Since Allison won't let her kids buy her a present for Mother's Day I thought we would hack in to the blog (without her knowledge) and let her know how much we apprecaite all she does.
Chipmonk says "Happy Mother's Day. Your the best mom ever. You can do whatever you want today. I love you."
Monkey says "Happy Mother's Day. You rock. You can read your book today. I love you."
HotDog says "More milk please. I love Momma."
Pudding is just crying. His throat still hurts. But if he could talk I'm sure he would say that he loves Mom too.
Stu says "You are the greatest Mom in the world. You are everthing for the kids from doctor to taxi driver. You always say that you are the lucky one to have four beautiful kids (and you are) but we are also lucky to have someone tat takes care of all of us the way you do. We will never be able to properly tell you how much we love you."
Now me and the boys are going to try to fix something edible for Mom's breakfast - chocolate chip pancakes with strawberries.
While I'm here I want to say thanks to all the other Mother's out there that help all of us out (Nanny, Rosalie, Puffy, Rita, Jen, Dana, etc.) I couldn't manage without the help of all you wonderful ladies. I hope you all have a great Mother's Day.
Stu
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Monday, May 3, 2010
A Rough Day
Early this morning we arrived at the hospital for Pudding's long-awaited tonsillectomy. After a quick registration, it was time for the "goofy juice" (the medicine they give the children to help relax them before surgery). Before Chipmmunk and Monkey's surgeries, this juice made them hilarious...they acted like they were falling down drunk. The funny thing with Pudding was that you couldn't even tell he had taken the meds since he is so happy and goofy on a normal day. The only clue was that he was having trouble holding up his head. Thankfully the surgery itself went great. Tonsils and adenoids were huge so the ENT believes he will feel/sleep much better now. Having been through this previously with both boys, I know the recovery is no walk in the park but I also remembered how easy the first few days were since they are on major pain meds. We had already planned on staying overnight due to Pudding's open-heart surgery history as well as his young age. Good thing we did because poor little guy is having a very rough time. His O2 sat levels keep dropping; we are hoping this is due to him holding in his breath in pain/anger/frustration. Plus we can't get him to drink anything - we've tried a bottle, a sippy cup, a regular cup. I wish we could explain to him how much better he would feel if he would drink something. On top of it all, Pudding does not like any cold food so we are having trouble finding anything he'll eat right now - so far he has eaten a few bites of cantaloupe and yogurt. And I'm sure he is terrified of the hospital setting, all of the strangers constantly poking and prodding him and all of the different sounds around us. We've been in the room for 12 hours now and he hasn't let us put him down one time. I wish I could do something to help him feel better. He just got a new dose of pain meds and he seems to be in resting much better. Guess I better try to catch a cat nap while I can. I'm hoping tomorrow brings a little relief for him.
All smiles after the goofy juice
Quite a fashion statement
Such a long, hard day
All smiles after the goofy juice
Quite a fashion statement
Such a long, hard day
Saturday, May 1, 2010
A Special Day
I just have a minute (shocking, I know) but I couldn't let this day pass without mentioning what a sweet memory is attached to May 1st. This time last year I was on my computer looking at a picture of the cutest little Chinese boy and wondering if we would become my son. I remember thinking that it couldn't be this easy; we had just decided two weeks prior to go ahead with another adoption. We knew we wanted a country that required one trip (most likely China); we knew we wanted a toddler-age boy; and we knew we wanted to go the waiting child route, with preference to boys with mild to moderate heart problems. We hadn't started any paperwork, hadn't begun to research agencies, nothing. Then the Friday afternoon of Derby week (those from my area will understand the craziness that surrounds this week), while getting ready for dinner with our dear friends Rachel and Darren
I received an email from an intake coordinator of an adoption agency (with whom I had talked previously about our desire for a toddler sn boy). She mentioned their agency had a new list of waiting children that included many toddler boys and suggested I take a look. She did say that although the list had just been released the previous day, there were already many families in line to review most of the files. I went to the website to glance at the list, expecting to see all of the children that might be a fit for our family to have long waiting lists. I found two little boys that jumped out at me and inquired about the possibility of reviewing the files. Imagine my surprise when she emailed back saying they were both still available and asking which file I would like to review. I immediately told her the number of the little boy that looked so stoic in his picture, but had a little twinkle in his eye. As we were driving to dinner, we received his file and I quickly skimmed through his medicals. I am no doctor