Worst. Costume. Ever.

Okay, I know, I know. I'm going to hear about this later, perhaps after Timothy has a therapy session. I procrastinated and looked at 5000 costumes online and I just could not decide. And then I saw an adorable Tiger costume for $10 bucks at Costco. Sold! The problem was it didn't fit even though he almost always can wear 12-18 size. In fact it's usually too big. Well this one was too small - it came to mid shin and we had to strain to lift it on his head.

So we took it back and the only thing they had left was these silly cows - with spots more like a Dalmatian dog then any self-respecting cow. I also didn't realize that the back would be so...realistic of a large sized...human rather than a pear shaped cow?! Very strange. Also although it was too big in the legs and arms it was still too small in the...how to say politely, uhm groin area. So. very. wrong. Sorry little man!

I gotta say all of the guys at the kids party really liked it and thought it was cute. The women...well let's say it was a little too close to home.

Anyway Timothy loved loved loved Halloween. In fact he was ready to go out the next night and do the same thing and was furious to discover that it was not possible. When we brought him home after trick or treating he kept trying to keep his costume and shoes back on and would run to the door looking very sadly out. He only got scared after a neighbor's kid came out wearing a "Scream" mask -- Timothy let out a scream and demanded I hold him the rest of the night. Who lets their six year old wear such a mask I ask you? Guess we'll find out in about 4 years....

Halloween is a special day for us in that we received our Letter of Acceptance from the Chinese Government on this day last year. I'll love Halloween forever because of this.

Balloons and birthday

I had a lot of stress planning Timothy's birthday party because I wanted it to be special and fun for him as well as a celebration of him. We celebrated his actual birthday somewhat quietly with just the three of us - four if you count his speech therapist, for his scheduled appointment and she very sweetly brought two gifts for him, really she is so nice. Timothy awoke to a surprise of his new little kitchen and recycling truck as well as new pots and pans and a shopping cart (gotta have the push toys). He loves the kitchen as I knew he would - mainly because he likes to open and close doors over and over again. The "burners" make noises and light up - really likes that. He couldn't even concentrate on the pots/pans or the cart as the kitchen and truck were enough. Again, I got him too many toys and even saved one of the others we got him for a Christmas present. So we had a nice quiet family day and spent a lot of quantity and quality time with our little man.



His birthday party was fine - next year we are going to Chuck E. Cheese, I swear, wow. We had it outside although on the cool side and borrowed our neighbor's moonbounce. Timothy even got in this time especially when his little friend and idol Carter went in to play. Spent all day Saturday decluttering my house (decluttering means moving cr** to the basement and hopefully on to a new home in Goodwill). Greg and I pride ourselves on not being too material but we have managed to keep a lot of junk over four moves in the last ten years. I watched a show on hoarders and that's what made me determined - but I digress. I cleaned and cleaned since all of our neighbors were going to be over...and no one came inside, but I now have a cleaner, less cluttered house!

Timothy had no idea what was going on - just that all his neighborhood friends were over and he didn't understand why. He did fine and we are so happy that he's our little son. We had two cakes as you can see including Elmo. His all-time favorite activity of the day? Watching his Uncle Scott blow up the balloons with the helium tank. He was transfixed and spent all morning pulling all of the balloons up and down from the ceiling. It's also what he played with all afternoon and evening after his nap. So much for presents.

He's grown almost two inches since we last had him evaluated and is now in the 10-25%. He weighs almost 25 lbs. We still have speech therapy every week with the focus now on sounds using the tongue like "d", "t", "p" and "b". He's very guarded with his tongue and uses it to protect the rest of his mouth. We try to massage his tongue and the sides of his cheek with a device called a nuk. Lately he's starting to move his tongue around in his mouth more as a result. He can also say about 35 words. Even words he already knows he's improved upon such as now saying momma for mom. He's only behind in speech by about three months according to the IA doc. It's probably more than that - he still has a long way to go but he really is doing just great. His receptive speech is even above age at 25 months.

Timothy can play by himself for long periods of time - about 45 minutes to an hour. He loves his puppets and making them dance to music or using them when watching videos about a farm or an Elmo/Sesame Street video about birds. He loves loves loves his Kindermusik class. He imitates us constantly with the way we are sitting or kneeling or lying down. He's laughing and smiling so much more after his second surgery to the point of doubling over, I love this! He sleeps most nights a blessed 11 hours a night - how lucky are we? Naps are another story much more difficult but getting better - sleeping really is important for brain development in little ones as well as mental health for much older ones. He also loves cars and trucks as well as any type size and shape of ball. What is also amusing is hearing him when he makes himself laugh. That's pretty darn cute. Preschool is fine - each week he gets a little bit better. Last week he started crying before we were out of the parking lot but only for the first hour. Monday is my first day co-oping with another group of children, heard this is quite fatiguing.

