1 Month!

I cant believe it was one month ago that Matthew was placed into our arms and forever became ours. Life is so very sweet with him and ACTIVE!

We received Matthew's package from Show Hope this week. He spent time there from 3 months old till he was 17 months old, when he was sent back to the city orphanage. It included 80 pictures (these are the ones below) covering his whole stay at Maria's Big House of Hope and a Show Hope tshirt. I cried all afternoon. What amazing care our boy received and it shows through him today. For someone who was once an orphan to have a history of happy memories in pictures, what a priceless gift. Funny thing, I can't tell you how many of the clothes he is wearing in the pictures reminded us of clothing that we have for him or that Robbie wore as a baby. The floor in our house is even similar to the floors where he stayed.

There are a lot of Americans and Chinese people showing love to Matthew in the pictures. A lot of the people in his pictures are from church groups or young adult/teen christians who took a trip of their own time and expenses to China to spend time with the kids at Maria's. I probably shouldn't be surprised at Matthew's love of Christian music then? When we got close to the check point into Hong Kong, Matthew became very upset. It's kind of the last thing you want when two Americans are holding a Chinese toddler on their lap in the back of a van trying to cross the border out of communist China. We tried snacks and even used his socks as puppets - nothing lasted long. So very softly, I started to sing the all the songs we sing at Sunday school into his ear. He immediately calmed down and was very peaceful the rest of the time. Aother coincidence maybe??

Sadly, all the pictures taken during the last few months of Matthew from the disposable camera that we received from the city orphanage were exposed. Nothing turned out. I feel very bad for the manager of the photo place who had to give me the news. She sweetly asked if the pictures were very important? I know she felt terrible. The orphanage was part of his life, but hopefully all those other happy memories can cover those. Maybe that's not such a bad thing...

Thank you again - we are still overwhelmed by all the love you have shown Matthew and welcoming him so warmly. I am trying hard to keep the blog updated, I have lots more to share! Just not enough free time!!

Cheeky Little Fellow

We have almost been home 2 weeks and it finally seems like we are adjusting more to our new normal. Matthew finally started sleeping through the night - YAAAYYY! We figured out he really doesn't like blankets and he really needs to have the room of the crib to roll around. He must have steam rollered his cribmate in China. We raised our thermostat and placed him in multiple layers of pjs which now equals up 9-10 hours of sleep at night for Matthew and a momma who doesn't look like a zombie.

Matthew's "steam rollered" crib mate

Matthew and I really have a lot of fun together during the day. He loves to be on the climber and play with his Mickey Mouse band set. He is very silly and loves to give us kisses - quite the player! He knows everyone's names now, but when he was frustrated with us, he did call us "ayi" which is what he called his caregivers in china. I did forget what it was like to load a washing machine with a toddler stuck to your hip, but the my back sure is remembering! The other day ago, all three kids and I sat on the floor and played together. I think it was the first time that Matthew realized he was going to have to share me with Shel and Ro. He was rather sad after that and clung to me more than ever. Overall, Matthew is still not as trusting of females right off the bat. He is also very shy with new people, but I seriously see this kid as a comedian when he is older - what a funny combination.

 

 

 All that speech and hearing stuff filed away in the back of my head is having me notice that his cheek is sometimes affecting his speech though, but I am not sure how much of that is purely cheek and how much is garbled "chinglish".  Matthew also bites his tongue a lot too.   He does say a few single words very clearly, but phrases come out very mushy sounding. Receptively he understands 90% of what we say to him which astounds us after just 3 1/2 weeks with us.

We have our first appointment for his cheek at the end of March. It looks like Matthew's cheek is more likely a vascular malformation that is supplied by an enlarged group of veins - this is Dr Kelly's version of it.   His cheek does change color and size slightly during the day. It doesn't seem to hurt from what we can tell, but it is a possibility. He will need to have an MRI sometime soon to give us a better idea of its exact location and make up.   We are not very sure which procedures lay ahead for Matthew.  Surgery and or schlerotherapy (kind of like how they treat varicose veins) have been thrown out there - again I only play a doctor on this blog...  The ultimate goal is to get both sides of his face symmetrical.  I honestly forget about his cheek and oh is it so very sweet and mushy to kiss. 

Shelby and I hit asian market today and I was able to find several of Matthew's favorite foods and snacks from China. I was so excited!!! It was so funny to read the food labels for the snacks now in available in English to see what he was actually eating. Nothing too terrible or too nutritional for that matter. He was very excited too, to have a little bit of China here at home.

