How's It Going?

So every day gets a little better.  By that I mean that with every day we get a little more accustomed to life with Joshua and he seems to get a little more comfortable with us.  He's a few updates on random topics:

• Sleep: We're all back on Houston time and have a schedule pretty well worked out that works for the kids.  When we keep the schedule, things go pretty smooth.
• Eating: Joshua ate everything in site when we got him and when we brought him home.  He never made himself sick but he clearly had/has a concern that the food will run out at some point.  He's getting better about this every day.  It probably helps that at our house there's an abundance of food in plain sight at all times and I'm not really the type to let us go more than 4 hours without eating something.  We still have a ways to go in this department though.
• English:  He's starting to repeat a few english word and he clearly understands several others.  He's coming along, I'm sure he'll be up-to-speed before we know it.
• Chinese:  Got a few leads on folks that we might be able to use to speak chinese with Joshua so that he can continue to build on what he already has in the way of speaking/understanding chinese.  If you're out there and you know of a student (or anyone really) that is a native chinese speaker (mandarin, not cantonese) and has time to come visit with Joshua for about an hour a week let us know.  It would be good for him and for us.
• Health:  One round of blood-draws are behind us.  Still at least one more to go.  I think Heather will take him on the 26th for the second.  Some of the initial tests have revealed that he has an intestinal parasite.  Not really that uncommon for children in his situation.  Got the drugs and started treatment on that today.  We've also setup appointments to meet with several specialists, will let you know how all that turns out.
• Baths:  Joshua likes taking baths now (was totally scared of the bath at first, also didn't like for his hands to be wet).  He still doesn't like it when water runs over his face but hopefully he'll get over that in time too.
• Bugs and Leaves:  Joshua is petrified of bugs and leaves and sticks and anything that gets on him.  I think he's just never seen many of these things as there wasn't really any plant life around his orphanage and he spent most of his time inside where the bugs were limited.  I presume he'll get over this in time as well.
• Lora:  Joshua loves his sister and is usually kinda distressed about her whereabouts when she's not in view.  They play together well although Lora is a bit rough for him and she gets a little too wound up some times.  Generally he does whatever she does which is good and bad.

Tomorrow is Christmas.  It's not actually Jesus' birthday but it is the day we celebrate the birth of Christ.  I hope you have a wonderful day, more importantly I hope you know what it means that the God that created the universe came to us in the form of a child so that he could buy our eternal freedom with His own life.

Let Us Know if We Can Do Anything For You...

We've had a lot of folks make the statement above (or something similar to it).  I usually don't know how to respond in those situations primarily because I don't have the normal allotment of social skills which is part of why I'm an engineer.  Heather's also commented to me that she's not always sure how to respond to the invitation.  We're not actually in need of anything even though there are things people could do that would make our life easier or that would help us in some way.

So, for those out there that want to know what you can do for us I decided to just put it out there.  Here are some items on our Christmas list!

1. You can pray for Joshua.  He's only been out of the orphanage for 16 days.  He has many adjustments to make and praying that he comes to understand that we're his parents is important.  Also he has a few surgeries to come, many Dr's appointments, blood draws, and a new language to learn.  Thinking more long-term, he'll forever be the recipient of staring because of his hand.  And, he'll have to overcome certain physical limitations that many of us will never understand.  Further, some day he'll have to come to grips with the fact that his birth parents abandoned him, etc...  So you can pray for him.
2. You can do for us any of the things you would normally do for new parents to help them out or make their life easier as they adjust to a new family member.  We've already received many gifts for Joshua and a meal was brought to us the night we got home all of which was very much appreciated and sooooooo helpful.  It has been hard for us to get unpacked and put back together and ready for Christmas with the jet lag.  But it is getting smoother and our routine is getting back to something that resembles normal.
3. You can overlook the fact that we didn't get every one a Christmas card or even send you an email this Christmas.  We are really behind.  We just got the tree up and had the kids decorate it.

Let the Appointments Begin

Yesterday was our first in what will turn out to be many Dr. Appointments.  Met with our Dr. at the Texas Children's Hospital Retrovirology Clinic for International Adoption.  The doctor looks after his physical needs and is tuned-in to the nuances of adoption so she also looks after his behavioral needs.  All-around she said Joshua appeared to be attaching to us very well and his physical development was very good given his orphanage background.  No issues found that we didn't already know about.  Good news!

