I couldn't ask for a better 'job' then being a mom to this little man.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Monday, September 19, 2011
Appointment Rewind
Last week was filled with appointments!
Monday: Gabe had his first occupational therapy appointment at Texas Children's Hospital (TCH). It went great. This appointment (and probably the next few) were to build a rapport with Gabe so Ms. M didn't work him too hard. But he didn't scream or sob at all and only cried a few tears towards the end.
On a side note, can I tell you how great no screaming and crying is? It's fabulous! Gabe cried for the first 10 months of therapy in Cleveland. And it wasn't because of the therapists; they were great and if I could fly them out here weekly to do Gabe's therapy, I would in a heart beat! By the time we moved to Houston Gabe was doing great at therapy; working hard, loving his therapists and hardly ever crying. He bonded with them and loved therapy! Moving to Houston and starting over with therapists - my expectations were very low. I am so glad they were met and beat.
Tuesday: Gabe had his first physical therapy appointment. Matt went with us since that was the morning I pulled a muscle in my back and could hardly move - ack! Again, Gabe did great. His physical therapist most reminds me of the therapists we left; kind, gentle, fun but hard working! Gabe loved swinging (of course) and did well being stretched in the ball pit. Funny story: Gabe has learned to say 'thank you' and says it at the appropriate times. Ms. L (his therapist) was making him climb out of the ball pit in a safe-not-head-first way and Gabe kept thanking her for his help. Except he really wanted to do it his way so he was whining the whole time he kept thanking her.
Wednesday: Gabe had his speech therapy evaluation. The good news is that he is doing stellar in the speech/language area. The bad news is he needs a little help in the oral motor area and will begin speech therapy (feeding therapy) soon. This was expected with the diagnosis of schizencephaly just a little bit of a bummer. Once we add speech therapy to our weekly regime, we will be at TCH four days a week! Gabe also had his 2nd physical therapy appointment. He was a little tired from having done the speech evaluation and only lasted about 35 minutes before he was whiny and letting tears fall. Ms. L kept with it though, helping him cruise the furniture and then rewarded him with a few minutes on the swing! Gabe made me proud when he said "thank you" when he was done swinging. I'm loving this boys manners!
Monday: Gabe had his first occupational therapy appointment at Texas Children's Hospital (TCH). It went great. This appointment (and probably the next few) were to build a rapport with Gabe so Ms. M didn't work him too hard. But he didn't scream or sob at all and only cried a few tears towards the end.
On a side note, can I tell you how great no screaming and crying is? It's fabulous! Gabe cried for the first 10 months of therapy in Cleveland. And it wasn't because of the therapists; they were great and if I could fly them out here weekly to do Gabe's therapy, I would in a heart beat! By the time we moved to Houston Gabe was doing great at therapy; working hard, loving his therapists and hardly ever crying. He bonded with them and loved therapy! Moving to Houston and starting over with therapists - my expectations were very low. I am so glad they were met and beat.
Tuesday: Gabe had his first physical therapy appointment. Matt went with us since that was the morning I pulled a muscle in my back and could hardly move - ack! Again, Gabe did great. His physical therapist most reminds me of the therapists we left; kind, gentle, fun but hard working! Gabe loved swinging (of course) and did well being stretched in the ball pit. Funny story: Gabe has learned to say 'thank you' and says it at the appropriate times. Ms. L (his therapist) was making him climb out of the ball pit in a safe-not-head-first way and Gabe kept thanking her for his help. Except he really wanted to do it his way so he was whining the whole time he kept thanking her.
Wednesday: Gabe had his speech therapy evaluation. The good news is that he is doing stellar in the speech/language area. The bad news is he needs a little help in the oral motor area and will begin speech therapy (feeding therapy) soon. This was expected with the diagnosis of schizencephaly just a little bit of a bummer. Once we add speech therapy to our weekly regime, we will be at TCH four days a week! Gabe also had his 2nd physical therapy appointment. He was a little tired from having done the speech evaluation and only lasted about 35 minutes before he was whiny and letting tears fall. Ms. L kept with it though, helping him cruise the furniture and then rewarded him with a few minutes on the swing! Gabe made me proud when he said "thank you" when he was done swinging. I'm loving this boys manners!