Eating lots of muffins

Running on the boardwalk

Lovin' VA beach or not being stuck in a car for four hours

Thinking deep thoughts or future album cover?

Ready for my first day of "school"

23 months old

I love my baseball glove and my footie pj's

My nice shirt fits my now

Ready? Go!

My friend Lara is moving across town :(

They won't let her go if I take her car seat!

Who needs eyes anyway?

Had a great summer - except for surgery!

Andrew and Matt try to work out energy before the big drive to Nova Scotia

Timothy and Carter at the Aquarium

Note the bottom lipI don't trust you anymore

Wish I had gotten a picture of his look of surprise

With neighbors Mike and Jakey

Girls really dig me

This will be a long post given it's been a number of weeks since I last posted.

Timothy is now doing well recovering from his surgery. It took him longer than expected to get back to his old cheerful self. He had about two weeks of being demanding, irritable and with a borderline fever. That's all behind us now. He was drooling for a bit, lots, just like when we came back from China so we've had to remind him and he's back to where he was before drooling only when intensely involved in a toy.

Lesley, our ST thought he may regress and lose some of the words he's learned. That has not turned out to be the case and he's even trying to say new words. It's still not easy for him as he needs to motor plan many of the things he says and that takes a few seconds. He can say the "o" sound and that is the sound he uses when trying to say "open" or "on" or "off" - he can get the second consonant sound usually enough for us to tell us what's he trying to say as in "boom" but he cannot say the first consonant of a word, for example "mom" sounds like "om". We've been practicing as this is not a word he says without prompting but he's getting better at it and it is taking him less time to motor plan the word. Since we've been working on it he holds the last "m" for a long time trying to make the word sound correct. He tries so hard! He can get discouraged as he knows he is not saying it correctly. We give him lots of props for trying.

He can do a somersault now as well as climb up our slide by himself and climb up the ladder at the gym where he takes a gymnastic class. I love this class but it's been me chasing him around for 45 minutes, and all of the little kids do this to some extent. But they've gotten better since the class began about 8 weeks ago. Now the kids are able to stay still when the teacher is explaining the safety rules. Most of the kids aren't able to do many of the skills but it's been fun to see them trying. And that's why we think Timothy has been able to do the somersault. He is quite proud of himself for this accomplishment.

We took T to our county fair just a few blocks down the street from us and he was less than thrilled to ride the rides. This is our fault though as I tried to put him on his first ride by himself, on "willie the whale" when he either cried or tried to find a way out the entire time, it was so wrong. I tried to put him on one of the animals on the Merry-Go-Round - forget it. He would only sit on my lap - not even next to me. This remained true for the little train. Even though his little friend Carter rode the pony he wanted nothing to do with it! He liked the giant slide with his Dad but was a little scared too. He did like the soft serve afterwards however.

He starts a Parents Day Out program in September one day a week for a few hours. I'm so happy he'll be around other kids and the structured environment with other kids will be great for him. It's going to be hard on both Timothy and I that first day but I know he'll eventually love it. We are also doing a Kindermusik class every Wednesday. I don't want to be as bored as I was last winter so I'm trying to keep us a little busier and we won't need (hopefully) to go to as many doctor appointments since his surgeries should be done and he'll be caught up in all of his vaccinations.

He's still a little guy in the 5th percentile for height (but at least he's on the charts now), tenth % for weight. He gotten a lot pickier about food since the surgery and will hardly eat meat any more. He's growing a lot more teeth.

Pretty good night

Timothy had a pretty good night last night and slept better than we expected. Went to bed at 9 and only woke up a couple of times - even slept past his time for more meds. His little face is a bit swollen and slightly bruised and he looks tired. Also his nose keeps bleeding so he has lots of dried blood in that area. His breath is terrible and this was expected. He's much more himself this morning but still not interested in eating anything other than Italian ices. Actually he's interested but it seems it hurts too much - won't drink milk, etc. He's doing really well and is our little trooper.

Second surgery update

Luckily Timothy's surgery was scheduled for 8:00 AM this morning versus 12 Noon like last time. He handled missing his bottle like the trooper he is.

He's a hurting little man. He's very tired from the medications, surgery. The good news is that the pain relief for him is much better than last time. He's able to sleep and even eat a little italian ice.

When he woke up from surgery he was in pain and a bit angry, understandably so. He got some morphine via IV twice and was able to sleep. His mouth and nose are filled with dried blood. We are trying to clean him out slowly. He doesn't want us anywhere near his face.

