Attachment

For a child to develop normally it's imperative that they emotionally attach themselves to a caregiver.  Typically a child attaches to its parents quite naturally.  In the case of an adopted non-infant, one of the priorities of the new parents is to create an environment that helps the child attach to them.

For instance... Joshua was abandoned when he was approximately 2 months old - so he spent some time with some caregiver, more than likely his biological parents. He then lived in an orphanage for about 2 years where at least 4 different ladies cared for him.  No he lives with us.  You can understand that he might be a little confused about what it even means to have parents.

What's this all about....???

Joshua seemed to be bonding and attaching well with us so we've recently taken a few liberties.  For instance, at Lora's birthday party we let Joshua pretty much run free which means several people took the opportunity to hold him and/or feed him.  Didn't seem like a real big deal.  BUT TODAY.  Today we decided to try putting Joshua in the church nursery for the first time.  Heather stayed with him so that she could be there if he needed anything such as the bathroom.  Long story short, it appears he might not be as "attached" to us as we thought.  It seems we need to be a little more diligent about ensuring that Joshua doesn't get confused about who his parents are.

Sooooo, if you're one of the 6 people still reading this blog please don't be offended if I don't let you hold Joshua, or feed him, or really do much of anything for him.  It's not you, you're great.  My son just needs to understand that he has 2 parents, not 25 parents.

Chinese Tutors

So after a bit of looking around we've found a Chinese (mandarin) tutor.  Met her briefly tonight to discuss what our goals were and so she could meet the kids and better know how to teach them.  I think she'll work out good.  Joshua reacted well to her and chatted with her a bit in his native tongue which is good because I was getting worried about two things.

1. I was a little worried that he might not react well to someone speaking chinese to him.  Some families we know have reported that their children wanted nothing to do with people that spoke their native language to them.  Perhaps it reminded them of where they've come from.  The tutor spoke with Joshua quite a bit.  He was very responsive.
2. I was worried that he would start losing is chinese language skills very quickly if here never heard/used it on any kind of regular basis.  It was pretty obvious that he still understands and can speak chinese just fine.

Also, as it turns out, at least one other family is going to be learning mandarin with us.  They've adopted from China as well and Heather met them some time ago.  One day Heather was describing to them how we were looking for a tutor and they more or less said "we'd like to get in on that".  A third family has also expressed an interest in learning with us.  Altogether we make a regular class.

So, we start next week.  I'm excited.  It's should be interesting...


As a general update on other matters:

• Joshua is healing well from his surgery.  No problem and no pain.  Praise God for that!
• Joshua is getting comfortable enough with to throw temper tantrums and push our buttons.  This indicates that he feels very secure with us - he doesn't worry that throwing a fit will cause us to abandon him.  So that's encouraging even though it gets tiresome.

Post-Op Report

Joshua's surgeries went well although it took about 1.5 hours longer than they thought it would.  Apparently he had a lot of scar tissue inside from the first hernia repair.  Took them a while to sort it all out.

It took Joshua a while to wake up in the recovery room.  Once he did he was naturally thirsty and hungry.  The nurse gave him a popsicle, he ate three more.  Took about another hour for his SAT numbers to come up and stay where they belong and then we were out of there.  Here's a pic of him before he woke up.

The doctor said that for the next week or so it would look like a truck ran over Joshua's "stuff".  He was correct...  Thank goodness for drugs.  Probably still have a few rough days ahead as everything heals up.  It's kinda ironic because our Sunday School lesson this week covers Genesis 17.  At least Joshua had the benefit of anesthesia and a scalpel.

Snip Snip

It's surgery day.  As I write Joshua is in surgery getting his hernia repaired.  Although I don't enjoy having my child in surgery I'm also glad that he's finally getting this fixed.  It's a day I've been looking forward to since we first selected him to be ours.

While he's out they're also drawing some blood for more tests and giving him a little trim (you figure it out).

I'm a little curious if he'll notice the difference.  I hope not.  What a terrible introduction to being a Shanks: "Welcome home son, say goodbye to your jiblets".  Fortunately he's young enough that he's not likely to remember any of this...


The anesthesiologist asked us today if we want them to cut off his little fingerling nubbin (a skin tag on his non-hand that resembles the beginnings of a little finger).  **Mini panic. Wasn't prepared for that question.***  We said "no" even though we might eventually have it removed.  Waking up with that also missing might be a bit much for one day.

Here's a pic of Joshua in pre-op.

一个月后

Today marks one month since we first met Joshua face-to-face.  A lot has changed in a month, some has not.  Here's a recap.

What's basically the same...

• He still has a hernia.  We saw a surgeon at Texas Children's Hospital yesterday.  He agreed that Joshua definitely has a hernia (knew that, thanks), that it needs to be fixed, and that they clearly tried to fix it in China.  So this will be a re-do surgery which is slightly more complicated.  That's schedule for later this month, looking forward to getting all that tucked away.
• He is still missing his left hand.  Can't find it anywhere.
• He still speaks a mixture of actual chinese and gibberish chinese.  We've learned to understand a lot more of it but sometimes he just goes into a story and all I can say is "you got that right".  Typically 2 year-old, his thoughts exceed his vocabulary.
• We still don't have someone to speak chinese with him on regular basis.  I think we have a connection to a native speaker but he isn't back from vacation yet.  So, if you're out there and are a native Mandarin speaker (or know one) somewhere close to the NorthEast Beltway, let me know.
• He's still a food-hoarder although he's getting over it quickly.  Mealtime usually goes something like this:
• He asks for food A, we give it too him (presuming that food A is not junk, he loves his junk food).
• He asks for food B.
• We tell him to eat food A first and he refuses.
• We take food A away and give him food B - he gets upset.
• We give food A back and take food B away - he gets upset.
• We give him food B in addition to food A.  He holds food A close by while he eats food B.
• From this point forward he eats foods C thru X all the while holding on to food A.
• When he's finally finished eating everything else, we run out of food, or we cut him off, he then eats food A.

What's a little different...

• He understands a ton more english than he used to.  He now understands enough for us to tell him most of what we need him to know (stop, come here, go, no, yes, sit, stand, kiss, hug, etc...).
• His list of foods that he's willing to eat keeps expanding and expanding.  He's a good eater.
• He gets more and more willing to let other people get near him, touch him, speak to him, etc...  He loves other kids and love Lora.
• Up until about a day ago, he absolutely did not want to pee or poop in his pants.  In the last couple of days he's discovered that if he pees in his pull-up, it doesn't really make a mess or even make him wet.  ***Panic... All hands on deck.  We need him to continue thinking that wetting your pants is a terrible things to do.***  We returned fire with a switch from pull-ups to actual underwear.  He peed his pants once today and of course got very wet.  The rest of the day he was definitely letting us know when he needed to go to the bathroom.  Might've dodged a bullet.
• He's gotten a lot more stable on his feet and has gained a lot of confidence when it comes to negotiating the stairs, getting up and around in his bed, and just getting around in general.
• I'm back to work.  Feels kinda nice to be back in my routine although I'd rather be at home than at work.
• Found out a few weeks ago that he had an intestinal parasite.  Got some drugs and hopefully have that cleared up.

All in all this has been an interesting month.  Seems like we've had him longer but that's just how it is I suppose.

Just to close the loop on one other items... I mentioned earlier that the kids did most of the Christmas tree decorating and left the tree a little lop-sided.  We left it that way.  On Christmas morning Lora was reaching for a present and snagged her hair-bow on a branch and pulled the whole thing over.  Lost a few ornaments and destroyed the tree base.  Packed it all up that evening, first time I ever put the tree away on Christmas day.