Settling in

There are so many other things I should be doing... Our house looks like it got hit with a toy bomb. Food on the floor. I haven't done my hair all week, but I am freshly showered - ahhh. Life is very good though. Family life is very much agreeing with Matthew. He has started to find his voice and talks more than just a whisper. Everything is "Mama Mama Mama" which is music to my ears. He points to his nose and can say "nose" to have his nose wiped. Matthew has tried several times to put on two pairs of pants at the same time which he can just about accomplish on his own. He is sleeping better, but somehow ends up in our bed around 1 am. He loves to go outside, I think he is amazed that there can be so much grass in one place and this is Ohio in February!

It is so cool seeing the new things that Matthew does each day. We would love to take credit for all his amazingness, but someone has definitely loved our boy during his early life in China. We are so thankful to the people at Show Hope and Maria's Big House of Hope, because they gave our boy hope, medical care and lots of love. They raised Matthew for 15 months of his life before he was transferred to the city orphanage run by the government. I sat at the table in tears yesterday thinking about all of this and Matthew came over to wipe my tears away. He loves to share his food with us and to have his boo boos kissed (which was so adorable until he bit his tongue).

We have been humbled by all the love shown to Matthew by all of you. Isn't amazing how someone so small can capture your heart? Sadly there are thousands of Matthews waiting in China. Some have asked why we didn't we just adopt a child from the United States? To us, all children deserve a family and our call to go to China was unmistakable for us. If you have ever stepped foot into an orphanage, you would never ever doubt the huge need there is. An orphanage is not place for children to ever live and I doubt you would have let your pets stay the night at the city orphanage that Matthew lived at the past 5 months. The orphanage care givers do their very best with what they have there, but it was so sad to see all those little ones (700+ children at this particular orphanage) in their cribs for the night by 5:30 pm. No one to kiss them good night and no one for them to call mama and baba.

I would like to ask you to pray for these little ones left behind. There are lots of sponsorship programs to consider, too. You can even take a volunteer trip to help at Maria's Big House of Hope. It took us 17 years to figure out that adoption was for us, so today is great day to start praying about it even if you think there is no way ever that it could be for you. Anyway, we encourage you to take a gander over to some web pages just to see some of the faces and to check out Show Hope.

http://www.ccaifamily.org/WaitingChild/WaitingChildProfile.aspx
http://www.hopefosterhome.com/babies/index.htm
http://www.showhope.org/OrphanCare/SpecialCareCenters.aspx

Home sweet home

So what does one do when their toddler is still on a much different time zone and wants to get up for the day at midnight??? And especially when you can't find the tv remote to change the station and are stuck watching "hey Arnold" the cartoon... You give the little man a bowl of Cheerios, eat your first breakfast of the day and update the blog, well at least until I figure out something different. Poor Jeff never slept the night before and finally gave up and got ready for work at 4 am. Jet Lag is brutal....

Almost as brutal as our 14 hour plane ride home. We mistakenly thought we had bulkhead seats, and we also figured since little man likes to be held a lot we wouldn't spend the money to buy him a seat. We also didn't figure that the people in front of us would recline their seats the entire 14 hours. The stewardess also handed us an extra life jacket to hold and a 55 gallon trash bag to store all our dirty diapers at our seat to go along with our two giant bags (with all the toys, snacks, diapers and extra clothes one needs for a 14 hour trip) that we already had to straddle between our legs. All the on demand movies, video games and tv shows we had on the way there, were replaced with a large screen communal movie screen four feet in front of our faces that continually blinked and showed images in double playing serial killer movies and scantily clothed people. Even if I was able to shut my eyes, I could still see the flashing screen from the inside of my eyelids. Actually Matthew didn't do too badly and he enjoyed our siestas to the airplane bathroom where he could take all the paper cups from the dispenser -it was sweet freedom just to stand for those short bits.

Well aside from the plane ride from H-E- double hockey sticks and the lack of sleep, Matthew is doing amazingly well. He still isn't very verbal, but he understands a lot of what we are saying. Our communication includes a lot of pointing, a little signing and grunting but for the most part gets the job done. He will even point to his butt if his diaper has a "surprise" waiting in it. Matthew has decided the fruit in Ohio isn't as good as the fruit in China - he won't touch our watermelon, apples or oranges. He does like soup with vegetables, so we just have make a trade off there for now. For the most part he is more trusting of men more than women - that is pretty common for kids who have had women in their lives that have let them down. Matthew was instantly taken with Robbie but Shelby is quickly gaining on him. His disposition is still very sweet and his smile will crack you up - what a cheese ball! He is a lot of fun and just a very loving little boy.

