National Adoption Month

Natural Child: Any child who is not artificial.
Real Parent: Any parent who is not imaginary.
Your Own Child: Any child who is not someone else's child.
Adopted Child: A natural child with a real parent who is my own child.
November is National Adoption Month but our family is blessed by adoption every month! (Borrowed from Beth Gore and P. J. Wolfarth.)



Things to think about:



Every 15 SECONDS, another child becomes an AIDS orphan in Africa



Every DAY 5,760 more children become orphans



Every YEAR 2,102,400 more children become orphans (in Africa alone)



143,000,000 Orphans in the world today spend an average of 10 years in an orphanage or foster home



Approximately 250,000 children are adopted annually, but…



Every YEAR 14,050,000 children still grow up as orphans and AGE OUT of the system



Every DAY 38,493 children AGE OUT



Every 2.2 SECONDS, another orphan child AGES OUT with no family to belong to and no place to call home



I really never thought about the stats on orphans until I was blessed to call one my son. I always knew we would adopt a little one. It is hard to believe that 3 years ago our lives would change. DH said yes to bring LM into our family. The following is some scripture about orphans and openig our hearts:



"Once our eyes are opened, we cannot pretend we don't know what to do. God, who weighs our hearts and keeps our souls, knows that we know, and holds us responsible to act." Proverbs 24:12



"I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you."
John 14:18



"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."
James 1:27

One Year Post & First Day Of School

July 13th 2010 came and went by fast. We were on a houseboat trip on Lake Powell. LM really liked the houseboat. He cried going on and cried going off. He really open up on this trip. I do not think he even had any thought on it being his anniversary day with our family. He was having a trip and he was having fun. Even about two months later he is still building houseboat out of his legos. It seemed like he was waiting for his one year anniv. to open up. He talks constantly ever since. Even on our other vacation trip he opened up to all the family members. Will add picture once I get a chance to download them. Having the kids for the summer was hard work and now need to get back to organizing house again.

Today was the first day of PreK for LM. He went in crying and screaming. Hopefully it will be like the houseboat trip and he will be talking to the teacher in no time. He did not talk to his preschool teacher so I am hopeful he has decided to talk to these teachers. I asked for one I knew he was familiar with. Time will tell. He does not do well at first with change. But once he is comfortable he will relax. This is a lot of new things which makes it hard. New teachers, new classroom, new playground, new toys and some new kids. I will know once I pick him up tonight.

Interesting Comments

DH has been getting a lot of comments lately while taking our son out. Once he went to get his hair cut with both kids and the barber asked when did he get rid the first wife and get an Asian one.

The last one that I really find interesting was when he was in line at Disney California Adventure. I had the DD at another ride and he was at Monsters Inc. A lady in line asked him what ethnic background was his wife. DH answered German/Danish decent and yes he is adopted.

It is somewhat nice they think DS is his bio son but I think it will be hard on him as he gets older. Maybe I am taking this out of context but he can't talk for himself now and I see he reacts to it when DH retell me about these comments.

Hearing Checked

It has been awhile since I have posted. Been busy with everything. Theo had his hearing checked again and it is in normal range. He does not need to see an ENT outside his cleft team. Even though we have a daughter with a cleft, you never know what each child will have. We are thankful that only Theo lip and gum line are affected. He will not have the ear issue like his sister. When our daughter was born we knew nothing about cleft lip and palate. She is an inspiration to me to see how much a champion she is at the doctor office. She set such a great example for her brother. She is the reason for her brother and what we would accept in a child. It is sad to think she will have more surgical procedures than him but she has been blessed with the gift of patience when sitting in a doctor chair as they poke and probe her. I am learning lessons from her just as my son is. He adores his sister and she is starting to adore him. It is sweet to see the two of them together. I have been blessed and thank him everyday for these two blessings, one by birth and one by adoption.