The Dr. there set Joshua up for a bunch of blood work, the usual specimens to check digestive function, and several referrals to specialists for his hearing, head, hand, hernia, etc...  So we're going to have a lot more Dr. appointments in the near future and a hernia surgery hopefully not too long in the future.  He and Heather are out to the lab right now to get some blood drawn

(The lab at TX Children's tried to draw blood yesterday, it was a disaster.  We were in a bit of a time crunch because we needed to go get Lora from School.  We told them about the time and they said it wouldn't be a problem that they would be done pretty fast.  They weren't fast.  Our Dr. ordered a topical cream to numb his arm a bit so it wouldn't hurt so bad, the lab said they wouldn't be applying that.?.  When they finally took us and tried to draw his blood the lady couldn't get into his vein.  She kept rooting around and finally called someone else in to help.  The other lady felt around and advised the first to root around some more.  The second lady then commented that she thought they had blown the vein and might need to start over.  Heather's blood pressure had been climbing the whole time we were there, Joshua was OK with the stick but the rooting around was not for him, once they commented that they thought they might've blown it we had to shut them down...  Thanks but no thanks.  So she's taking him to another lab today.)

I think we're about over the jet-lag as well.  Joshua has slept through the night twice in a row now and Lora only woke up once last night.  We seem to be settling in to something that resembles a schedule.

The social worker came by today as well.  We have to submit a post-adoption report within one month of receiving Joshua (January 3rd).  Not sure what they can know this early but whatever.  We'll have another visit from the social worker at 6 months and 12 months.  Then I think it's finally a done-deal.

Super Sunday

Yesterday we got up and got everyone dressed for church.  Managed to make it on time, small miracle.

Lora sang in the children's musical performance.  Her age group formed a live nativity, she was a donkey.  Many people came by to say "welcome home", "congratulations", and to see Joshua - all of which was expected and welcome.  Joshua was a little clingy but why wouldn't he be.

Lora did great.  Joshua sat with me the first hour so Heather could watch Lora.  He sat quietly and ate cheerios through the whole performance.  The second hour Heather and I switched and he fell asleep.  Lora did great again.

That evening we got the Christmas tree out and put it up (decided to stick with the artificial tree this year).  The kids hung most of the ornaments which means there are about 20 ornament hanging on the same branch and many ornament hanging from other ornaments.  I hung a few up higher at Lora's request.  The tree looks like it could fall over at any moment but it's a small tree so it won't hurt if it does.

Afterward we got everyone in their PJ's and were about to settle in to watch a movie when Joshua indicated that he needed to go to the bathroom for the 25th time (I didn't actually count but we average a bathroom trip every 20-30 minutes while at the house.  Our western 'cuisine' is a little hard on his gutt, if you know what I mean).  Anyways, his first bathroom trip of the day is usually pretty substantial but after that he usually has very little, if anything to offer when we go to the bathroom - so I wasn't in a rush.  As soon as I pulled his pants down he passed gas and effectively blew out his rear end all over the place  **Sigh**  Put him in the bath, cleaned up the mess, Heather cloroxed the bathroom, new pajamas and we were back in business.

Bedtime was rough.  They both fell asleep while watching the movie.  Rather than waste time we killed the movie early, put the kids in bed and went downstairs to get ourselves in bed.  We were in bed about 5 minutes when he started crying (He doesn't like for us to lay him in his crime and he gets upset if he wakes up and finds that we have layed him in it which is a little weird because he wasn't like that while we were in China).  Anyways, after several failed attempts to lay him in his crib, his bed, and the pack-n-play, we gave up and put him in bed with us.  Finally got him calmed down and asleep.  Lora started crying...  **Sigh**  Heather ended up "sleeping" with Lora and I slept with Joshua the sweaty bed hog.

Today we were a bit more anal-retentive when it came to watching the clock for wake-up time, nap time, eating time, etc...  We're gonna get this thing straightened out.  I'm tired.

