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.

 

 

   

Dear Jack,

I feel like you and I are still getting to know each other... there are still so many things I want to know about you!  But at the same time, I feel like I have learned a lot in the last three months.  And with knowing you better, comes loving you more.

I love the way that you run across a room, arms open wide to greet me with a hug and a kiss, even though you just hugged me a minute and a half ago. 

I love the way you grin at me when you know that I understand that you want more milk.

I love it when I am laying down in your bed with you and you lean over and give me a kiss.  I also love it when you put your sweet little hand on my cheek. 

I love how you work so hard to learn new things.  Like yesterday, you were determined to pick up that toy hamburger with your toy spatula and put it in the pan.  You would scream every time you dropped it, but then you would pick it up and try it again.  And eventually you did it, and you were so proud of yourself. 

I love how you are starting to sign more and more.  You can sign "more" and "milk" fairly well, but we are still working on "water" and "eat".  I am confident that you are going to do it.  You are determined, and so am I.

I love that you will eat almost anything I put in front you.  As long as the person next to you doesn't have something different. If they do, you want their food instead. 

I love how you play independently.  You can play with your cars or your blocks for several minutes at a time.  You want me in the room (and would prefer it if I were playing with you), but you can do this while I wash dishes or fold laundry. 

I love how you are starting to trust me.  Sometimes you might be scared, but when you are in my arms your fears seem to melt away a bit.  I am glad you are learning that I will keep you safe. 

I love it when you walk with your hands behind your back.  You look like a little old man.  It is the cutest thing I ever saw. 

I love being your mama.  And I love that you are starting to call me that. 

Appointments, Part 6: Speech

Please forgive my lack of posting.  We have been on vacation, and I am still trying to find our new out-of-school norm.

I mentioned earlier that our state's Early Intervention folks had done an evaluation on Jack, and there was one area that he qualified for services: Speech.  He has almost caught up in every other area, but his speech is very slow in coming.  I get a lot of questions about Jack's speech, so I figured that this would be a good place to answer some basic questions.

Can he speak English?

This one gets an eye roll out of me every time.  No, he can't speak English.  Most 21 month olds that I know aren't exactly fluent, ya know?

How will you teach him English?

The same way every English-speaking parent teaches their baby English - they talk to him.  Children learn to understand new languages amazingly fast.  That's why people should learn second or third languages as small children instead of as adults or teenagers.  (But wait, that's another rant of mine.)

Can he speak Chinese?

Nope, he can't speak Chinese either.  The thing is, he doesn't speak.  He babbles.  Because of his cleft palate (the big, gaping hole in the roof of his mouth that goes up into his nasal cavity) he cannot produce most consonant sounds.  He can't make the puff of air he needs for some sounds.  Couple that with the fact that he hasn't been encouraged to babble and play with his sounds.  You know how parents copy their baby's sounds and go back and forth being silly?  This teaches the child to explore their sounds and to imitate words.  But Jack is just now experiencing that.  So, he can say, "Ah gah!" and "mamamamamamama," and "Uh-oh!" and "Ow!"  That is his current favorite repertoire.

Will he ever learn to talk?

Absolutely.  We are starting off with an hour of speech therapy a week.  Melissa comes to our house and basically plays with Jack and me.  She points out positive things he is doing and models exercises for us to do.  For example, this week she wants us to repeat the random noises he makes and get really silly so he will be encouraged to repeat the sounds that we are making.  It's actually really fun, and Jack gets crazy giggly. 

We are also working on teaching him sign language so that he will be able to start communicating his needs with words instead of tears.  Last night in the grocery store he signed milk when we walked past the milk and pizza when we walked past the pizza.  And then we both got crazy giggly.

(Have I ever mentioned that a great place to have a conversation with an infant/toddler is in the grocery store?  You can get lots of eye and skin contact and teach them tons of new stuff, while entertaining the other shoppers at the same time.  Yes, they will stare at you if play peek a boo with your baby while you pick out tomato sauce, but it will also make them smile really big, which most tired shoppers need.  Consider it your contribution to making your town a happier place to live:)

So, to sum up, Jack is right where we expect him to be right now.  He is exploring sounds.  He is trying to imitate us some.  He is starting to use signs.  He's a smart kid.  And he is awesome like that. 

Posts (so far) about Jack's cleft/developmental/IA issues:

• Let the Appointments Begin!
• Appointments, Part 2: Audiology
• Appointments, Part 3: Plastic Surgeons
• Appointments, Part 4: The Dentist  
• Appointments, Part 5: Early Intervention

Posts (yet to come) about Jack's cleft/developmental/IA issues:

• ENT (and probably more audiology)
• Plastic Surgeons...Again (maybe)
• Surgery

Kate's Speech

This girl continues to amaze me as her speech progresses. Recently her speech was evaluated and compared to her evaluation six months ago. Both her receptive language (what she understands) and her expressive language (basically what she is trying to express) has risen in leaps and bounds. In her receptive skills she is even above her age level now, which is awesome. I actually attribute a lot of that to her sign language skills. I don't think she would've picked up on language so quickly if we weren't all signing with her. I am kind of sad that we aren't learning as many new signs anymore, but we just don't need them as much, which is awesome. As she learns to say a new word, she drops the sign, usually.

Of course, we are still working hard at producing individual sounds and making them into words. Just because I understand that "ma ha ah how" means Mickey Mouse Club House doesn't mean that the rest of the world does. (And actually the literal translation of that would be Mickey Hot Dog House, because that's what she calls the show.) So we still have weekly ST appointments where she and Jennifer play lots of fun games, which she enjoys.