Two Years Ago

It is hard to believe that 2 years ago we said yes to adopt a little boy. The process took longer than anticipated but with our first Thanksgiving with him, the wait does not matter any more. We are so thankful for our son and what a joy he has brought to our lives. Princess is still not that thrilled with him but is slowly warming up. She sometimes will comment on the cute things he does. We are also excited that he decided he liked his toddler bed and sleeps in his own room. We found out that he did not like the rails on the bed. This all happened on Thanksgiving. He did wonderful at the dinner and it was great to see that he has not lost his Mandarin. At his preschool, one of the teacher known Mandarin and will talk to him in Mandarin if she thinks he does not understand the English directions. He also has a couple of classmate who first language is also Mandarin so it has helped him know that he is not the only one. He really like the little girl and will say her name when he sees her. It is hard to believe he has only been with us for 4 1/2 months. Times flies when you are having fun. It has not been all kick and giggles but the good times out weigh the troubled ones and his adjustment is going fine. A lot of things are just typical three old behavior and to be expected until language skills are better, They have improved and we will hopeful get a good evaluation with the speech therapist in a couple of weeks. He still will only talk for us and takes awhile to warm up to other but we had a good breakthrough on Thanksgiving and are hopeful.

Celebrate and Big Boy Pants

This week has been better! We had a dentist appt and everything went fine! NO CAVITIES!!!!! A time to celebrate. We also while waiting for PT to get out of school got some big boy underwear and have been wearing them the rest of the week! Since he picked them out, that was the trigger for him! Yeah! Next goal to be accident free for a week!

Seven Weeks Home

We have survived being home for seven weeks. It is hard to believe that much time has passed. We are having more good day versus challenging ones. I wish I could say everything is great. I will be honest. I got to learn to let go of some things. Language barrier is one I need to just be a little more understanding. I know he understand a lot and is really starting to mimic but he needs more time. I hoping once he gets in a classroom setting he will have more immersion and this will help. He repeat a lot of words and we can understand his attempts but most people cannot. He was evaluated by the Plastic Surgeon and he says everything looks great. Will probably do a revision before kindergarten. We will have his team meeting on October 1st and will post more about that later. We keep getting the run around to have him evaluated by the school district. We were schedule to have a meeting the 11th but they asked if we could postpone until the 25th. I voiced my frustration and told them I will just wait for the team meeting before coming to them. Maybe I should give them the benefit of the doubt but I send my DD to private school because of the things CA schools do. Yes we live in a area with good schools but I worked for LAUSD as a consultant for 8 years and saw the waste and know more than I should about my local district. I realize they are working with the limited budget that they get and I know it is beyond their control. I digress! So will call after October 1st and will try again later. I have him in a gymnastic to help with his gross motor skills and we have all the Speech Therapy tools when PT did speech. He does not seem to have any issues there just needs immersion.

PT is getting to like her brother more. She is tolerating him and even saying he is cute when he does certain things. I should have spent more time reading on her transition than his. This has been most of my struggles. I try and remember that she had 6 1/2 years of our undivided attention and now has to share. I knew she would regress but how she regress was not expected.

Thankfully I am reading other adoptive moms struggles and it has helped me with my issues. As I said earlier I need to learn to let things go. Being a Project Manager for a number of years, you always learned to solve problems. But LM problems are not a easy fix and time is the best. I really miss having some me time and am trying to work some in. I forgot how busy we are once school starts. PT has gymnastics and music outside of school. We are working on time schedule that works. The kids have decided that the 15 minutes Mom has in the morning to herself is a no go. They keep waking up earlier each time I wake up earlier and I have given up that so begging hubby to take them when he gets home but again PT schedule interferes with my me time. At least I have the hour she is in gymnastics this gives me some time with other adults. Things will come with time. I just need to get a good schedule going. Then I will work out my issues. At least I can say I have not gained any of the weight I have lost during the trip to China. I am getting more exercise with this one. He keeps me on my toes. He also likes to take walks but not everyday. He really likes the jogging stroller and that helps with me getting more exercise too. I get an upper body work out pushing the stroller up the hills we live in. Problem is the air quality is not so good with the Station fire. We do not live that close but the jet stream brings ashes and debris our way. You can see ashes on the car some mornings. So far my allergies are not flaring to bad.

Potty training is my other item which is slow in coming. We were told he was potty trained and just had a pull-up for travel. Well he regressed which was to be expected. When you think that we is ready to go again, he takes a few steps backwards. He is just too comfortable in a pullup and too busy to go to the restroom. He also drinks a lot of water and seem to need to urinate every 15 minutes which also has made pullup easier for him since he does not have to stop and go. I tried training pants and after the 4th clothing change before lunch I decided he is not ready. The preschool we want to send him requires that he be potty trained and can not send he there until he is. Due the dependent care deduction that DH has we need to get him into preschool as soon as possible. I do not want to make this an issue and will give him the time he needs. So I am research other preschool which will take him without being potty trained.