Merry Christmas

 

Hopefully everyone had a very Merry Christmas!  This year was extra special to have Matt celebrate his first Christmas with us.  We attempted to keep things lower keyed, but there is only so much low you can go with Christmas.  He adored opening all the presents.  He started his present opening a few days before Christmas at Grandma's house.  She let him open a few stocking stuffers and he was pretty excited with the Kleenex he received - little did he know what was waiting!

 

Brother time

These two cousins were not only adopted within a few days of each other this year but they also shared their first Christmas together

 

Akron Tuba Christmas - Shelby was one of 500 tubas and baritones to play

after 40 shots - finally a good one!

One of many family pictures - mom got a little cut off as she slid into the picture after setting the timer

Mom and daughter traditional matching jammies

Robbie's new paint ball gun - yes that is why many of our tree trunks have orange paint on them

...they had just settled down for a long winter's nap

Marching Band practice with cousin Leland

December & November Catchup

Making Advent ornaments

Big Boy Coat

A way too ugly sweater

Playing Choo Choo with his monkeys and a choo choo even gets to ride on the choo choo

Costume fun at Adventure Village

 

wise men from the East...

Drumming for Hill's Birthday

Hill's 1980's 29th Birthday



This boy can rock the sled - he has figured out to wiggle the sled till it started moving down the hill.

Mom and Matt selfie

What you pack to take a nap...

 

Daddy's Birthday

Most Outstanding Band Senior

Way too much with a package of mustaches

Decorating his first Christmas Tree



Celebrating cousin Cassidy's 19th Birthday. 

Drumming pants and candy canes

All this boy's joy - his football jersey, his drumming pants and a monkey playing the cymbals toy filled with dean (how he pronounces candy).  Robbie continues to wear shorts during winter and little man wants to do everything big brother does.  So in order to get Matthew to wear pants, I call athletic pants "drumming pants" - hence the 20 minutes to get dressed in the morning is now 4 minutes.  Happy Matt ~ Happy momma! 

  I have also now had to move the dean (aka candy) in the house to a much higher spot.  Matthew is able to get the stool and help himself, especially when I am on the phone ( there is a certain Childrens hospital in Akron, Oh that has completely messed up Matthew's medical billings.  They work amazingly fast to collect money, refunding someone's money, this is a different story.  We are on the phone a lot!!). I digress though... It appears candy canes may have a laxative effect eaten in large quantities. 

                                     

Bandages Off

On Sunday evening, Matthew was playing.  Jeff saw him walk buy with his drain tubing hanging loose.  Since the drain came apart a lot, no big deal... an then he saw the hanging part was the part that was supposed to be inside his face.  Oh yuck!  I have been so thankful for that emergency surgery back in July, it really prepared me for this surgery.  While everyone freaked out, I did not because I had already seen the surgeon pull out the last drain and knew what to expect.  I still called the doctor on call and he reassured me that as long as he wasn't bleeding profusely he was ok till his appointment the next day.  

I had been trying to loosen all the bandages before his appointment, but Matthew quickly would let me know "doctor do it".   After fighting with him, I was very happy to let the doctor just do it.  When it got down to it, Matthew was not so much... So far the incision looks pretty good.  It will take 6 months for all the swelling to come out and he will have to wear a strip across the the main incision for the next 3 months.  His face is on the harder side and still swollen,  but we have also been instructed to massage his face and incisions several times a day.  We have to use scar cream and sun screen, did you know little guys love to be chased around to have stuff put on their faces??  It's very hopeful, that after a year that his scar will just be a little noticeable.  

We have just started venturing out and all the looks he gets are a little uncomfortable.  I am thankful that he doesn't seem to notice the stares.  It's amazing even the littlest kids pick up on that there is something going on.  At the clinic, we even overheard a little boy call matt scary.    I totally understand, but it's still hard when it's happening.  I wish I had the time and energy to explain to each person - Matthew's amazing story, but really I just want to push my cart out of walmart and get home. The funny part of me wants to say "You should see the other guy, he wasn't so lucky...". I have been stopped and asked directly about his face by two different older asian men, and I have been more than happy to explain to them.  In many other cultures, it is considered to be cursed to have birthmarks or other markings on the face.  I fully want them to know the amazing outcome of this so called curse.  