but from what I could tell, his sn looked pretty straight-forward and one that we would be able to handle. As luck would have it, Rachel's daughter (adopted from Kyrg like our HD) had the same condition and had just undergone open-heart surgery to correct it. I wasn't ready to share this potentially exciting news until our pediatrician had reviewed the medicals but within five minutes of sitting down to dinner, I was busy picking Rachel's mind about the particulars of this sn and what I could expect. I left feeling little butterflies of excitement in my stomach but trying desperately not to get my hopes up that this might actually work out. I met with our pediatrician that Sunday (so nice having a pedi that is a close family friend) and he thought the medicals looked good but wanted to pass them on to a pediatric cardiologist just to be safe. Waiting to hear back from the cardiologist seemed like the longest three days of my life. I tried desperately not to get attached to the three little pictures we had of him, but it was too late. He had completely captured my heart. I cried tears of joy when our pedi called back and said "Go get that little boy. He looks great." I couldn't believe it. Could it really be that easy? Of course, nothing in adoption is ever that easy when you factor in paperwork, social worker visits, dealing with two different governments, delay after delay. But all in all, it was probably the smoothest adoption we've ever had. Less than ten months later, the little boy that captured my heart become our son. We discovered he is anything but stoic, but he definitely always has that twinkle in his eye. Now one year later, I still am in amazement at how easily everything fell into place. And I still pinch myself everyday to make sure that this is all real and that this sweet little boy is actually my son. Of course it is not all sunshine and rainbows around here...the honeymoon period has started to fade for everybody as we settle down into our everyday life. But I still think that I'm the luckiest girl in the world.
The serious little boy that captured my heart
And, one year later, the sweet little face that I see everyday
,
I received an email from an intake coordinator of an adoption agency (with whom I had talked previously about our desire for a toddler sn boy). She mentioned their agency had a new list of waiting children that included many toddler boys and suggested I take a look. She did say that although the list had just been released the previous day, there were already many families in line to review most of the files. I went to the website to glance at the list, expecting to see all of the children that might be a fit for our family to have long waiting lists. I found two little boys that jumped out at me and inquired about the possibility of reviewing the files. Imagine my surprise when she emailed back saying they were both still available and asking which file I would like to review. I immediately told her the number of the little boy that looked so stoic in his picture, but had a little twinkle in his eye. As we were driving to dinner, we received his file and I quickly skimmed through his medicals. I am no doctor but from what I could tell, his sn looked pretty straight-forward and one that we would be able to handle. As luck would have it, Rachel's daughter (adopted from Kyrg like our HD) had the same condition and had just undergone open-heart surgery to correct it. I wasn't ready to share this potentially exciting news until our pediatrician had reviewed the medicals but within five minutes of sitting down to dinner, I was busy picking Rachel's mind about the particulars of this sn and what I could expect. I left feeling little butterflies of excitement in my stomach but trying desperately not to get my hopes up that this might actually work out. I met with our pediatrician that Sunday (so nice having a pedi that is a close family friend) and he thought the medicals looked good but wanted to pass them on to a pediatric cardiologist just to be safe. Waiting to hear back from the cardiologist seemed like the longest three days of my life. I tried desperately not to get attached to the three little pictures we had of him, but it was too late. He had completely captured my heart. I cried tears of joy when our pedi called back and said "Go get that little boy. He looks great." I couldn't believe it. Could it really be that easy? Of course, nothing in adoption is ever that easy when you factor in paperwork, social worker visits, dealing with two different governments, delay after delay. But all in all, it was probably the smoothest adoption we've ever had. Less than ten months later, the little boy that captured my heart become our son. We discovered he is anything but stoic, but he definitely always has that twinkle in his eye. Now one year later, I still am in amazement at how easily everything fell into place. And I still pinch myself everyday to make sure that this is all real and that this sweet little boy is actually my son. Of course it is not all sunshine and rainbows around here...the honeymoon period has started to fade for everybody as we settle down into our everyday life. But I still think that I'm the luckiest girl in the world.
The serious little boy that captured my heart
And, one year later, the sweet little face that I see everyday
,
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