Sunshine, Unicorns and Rainbows

 

We are closing in on two months together and yes it's all sunshine, unicorns and rainbows! Haha!!  Ok, I have carefully chosen pictures that don't show the messes around the house.  Matthew is sleeping through the night -  well not always, but at least in his own room. Thankfully there is a twin bed in there when he needs me to be there.  He is such a sweet sweet boy but he is 2 and trying to find his way in being part of a family and I am trying to find my way being a mom to a toddler again.  We make a pretty funny combination at times and it sometimes its hard to tell who has less patience - him or me :) At the end of most days we are exhausted, but we are in love with this little funny naughty monkey. 

 

We just celebrated his second birthday and he has grown 1 inch and gained almost 3 pounds in the past two months.  Matthew is saying around a dozen identifiable words and starting to sign some words, too. His favorite signs are "more please".   Funny enough he can whine at a very loud intensity, but he still says most words in a whisper.  His favorite foods are yogurt, fruit and chinese dumplings and he has never been known to turn down a cookie. 

 

He has had many medical appointments and evaluations with some more to come.  Matthew's eczema  has been flaring up for the past few weeks, especially on his normal cheek.  I can't figure out for the life of me why it doesn't affect his other cheek??? Family doctor was able to give us some new meds to clear it up and we pulled out the "puppet shirt" to help with the night time scratching. 

No this isn't a straight jacket, but a specially made eczema shirt passed down from Robbie when he was little and had eczema. It helps him safely scratch the itchy spots at night without breaking the skin. Surprisingly he doesn't mind wearing it.

  The developmental specialist feels he is only slightly behind his peers and expects him to catch up quickly.  She was really impressed with his receptive language skills but she wants us to work on  going up and down the steps and encouraging him using his voice.  We met with the surgeon and Matthew's sedated MRI is scheduled for mid April.  Most likely he will have at least one surgery this year to remove a large portion of the malformation.  He gave us the range of possible scenarios - best case that the malformation is close to the surface and in one piece (i.e. only a procedure or two) or worst the malformation is in several pieces and entangled in the bone, muscles and nerves (long term multiple difficult surgeries)   The malformation has been present since the womb and if it is not completely removed it will continue to grow with him his entire life. Since we really have no idea at this point, we just pray its the easier route. He is otherwise a very happy healthy little boy, we just wish he didn't have to go through so much.    

 

 

Shelby's best buddy when she has something good to eat

 

Did I mention what a good brother Matthew has? 

 

The best part of the day - when daddy comes home!!

 

 

 

Making Headlines... Family adopts son, blogs his experience

The Lantern - Revere High School - Family adopts son, blogs his experience

Matthew's Hometown

 

I have been thinking a lot about Matthew's life before us, since it was his birthday this past week.  It is easy to forget that he left a totally different life back in China for his new life here.  We weren't able to spend much time in his hometown, other than the short visit to his orphanage and police station.  He was so upset during our travel then, it is hard to remember what was even outside the windows of our van.  We made the hard decision not to make a second trip back to find his "finding spot" and visit with his nannies at Maria's Big House of Hope - we just felt it would have been too much for him.  I would make the same decision had I to do over again, but my heart is sorry that we don't have those memories or information for him.  I hope we can go back someday to fill in some of these gaps.  In the mean time, I found the sweetest video of Luoyang. 

 

 



 

 

2!

 

Our first day of spring little man is 2 today! 

Your weekly dose of cuteness

 

 

Momma's little helper

 

 

We need to get this boy some zips duds, too.  He is loving his big sister and brother and sits in the window waiting for them to come home.

 

 

I try not to encourage him to put bags around his neck, but this bag was positioned just perfectly!  Do you like the picture on the bag of the zombie Ragedy Ann?

 

 

 

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.