He's also pretty swollen in the face and a bit in the body. He's got bags under his eyes and his lip is inflamed due to receiving wound be gone in his lip to reduce scarring from his lip repair. Hopefully now is will be looser and easier for him to manipulate.

Overall things are pretty good for his recovery.

7 month update

Hard to believe it's been 7 months since we've had Timothy at home with us. We are so lucky to have our sweet little guy.

We recently went to the International Adoption clinic for an update. Timothy is 31 inches and 24.1 lbs. He's developmentally were he should be for the most part, with the exception of speech. He has improved from the 10 month level to 15 months, so we are getting there.

The surgery to repair his fistula (opening in the mouth, where he has not completely closed from his original surgery) is next month. This surgery will be outpatient, luckily, and he'll have a lot less done on him this time but I am still dreading it. I was prepared from the beginning for his first surgery (1st surgery with us - c/l repair was done in China before we got him) but I will just die if anything happens to him. I'm dreading this repair and putting him through all that pain again. But it's got to be done, we have to do it to improve his speech as quickly as possible and so he won't continue to learn the wrong way.

Timothy is now the dancing man. That is all that he wants to do. He loves loves loves music. Lately I've been playing him videos from Youtube - Feist with the muppets, Mana Mana, C is for Cookie, and the Lion sleeps Tonight. Would love ideas for other things to play for him.

We now go to gym class every Tuesday which is just an opportunity for me to run after him for 45 minutes straight. Often he will start to follow in the right direction and then something will grab his attention and he'll walk towards the opposite way leading others in his class with him. He loves the bouncy floor where he likes to jump and run and occasionally collide with another little one. Actually he gets incensed by the last part, and cries angrily as if it wasn't his fault. Sometimes all of the kids in the class cry at the same time. But each time he goes he's a little bit better, understands a little bit more and we are able to harness his boundless energy a bit.

He tries new sounds every day. His new words are uh oh - both parts, on, go, mom (pronounced om) and he just said lion tonight. He babbling and happy and will often run from one side of the room to the other and back again just to do it, smiling the whole time.

We had our first time outs - three in one night because he keeps standing on chairs and almost killing himself. One time the chair was falling over with him in it and I grabbed the chair (thinking this would stop both of them) and he continued on to the floor. Did this cure the problem you ask? Not so much. He really fell hard - it was horrible but was fine after a couple of minutes. But after we put him in time out and congratulated him each time he sat correctly in the chair seems to work, for now, not sure it's going to last long.

Video for Lesley

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

This video is of Timothy making his different words and sounds. Seems as if we focused a bit much on having him say "meow".

Hope you enjoy

12 hour camping trip - long post.

I don't know mom, I have a bad feeling about this camping trip

consolation prize

I like the puddles at least

We decided to go to Assateague Island after all on our annual 4th of July weekend trip - the slogan of which is Sacrifice because of the many mosquitoes and other elemental factors. I had deep reservations but Timothy had been sleeping well the last two nights so I threw caution to the wind (more on that later) and grabbed our beach gear and trekked the normally 4 hour trip (with child 6 hours) to the Maryland shore.

I've been going to this event for the last twelve years. Most of the people that attend are from the environmental/non-profit DC crowd. About 150 people come each year and it's really organized from kid's activities, to gourmet meals, dancing, bonfires, talent night. We all sleep in our own tents and converge on a large circus type tent for meals and announcements. Teams are responsible for recycling, trash, dinners and happy hours.

Timothy seemed to like the campsite although he was in a Baby Einstein- induced video fog and hadn't napped. When we got to the campsite he had fun playing in the sand, gave everyone high fives, was thrilled with the ocean and water, ate a great dinner and danced in the tent. He went to sleep immediately. Greg and I read in the tent and passed out as well.

A few hours pass and it starts to rain, no biggie - it always storms at Assateague. But then it gets bad -really lightening, like it's practically daylight in the tent. The winds pick up. Finally it's so bad, Timothy wakes up terrified. I grab him from the pack-n-play and two minutes later the tent is lifted from the ground and we are all shocked as the tent is laying on it's side. Greg yells at me to go to the Big Tent. Others folks from the group were there riding out the storm and helped me try to keep the wind off of Timothy and keep me calm.

It seems silly now but I was freaked out. We've never had a tent blow over like that. It turns out the same thing happened to 12 other tents - a record. Timothy was not happy and wet and very very tired from meds, missing naptime and it being about 11 at night. Plus it was windy and wet. We finally went to the car to try and get him to sleep and Greg pulled everything out of the tent, which wasn't very close to the car, in the windy rain. Since we didn't have a home any longer and there was no way to get a hotel room we drove back home, sigh. We left at 12:45 and got home at 3:15 am. So not much time at the beach. Timothy slept mostly in the car and slept once we got back home. Greg drank coke to stay awake and then couldn't sleep once we got home so unloaded the entire car. The next day we went to a local water park. Not nearly as much fun but he did get to play in the water, sort of. He didn't really want anything to do with it except for the puddles. Plus the water was really cold.

