should have been posting.

 

 

   

Jack: One Week Post-Op

Jack saw the plastic surgeon today for his one week post-op appointment.  Dr. L. said that it looked like it was healing well, and that if a fistula (hole) was going to form at this point, there isn't much we can do about it.  He said that chances are that there will be no fistula, but he pointed out a couple of locations where they could possibly develop.  And yes, Jack is still on liquids/baby food consistency until Tuesday.  Blah.

He hates hates hates his current diet.  I am not sure what he hates more - that he can't have normal food or that we don't let him have full control over the spoons and syringes we use to feed him.  For a kid with food control issues, this is a killer. His diet right now is mostly yogurt, baby food bananas, hummus, and Pediasure milkshakes. And he is eating less - he is kind of bored with it.  Who can blame him?  There are only so many times you can eat baby oatmeal without wanting to fling it at the wall.

And one thing I have learned: baby food is just as nasty now as it was ten years ago when I fed it to Ben.  Yay.

On the bright side, he isn't in any pain, we are finished with all medications, and he is back in his own bed (even if he still isn't sleeping through the night). He is also using a B sound now.  I just got serenaded with a beautiful song called "Ma-ma-ba-ma-ba-ba". It was awesome. We are praying that he won't develop any fistulas and that his healing will continue over the course of the next months and years.