This past two weeks we have seen lots of new words and phrases, such as - beach, pizza, I wanna see, me too, baby pool, and my turn (can you tell that she did not want to be left out of what the big kids were doing on vacation?). And today she said 'ocean' for Jennifer. Now, she isn't saying every sound for all of these words, but we heard the "ch" sound for the first time, and lots of "s" sounds, which are really tough for a two year old even if there isn't a cleft involved.

So, you will have to forgive me for bragging, but this kid works so hard, even her brothers notice. Today I heard Ben today saying, "Say 'socks', Kate. Lemme hear the 'ks' sound." I had to laugh. He was being so sweet:)

One month and counting...

The first time we met her - I gave her the cookie!

"Dude, make this woman stop touching me."

I met my daughter one month ago today. I thought that waiting for Kate was a roller coaster ride, but it's got nothing on actually being with her. In the last month she has hated my guts, tolerated me, ignored me, laughed at me, sought out my attention, pushed me away, loved me, taken my hand, taken my heart, kissed me, screamed at me, cried on my shoulder, asked me for comfort, asked me to go away when she needed comfort, and the list could go on and on. And through everything, I am constantly amazed at God's hand in all of this. He is the creator of families, and he is teaching me about what that means.

More on that another day. Right now I want to give an update on the past few days. We saw an International Adoption doctor on Wednesday where they drew a lot of blood, asked me to collect stool samples, and other fun and exciting things. We also saw an OT. Basically, everything looks good so far, with the exception of her speech and her ongoing ear infection. She is on her third round of antibiotics, and she has had it with the meds. Tomorrow she will be assessed by a early intervention specialist, who will help us to determine what types of therapies she is a candidate for.

I have had a lot of interesting questions and comments lately about Kate NaNa's cleft and speech (ok, some of them were interesting & some of them were just silly), so I thought I might fill in some blanks for those who are curious. A month ago, all we knew was that she had a repaired cleft lip and an unrepaired cleft palate. That is still true, but we do know a bit more now. For example, her cleft is complete, meaning that it goes from her gum line all the way back to the back of the soft palate. Food sometimes comes out of her nose, but she is pretty good at controlling that sort of thing. It seems to be a wide cleft, although I really have nothing to compare it to. As for her lip, I am not convinced that the muscles were connected when they did the repair, but it is possible that she has just never learned to use those muscles. I don't see any movement where that scar is. We will see the cleft team next month, and after that we will have a better picture of when the surgery will take place, and how many there will be (I am guessing multiple).

Because of all of this, she cannot suck out of a straw, bottle, or sippy cup. (She has no interest in the bottle or sippy, but she is dying to use a straw.) She cannot make most consonant sounds. She cannot speak in English (except for a few things) or in Chinese (except for a few things). However, she is extremely smart, and understands most of what I say. Around the house, we have developed this weird language that is a combination of English, Chinese, ASL, made-up signs, and pointing. She speaks to me through a combination of sounds and signs.

The ASL is saving my sanity. Literally. She can now sign bath, cold, cookie, hot, sleepy, milk, cracker, ice cream, apple, more, and candy. And she knows when I sign clean, dirty, drink, and play. And I am sure there are some I am forgetting. We are trying to get her to say our names with sign. We have even made up signs to represent Ben and Will. The only problem I have had is that all of the Signing Time videos are checked out or lost from the library, so I went last night and put in a request that they buy more. Libraries rock.

I would love to write more - about the boys and how amazing they are, about attachment issues and adoption, and about what she likes and dislikes. Not to mention just ranting about things I think are annoying about life. But I find that I stay exhausted. I come here for a creative outlet, but I don't have the energy for much. Two year olds are busy little people. Continue to pray for us. We are having a fantastic week, and I am so thankful for my family. I tear up just typing the word family. Ben told me today that he is so glad that we are finally all together. Man, he kills me. Have I mentioned that I love my kids???Staying up late with Daddy

Do you know sign language?

One of the most frustrating parts of my life right now is that I know that Kate NaNa has a million things to say, and no way to say them. She is so smart, and she is understanding more and more of what we say in English. She usually has to grab my hand and take me to whatever it is she wants. But let's face it, in a house with three kids, and housework out the whazoo, I can't always drop everything to try to figure out what it is that she wants. I feel like it turns into a guessing game where she eventually just picks one of the choices I give her, simply out frustration with me. I know it won't be like this forever, but until we can get her the surgery that she needs and speech therapy, communication is a huge issue.

So, this past week, we have introduced sign language into our home. It's something that I always thought was a great idea to use with kids, but I just never got around to doing it with the boys. According to the sales pitch, signing with young children can reduce temper tantrums, increase IQ, and increase vocabulary. And for our family, it is a necessary form of communication. Kate's cleft palate simply won't allow her to say many words. So now, I have a great motivation!

We are learning ASL from a series of videos called Signing Time. It is a PBS show geared towards kids, so it is simple enough for old people like me to learn. There is lots of music to hold the kids' attention, and the boys are picking it up like crazy! I can't believe how quickly they are learning simple signs. Kate is also learning how to communicate with us. So far, she has learned the signs for banana, milk, more, cookie, and hungry (do you notice a trend here?). We are so pleased that she can ask for what she wants (when she wants one of the above things:). The library has 5 episodes, and we have only watched 2. I think it won't be long before we have to ask them to purchase some more! For those of you interested in learning more, click on the link above or ask your local library if they have/will purchase the Signing Time videos.