Home 3 months!

Hard to believe, but it's been 3 months to the day since we stepped off that plane, coming all the way from China, and bringing our little boy to his forever home. I look at him today and he is so amazingly different from the little guy we first met and spent two weeks with in China. He's changed so very much. His personality is stronger and he's such a gleeful, fun person. If I had to peg his personality temperament, he seems like he will be a leader. He is strong willed, and probably the most stubborn child I've ever met (although I'm sure any parent reading this is saying, "uh....you haven't met my child!"). I really think the strong will is to his benefit: he is adaptable and resilient.

So, we're spending the summer together, and it's great. I've been trying to take him (and sometimes Owen) to a different place to explore or see every few days. Not big events or anything, just some stuff to do this summer, which he's happy to do, but also just as content to be in our baby pool in the backyard. Easy to please, apparently. So far, we have been to the Roca Berry Farm, Morrill Hall, Aksarben aquarium, and Lee Simmons safari. (Safari? I question that a little. Safari implies, in my head, zebras, tigers, and elephants. This was more the Nebraska safari of a wild turkey, bison, and cranes. Oh, and we did see a wolf in a caged-off area.) Anyway, we've come away with new things to see, 10 lbs of strawberries, and time spent together and with friends. It's been a great summer so far--a true blessing of a way to spend our first 3 months home together, especially since things are about to change.

We met with the craniofacial team 3 weeks ago, in Omaha. It was a morning of meeting different specialists in the areas of hearing, speech, ENT, genetics, orthodontics, and plastic surgery. It was so great to be able to talk with so many people who were knowledgeable, could answer our questions, and come up with a plan. They did several tests and explained alot about future procedures and therapies. His hearing is diminished, which I had noticed some (OK, I thought it was just selective hearing!)but they determined he may just need tubes placed. So, the plan is to do his palate repair and place tubes at that time. This all goes down on Wednesday, July 16th, so, if you think of it, please pray for Caleb on that day. It would mean a lot.

He has also qualified for speech therapy through early intervention. We have a meeting about that next week. He really has been trying to use more words, and is getting the "ar" sound of "star" or "car". He has some stars on the wall of his room, which he frequently points to and tries to say "ar...." which ends up sometimes coming across a little more like a pirate sound, but, whatever. Otherwise, there aren't a lot of clear words coming from him, but we get his meaning most of the time. I'm sure he believes he's making sense because he babbles and gestures as if he is holding our rapt attention in conversation. One day, the words will start flowing and we won't be able to stop it!

Finally, our full time together this summer is limited, as I will be going back to work in August. The question I've been asked by many is, where? Good question. I'm still working out details, so I actually don't have an answer yet. I remember last year, happily gushing about my job interview for a school nurse position. Well, let's just say I hope to be telling all what I'm doing soon. I'll leave it at that for now.

I'll post some pics of our summer activities. Here's to many more summers ahead of us as a family!!!

Remembering the First Moments...

Guest Author: Russ

Well, its Father's Day, and I am feeling a bit sentimental.
It has been 3 months almost exactly that we first met our son.
I put together a little slideshow of "Gotcha Day",
- the day I became a Dad in real life.

Summertime

Well, Monday was my last day of work for the summer, so I'm off for the next two and a half months. It's a definite perk of working for the public school system. We're already feeling the hot, humid weather around here, complete with thunderstorms. A few days ago, I woke up to find what looked like a moderately sized tree in our side yard. It turned out to be a very large branch that had snapped off of the neighbors tree during the previous night's storm and was lying across the corner of their roof, taking up most of their yard, and part of ours. Caleb is doing great. He had a great time staying with my parents during the days that I was at school. We've got some plans lined up for the summer, but no big vacations or trips at this point (going to China was probably enough traveling for one year, I think). The next several days, though, we are busy with appointments. Tomorrow, we will have our first post-placement visit with the social worker. I'm not really nervous about it, except for maybe the behavior of our dog. He just gets a little too excited to see people sometimes. This social worker will be the same one who did our homestudy and visited us here a year ago. We were pretty nervous back then because we thought she had the power to make or break this adoption. In retrospect, it wasn't too bad at all. And this time....well, considering Caleb is now home, I don't think we have much to worry about.

Friday, we have a meeting with the craniofacial team at Boystown Research Hospital. The team consists of a plastic surgeon, an oral surgeon, audiologist, ENT doctor, speech therapist, nurses, and probably a few other people that I'm forgetting. Since a cleft lip and palate can affect several different functions, all of these will need to be evaluated and then a plan will be drawn up. We should be able to have his first surgery (palate repair) sometime this summer. So, that will be another part of our summer plans. While I'm not looking forward to seeing my little guy deal with post-op pain/recovery, it will be great to have it done. And, we won't have so much food coming out of his nose as often!

Here's a story related to his open palate: he doesn't really have the capacity to suck when drinking, so every time we get a sippy cup, we take the valve out so that he can just drink out of it. Recently, someone gave us some new-fangled ones that he really likes (complete with pictures of Lightning McQueen on them) though they don't have a valve. I don't know what it is....just a different kind of opening. Well, I put some milk in one and gave it to him to see if he could use it and I saw some milk in his mouth, so I figured hey, it works! Later in the day, we went to lunch at Chipotle. My friend Kris was putting green tabasco on her burrito and Caleb kept reaching for the bottle. He really wanted that tabasco. So Kris put a small drop on the end of his finger and let him try it. His eyes teared up, his face was red, he didn't know what to think. She offered him his sippy cup and he grabbed it and drank. It wasn't until we were home, several hours later, that I went to refill it. It was still full. Turns out, he wasn't really able to get much out of it at all. I felt terrible!! No wonder he was frantically trying to eat ice out of one of our empty cups at lunch. Once I switched it out, he guzzled two full cups. Poor thing!

In spite of that, he really is doing well, and we're looking forward to summer. We already have a toddler sized swimming pool that hasn't even made it to our backyard yet. Someone gave it to us as a gift and it is currently inflated and sitting in our living room. Caleb is excited even just having it like that--wait until he sees what it is really used for! I'm excited for his to have his first summer here and experience all the stuff that goes with it!