Happy Mother's Day

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

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

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
,

One Month

I can't believe that Pudding has been home for one month. In some ways it seems like just yesterday we were in China, slowly getting to know this wild child of ours. But on the other hand, I can't quite remember what life was like without his big smile to brighten my every-waking moment. I was a little nervous that our easy time with Pudding might begin to wear off once the "honeymoon period" started fading. But he is just as happy as he was during our trip. He is really starting to bond with his siblings now too. During our first few weeks at home, Pudding liked Chipmunk and Monkey but never tried to play with them and or even really cared if they were in the same room. Now he shrieks with delight when he sees Chipmunk get off the bus or when we go to pick up Monkey from preschool. He absolutely adores his big brothers and I think the feeling is mutual. The big boys are starting to realize that Pudding is a little more rough-and-tumble than HotDog and have started to (gently) wrestle with him, which he loves. The relationship between HD and Pudding is still evolving too. Some days are good and they play and laugh together. Other days brings a constant battle between the two. I'm sure this will continue for years to come as they are so close in age.
We have slowly started to venture out to a few more places and Pudding seems to be handling it okay. I can tell when he starts to get overstimulated because he'll start to zone out and just kind of shut down. If I see that happening, we leave wherever we are immediately. We spend most of our days taking stroller walks around the neighborhood or playing at the playground while the big boys are at soccer practice. We are definitely taking advantage of this beautiful spring weather.



Sleep is still proving to be our trouble area. He is going to sleep much easier now but still has trouble staying asleep. He is up constantly and never seems to get into a deep sleep. He tosses and turns all night and I know his poor little body isn't getting nearly enough rest. He starts out in a toddler bed in our room. But usually by the middle of the night he ends up in bed with us. I have to admit that I am starting to like co-sleeping with the little guy; he is such a little snuggler. And there is no better way to start the day than to wake up to him rubbing my face and giving me little kisses. Stu and I always swore we would have no children in our bed but that is what works for him right now so we are going with it.

We did go to the ENT today to schedule his upcoming surgery. We have been trying to postpone this as long as possible since he has only been home for such a short period. I was thrilled to find out the ENT also has a daughter he adopted from China, so he agreed that it would be beneficial to wait a few more weeks as to further our bonding and attachment before such a traumatic surgery. So nice to have a doctor that understands exactly what issues we are facing. So his surgery is scheduled for May 3rd; the ENT did agree that the tonsils need to come out ASAP. Evidently they are gigantic and he definitely agrees that Pudding's sleep should greatly improve after the surgery.
Now that things have settled down (a bit) I often wonder how in the world we got so lucky to adopt four amazing children. In light of all the distressing news coming out of Kyrgyzstan over the past week, as well as the sickening story of the adopted child being sent back to Russia, I am finding myself hugging each of my kids a little more often and a little tighter.

Really??

We wanted to take advantage of the absolutely beautiful weather today so my crew and I, along with my niece and soon-to-be sister-in-law, decided to head to the zoo. We have an annual pass and go at least once a month, but this was going to be Pudding's first time and I was so excited to see his reactions. All of the kids were having such a fun time and enjoying playing on the playground. I had the two Littles at the smaller jungle gym when this older woman walked up to me and asked "Was it a buy-one-get-one free sale?" I looked around, praying she wasn't actually talking about my children; but sure enough, she was looking right at the Littles with a little smile on her face. I have to admit that I couldn't act on my first impulse because there were so many children around. I looked at her with what I'm sure was a look of disbelief on my face and walked away. Seriously? Did she really ask me that? In what world would anybody think that is an acceptable thing to say, even if it was intended as a (horrible) joke?? I'm just happy that Chipmunk wasn't around because he is definitely old enough to catch the gist of what she was implying. Uggh! I've heard my fair share of snarky/stupid/ignorant remarks about my children but the one today absolutely takes the cake. As you can see from the pictures, I didn't let her ruin one single second of fun for the kiddos but for the rest of the afternoon, I kept coming up with different answers I could have given her; of course, none of those would have been acceptable around children either!


Swing!

Hanging out with the gorillas

Maybe piano lessons are in his future?

Still needs to eat a few more bananas to catch up with the gorillas

First time swinging...I think he likes it!

Brothers


P.S. For those of you that have asked, the steroids seem to be helping keep Pudding's tonsils at a manageable level so surgery has been put off until next week.

Happy Easter

Favorite Fotos Friday

Not a lot to say this week...not even sure I could put a coherent sentence together (due to sleep deprivation). It's been an, ummm, how to put it??...trying week. Poor Pudding has been sick (more on that in a minute) and the big boys are on spring break so my house is a bit chaotic. But the weather has been absolutely beautiful so we've been spending almost every waking minute outside, which manages to put a smile on everbody's face. Things are still really good, though we've seen many more tantrums out of Pudding and a little more jealousy out of HD. Both of those are to be expected and I'm actually happy to see Pudding's tantrums, as that means he trusts us enough to show us the good, the bad and the ugly. And believe me, we've seen all three from him.
We are gearing up for Easter and Chipmunk and Monkey are SO excited to explain all about the Easter Bunny to the Littles. Of course they don't really understand the idea but they are having fun on the daily Easter egg hunt at our house (the older boys love to hide plastic Easter eggs and let the Littles find them). I'm hoping it will be a wonderful holiday and we will be able to introduce Pudding to more of his extended family. There is a chance he will be having surgery tomorrow but I'm praying that we can hold off until early next week. Yes, that's right - the poor kid has to have surgery. A visit to the pediatrician's office on Monday confirmed my suspicions. Pudding's tonsils are HUGE (the biggest our pediatrician had ever seen in 30+ years of practice). They are literally suffocating him when he lays down; no wonder the poor thing can's sleep! The pediatrician actually wanted him to have emergency surgery that day but we couldn't get a spot at the children's hospital so I opted to wait. He's on antibiotics and steroids which seemed to shrink them enough to get us through the week. We go back tomorrow to see how they look. If they are still gigantic then it's off to surgery we go. If they look a little better then we can wait until next week. Another fun spring break around our house; it was just last spring break that Chipmunk had his tonsillectomy and the previous fall break when Monkey had his. As much as I hate, hate, hate for Pudding to have surgery this soon after coming home, I know he desperately needs it and will feel so much better (and hopefully sleep so much better) once they are removed.
So much for me not having much to say!


Monkey was so happy part of his homework was to find creepy crawlies

Just general cuteness

I got them out of the bath and this is what I came back in the room to discover (I love it that they both put the boots on the wrong feet!)


Chipmunk so proud of his decorated eggs (please ignore the wall behind him - we still haven't gotten around to painting the kitchen in the new house)

Pudding thought the point was to eat the egg

HD so happy to play outside