A Few More Pics from China

Saw these signs near China's equivalent of the White House.  Apparently it's not allowed to have something on your car that explodes.  Makes sense.

We saw several signs along the way that seemed to either indicate things that we couldn't figure out or just indicated the obvious.  While touring the Summer Palace we saw a board full of signs near one of the entrances.  It included signs that indicated that firearms were prohibited, pets were prohibited, fishing was prohibited, etc...  There was also a sign that showed a building that was exploding at it's base, all with a line through it.  The only thing we could figure is that they were indicating that destroying the buildings with explosives was not allowed.  I would've thought that went without saying but why take a chance.

When we visited the Great Wall there was a map at the entrance that showed where things were at that particular location.  Of course it was written in chinese but with english subtitles.

In the closeup shot below you can see that if you are one with the universe, you can be everywhere at once...

Technical Details

I went back and re-upped all the pics and added a couple extras.  They should all be working now, if not then I give up.

Also, we both appreciate all the positive feedback we've gotten about the blog, the pics, and about Joshua in general.  Part of the reason we did this was so we could inform as many people as possible about our adoption process without having to re-answer the same questions 10,000 times.  It also serves as a historical reference for us and Joshua later in life.

Several folks have inquired if we'll keep posting updates.  My intention is to continue adding updates for some time until we reach some sort of status-quo around here.

Sleepyheads

After getting up in the middle of the night we all went back to bed at 6:00 yesterday for a "nap".  Got up from our naps at 2:00 pm.  Managed to keep the kids awake for the afternoon and even squeezed in a trip to the neighborhood park.  Had dinner out (see note on this below), came home and did our best to keep the kids awake for awhile.  Didn't want them to go to sleep too early in the hopes that is we kept them up a bit they might sleep until morning.

Lora developed a headache and laid down on the couch.  She started nodding off but didn't want to go to her bed (which is not necessarily normal).  By 12:00 we got Joshua laid down and Lora agreed to put her pajamas on and go to bed.  While changing her, she got sick and threw up on the carpet.  By the time we got her cleaned up, the carpet cleaned, and her back in bed it was 1:00ish.  Took a little while to get her settled as her headache had worsened and she was running a slight fever.  Heather and I finished cleaning everything up and got ourselves ready or bed by 2:00.  Joshua woke up about that time crying.  We tried to lay with him but he was inconsolable.  After about 30 minutes Lora woke up from the crying.  Lora and I went downstairs to try and sleep while Heather took Joshua-duty.  He cried and cried and she tried everything.  Lora and I went to sleep about 3:30.  Joshua finally calmed down and he and Heather went to sleep about 4:30.

So of my three goals for yesterday here's where we stand:

1. Get unpacked - We unpacked about 1 suitcase.  Baby steps.
2. Get the kids adjusted to the new time - I call an 8-hour nap an epic fail in this department.  Things are going better today though.
3. Eat at Angela's restaurant - Win!

Regarding eating out, it was so nice to eat dinner at a restaurant where:

• Napkins are provided.
• You get free refills on drinks.
• You can ask questions about the menu and get an answer that you understand.
• You can pay with a credit card.
• You don't feel like everyone's looking at you.
• There's an actual toilet if you need it, and they provide the TP, and a sink that works, and soap, and hand towels.

Today, we all got up at 8:30 to get Lora to her choir practice (the children's choir is singing in the church service tomorrow).  Right before we walked out the door she got sick again.  Reset everything.  Right now the three of them are napping.

It's hard to figure Joshua out sometimes.  As soon as we got home he was more willing to let me hold him, help him in the bathroom, etc...  It was like a switch was thrown.  Today he's wanted me more than Heather.  He also doesn't like for anyone to ever leave the room.  The only way for one of us to do something apart from him is to literally sneak out when he's not looking.  He also doesn't like to lay down when he sleeps.  I think it's really that he wants to be held b/c then he knows he's not been left.  I can't help but think that he's still so worried that we will leave him.  As far as he knows, everyone he's ever met in his life has left him (even though that's not necessarily the case).  I can't even imagine what kind of emotions and thoughts run through his little head.  So we just try to make sure he knows that we will always be here for him.