Through all of this Matthew has not seemed to mind all that has gone on with his cheek.  I was worried we would have to keep his hands off of it, but it was never a problem.  His worst discomfort has really been from a rash of all things. If you ask him what hurts, he never mentions his face.  I have seen the pictures of half of face peeled off and flopped over to one side, but the crazy rash is what keeps us up at night???

                             

One last thing... this past weekend we received some pictures from the man we met at the SCC concert.  He had pictures of Matthew when he was 14 months old at Maria's Big house of Hope.   I would take these few photos over a mound of diamonds, rubies and pearls any day.  And again, Matthew is wearing something we would have dressed him in, we had almost the identical outfit for Robbie. We were grateful it wasn't pink like all of his outfits from the state orphanage. 

Snow Footballs

We had our first real snow for the year. Matt is still bandaged up and hooked to a drain for another week.  He isn't exactly looking winter chic in his hodge podge snow clothes - time to get some new snow pants and boots. It turned out to be great snow to make snow ball (or snow footballs as Matt called them).  I made him a mini snowman which lasted all about 3 minutes before momma's little angel knocked him over.  He is still playing on the porch by himself while I watch through the window.  Every few minutes he knocks on the door to hand me a new snow football.  Of course since he is 2, he also had to try and eat the snow - he was not a fan - yuck!

And A birthday shout out to Jeff and my Mom!  Matthew is going to feel like it's his birthday - having Chinese food for dinner :)

Getting Better

 

Matt has turned a corner, this second surgery really seemed to help. He is still has some swelling, particularly in the area next to his mouth where the biggest chunk was removed.   I don't know what this kid is going to do in a few months and he has so much room in his mouth.  Monday he is going to have the tape and drain removed, we will have a much better idea how things are healing.  Hopefully we should have the results of his biopsy.  The swelling should come completely out and the cheek should lie flatter in the next months. His facial muscles should get back to working better, too.   Incisions still make me queasy, and they are heartbreaking on my beautiful boy's face.  I have been more than relieved to have them covered this week.  His cough is doing much better and he has also been fever free. 

 

Matthew has somewhere picked up to call me mommy all of sudden?? It sounds a lot like his version of monkey (mut-me).  He and I went back and forth 30 times while I brought him every monkey in the house.  He kept getting madder when I obviously wasn't getting what he wanted and leaving the room to boot.  We finally asked "mommy??" - to which we got "YEEESSSSS". 

 

Matthew has become super attached to me these past weeks, rightfully so, but we will need to transition back through that in some time.  His new fascination is with watching drummers on Youtube.  We originally started watching Chinese drumming groups, but he has a definite preference for American marching bands.  He has gone through 2 toy drums in the past week and I think we finally have a half way decent one for him to jam on, some days I wish it would break ;) When he isn't drumming, he has been cutting up paper.  He awed the child development staff at the hospital as he cut up piles of paper while we waited for surgery.  They even came back and asked if he really was two years old.  Matt sometimes forgets the correct word for scissors and calls it a knife.  Nothing like having your two year old request a knife from his diaper bag in front of someone...

 

Thanks again for all the prayers, messages, love, cards, gifts and food that has been graciously given to us in the past two weeks.  We have been blessed beyond measure.  We have been through the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, but are coming out on the other side better for it all.  I have become very grateful for our hospital stay back in July, it certainly gave me a small taste of what to expect.  Otherwise, I think I would have been completely overwhelmed with so many new things thrown on us at once.  Most importantly, we are so grateful to all of you that have embraced Matt, how amazing to go from someone who had nothing, to someone who has it all. 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Another Zip!

Shelby has been accepted at the University of Akron for Fall 2014 - yaaayyy!  This girl has been talking about going to Akron since she was in single digits.  She even received some unexpected scholarship money to go there.  So far her intention is to go into elementary education, there isn't a person more suited.    As you can tell from our pictures, we have not tried to have any zip influence on her...