Thursday: Gabe and I ventured downtown in the afternoon to go get glasses! We picked out a pair (you will not believe his adorableness factor in them), Gabe was measured for them, the optometrist priced everything out and then I remembered to ask if they took our vision insurance. They didn't. We've actually had a very hard time finding a eye glass place that takes our insurance so tomorrow I'm going to check with insurance to see if they'll reimburse us for the glasses if we go out of network. We shall see. But people, he looked cute. Seriously cute!
So that was 5 appointments in 4 days and Gabe kept on truckin' right through them all! Add to that the 2 hours a day of eye patching and all of the block building, ball tossing, crawling and cruising practicing, story reading, veggie tale singing we did, Gabe had a busy week!
And nothing is cuter than some diaper fluff on our boy!
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
And the wait begins
It seems like we've been waiting for a long time to get on the wait list for our little one(s). Now that we are there, I feel like we should still be doing something. But really, until we get a referral there's not much else to do. Of course, there are books to read and websites to browse about adoption, attachment, Ethiopia... but with my love of reading that's not really 'doing' anything. Ya know what I mean?
Besides calling to tell us that all of our paperwork was officially and we were on the wait list, our caseworker gave us our September numbers.
Besides calling to tell us that all of our paperwork was officially and we were on the wait list, our caseworker gave us our September numbers.
Our September numbers are as follows:
boys: 97
girls: 125
siblings: 45
Now those numbers are a little bit deceiving because not everyone in front of us has our parameters. We are open to adopting a boy, girl or sibling set between the ages of 0 - 2.
In regards to the numbers, our caseworker said it could be up to 18 months before a referral. That time line is quite a bit discouraging but we have faith that our family will grow all in God's perfect timing. Besides, our adoption attorney told us most of her clients were with her for 4-5 years, and we brought Gabe home less than 8 months to the day we first met with her. Time line or no time line, no one really knows when our family will grow.
I do have a little project planned for after our beach vacation; I'm going to make card stock hearts (I think hearts: pink, blue and maybe yellow for our sibling number...although now that I type it out the shape of Africa would be fun but maybe too difficult) of our numbers and hang them up on our living room wall. Each month we'll tear them down as we get our new (and hopefully lower) numbers! Fun stuff, right?
And after Gabe went to bed, Matt and I celebrated our new status with some Dairy Queen blizzards!
Nothing better than a M&M blizzard from DQ
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Exactly 1 Year
I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason even when I don't quite understand why yet. Especially when I don't understand, to be honest.
Over the past year our lives have changed in ways I never imagined. We loved fiercely, laughed fully, lost intensely and were changed immensely. While I still don't understand why certain things happened or better yet, why certain things did not happen, life is what it is. And I'm so grateful that I find my hope in something much greater than the world.
On September 13, 2010 we were accepted into AGCI's Ethiopian adoption program. Through many turns, bumps and hills (that seemed more like mountains), exactly 1 year later we are officially on the wait list!
Yes folks, you read that first here, we are officially wait listed and now we wait. And wait. And wait. (more on waiting later)
Over the past year our lives have changed in ways I never imagined. We loved fiercely, laughed fully, lost intensely and were changed immensely. While I still don't understand why certain things happened or better yet, why certain things did not happen, life is what it is. And I'm so grateful that I find my hope in something much greater than the world.
On September 13, 2010 we were accepted into AGCI's Ethiopian adoption program. Through many turns, bumps and hills (that seemed more like mountains), exactly 1 year later we are officially on the wait list!
Yes folks, you read that first here, we are officially wait listed and now we wait. And wait. And wait. (more on waiting later)
Roman's 8:28 tells us that "God works for the good of those who love him." And this is good.
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