We have been blessed with some meals from family and our church family - this has been priceless!!! Matthew is also taking a nice nap in the afternoon and I am able to regain some of the lost sleep. I still can't believe he is finally home with us, it is so surreal and humbling - dreams do come true and prayers are really answered.

And last but not least...Shelby has been the lucky one to have her birthday in the midst of the chaos - my baby girl is 17! She is now able to have more than one non-relative in the car when she drives and she can watch the "serial killer" style movies that we could watch on the plane. She asked to get a Cedar Point pass for her birthday, so keep her in mind if you are headed up there to ride coasters. She is growing up to be an amazing person and we couldn't be more proud of her.

We're coming to America!!!

We are on the countdown to leave! We take off for a 3 hour van trip to Hong Kong this afternoon. We should be arriving in Chicago Friday where Matthew will become a citizen after a 14 hour flight. Please keep us in your prayers - and you are very welcome to come meet us at the airport in Cleveland. We have arrived late on every flight so far, so please check the flight status before you come. We will be on United Flight 5207 arriving at 4:19 pm Friday afternoon at Hopkins. Please take lots of pictures if you decide to come. I can't imagine what we might possibly look like after the long flight, probably a lot more gray hairs. We sure will be excited though!

He really is a sweet boy and a lot of fun. He is starting to shake his head to indicate no, but he stills grunts and points a lot. Matthew still really isn't into toys that much, he would much prefer to play with whatever is in the room. He is sleeping fairly well at night and still takes a few bottles of formula per day. He doesn't mind the sippy cup too much, so we will slowly transition there.

Once we are back at home, we will be hunkering down at home to give this boy as much routine as possible and to introduce his new brother and sister into the mix. Hope you will excuse us for awhile till we get him used to his new home and surroundings and learn to better communicate with each other. We are still very much in a transition phase, so there are a lot of things and behaviors that do occur that we would never have allowed with our biological children, but we are picking our battles carefully with him - please just smile right along with us :) He is doing much better in the food department, but he wants to eat anything he sees. We promise to join back into life very soon. He has spent his whole life having new changing caregivers come in and out of his life. Our hope is not to confuse him too much.

Pictures below are of our travel group picture time, a few random of Matthew and of the park near our hotel that is decorated for the Chinese New Year. I would have included the group picture of all the kids, but someone couldn't stop crying long enough to be a part of it.

See you all very soon and thank you for sharing this journey with us. I will post again before we leave china if we have time or a sleeping little guy. I will update for sure when we are back at home.

Monday in Guangzhou

Really branching out... We were even able to leave the hotel. In zhengzhou, we only left one time to go to Walmart. Matthew would get so upset if we left the room or even came back in. He was just so scared and we can only imagine what went through his little mind. So much is so new for him, too.

To think one week ago he was an orphan and this week he is staying at the Marriot with his mom and dad and an all you can eat breakfast buffet. I wish I could video tape him getting up in the morning. He has this very pensive look at first, rolls over and sees us and the look is priceless - huge grin and puts his arms in the air to be picked up. The other night ago, I had the side of the crib down while he slept so I could pat his back. I woke up to find him balancing on his knees on the top bar of the crib with a death grip around my head and shoulders.

He wants Jeff to hold him if he is unsure or scared -Baba is also the go to guy to play - isn't that what dads are for? I am the food mama, pretty sure he has gained a few pounds this week. Matthew likes to watch me clean bottles and wash out laundry in the sink (wont he be surprised that we have kitchen and laundry room for such things). He gets very chatty, only if one of us leaves?? He is feeling more comfortable to walk and not be carried everywhere and he thinks the stroller is ok, too. Several people have tried to come hold him, but he will not go. If will give you a fantastic smile if you give him something to eat.

I am a little puzzled to why this boy was all smiles and so willing to go with us when he was placed in the arms of two American strangers a week ago. That is not our boy at ALL. The album we sent was untouched so he had never even seen our pictures. I can only believe that he was so strongly covered in a lots of prayers.

So, while you guys watched the Superbowl, we were at the medical building. We had his physical today and everything was good to let him leave the country - IN 4 MORE DAYS! It was a long morning in a very warm building with 15 crying children. We headed out to Shamian Island with another family who has a little boy from the same province as Matthew to do a little souvenir shopping. Typically people on the street aren't too friendly and outgoing, but we made so many "new friends" with the store clerks. One of the shop keepers commented that our two boys must be from Henan province since they were so "strong" - that's shop talk for well fed.

We miss you all and cannot wait for you to meet Matthew. Tomorrow is a trip to the zoo!

Chatty Matthew