Some visitors

Timothy with his Mamaw

Having fun at his aunt's house

Trying to take a good picture with Dad

I remember Meredith!

Superhero sunglasses, cool monkey shirt - let's go mow the sidewalk

Sorry it's hard for me to post when I try to post anything other than an update of Timothy. It involves too much procrastination trying to think of how I want to say what I want to say. That's why all of my posts are always updates.

Timothy can now say the "m" sound. He puts his lips together tightly - exactly what we want and this is how he says "more". He does this so well, and has strengthened his mouth so much that he now no longer drools as a result! So now we can see all the cute shirts he got from our friend Michele D - I'm partial to the zebra and monkey shirts.

We had a couple of difficult speech therapy sessions. T would not even look at our therapist. So we cut back on the individual daily sessions in the high chair and had a great time at the last ST visit. He was able to use two word sentences - mainly by signing and was able to say a version of "on" vocally. He's doing more and more attempts at words and sounds, many of which you need to know in context. Some examples - up, pop (more like mop), roar, moo, bzzz, hot, uh-oh (mainly oooohh), meow. It's exciting to hear him try more sounds. We go to the IA doc next week and in past reports I could only say I've heard one sound attempted. He's even said 'mom' a couple of times on accident - once when my mother called and she couldn't hear me and I kept saying 'mom' over and over again. He's also learning new signs. We are also incorporating please, thank you and help into his vocabulary as a way to decrease his whiny requests for assistance.

We've got a bike trailer now and rode over to our local farmer's market. Greg still rides all the time but I have barely been on a bike since leaving the District. So...very...hard on muscles turned to cellulite. Does a 10 minute bike ride once a week count as exercise?

Timothy has a new pushable tricycle. I was hoping this would provide some support for rebuilding arm muscle but since T is so light, not really so much. Tomorrow's high of 94 degrees won't really help with the exercise ability. We got him a huge helmet and had fun watching him cross his eyes to look up at it. Can't imagine him wearing it since his little head sweats a gallon of liquid a minute. But he liked wearing it inside of the house.

His second molar is coming in possibly causing sleep disruptions. Lately he's been needing us to stay in the room while he goes to sleep - not good. The situation is further complicated by visiting family members - gonna be a hard habit to break come Monday.

Still throwing food, placemat, and his utensils when he deems the meal to be over. Love this. And cleaning the floor every five minutes. Really good times. Especially when I miss a fork and find it days later with the food is really caked on. At least he's eating well again.

Started him on a white noise machine and am not looking forward to going on our annual camping trip to the beach in July. Not sure how he's gonna handle it although he tends to be an angel in company so he could surprise me. Just not sure how were going to load the Prius with all of our beach crap and now all of our baby stuff. Baby's make it harder to downsize. At least we got out of running the happy hour. Come to think of it that was have the reason our car was always so loaded down bringing cocktail and appetizer preparations for two hundred. Thanks Anna.

Sorry for the late delay in posting - so much for once a week. As always, will strive to do better. Thanks for reading my rambly long-winded post.

I'm not changing to wordpress because it's easy to change the comment capacity. You no longer need a blog address to comment. So comment to show me that it's working!

Pediatric dentist visit

Doesn't every explorer have a mallet and lego piece?

Looks like I'm ice skating

Handsome but not so happy at the Memorial Day picnic

Be alerted. I'm changing to wordpress since it is much easier for anybody to comment and you don't have to put your full name or anything so you can be private if you want to, will be better, promise! I'll give you all the info you need with the new address and it will still have all the old posts.

T had his first dentist appointment. The dentist says he has 8 teeth not sure why cause there's only seven but supposedly one nub counts. He's gotten in a molar and overall his teeth look to be in good shape. He's behind, not uncommon for cleft palate babies and should have a total of 16 teeth right now. We may eventually find that he has missing, extra or teeth in weird places like the roof of his mouth. The important thing for all c/p kids is to keep all teeth cavity-free.

Last week after I realized that I needed to put more time and energy into Timothy's speech therapy we worked each day together for 25-30 minutes. It's made a huge difference! Well sorta. He's working a lot harder to try and imitate us. He's very good at saying his version of "more" really just the "m" sound as well as moo. He also has a version of "meow" without the "m" sound. When he tries new sounds he doesn't know how to say he'll use what he knows - a combination of "m" "moo" and "maama". He's very brave and wants to please and wants to speak.