We are Home!!
Monday September 3, 2007
We enjoyed a wonderful day at Grandma’s pool with all the Aunts, Uncle’s and cousins. Here are some long over due pictures and videos of various events during our first month at home. Joshua is doing so well. He is truely a blessing from God.
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Thursday August 30th, 2007
Monday morning we had our first Adoption Clinic appointment in Birmingham. We met with a social worker, a developmental specialist, and a pediatrician. The social worker was very pleased with the progress we all are making and she talked with us about some signs of grieving to watch for in the coming weeks as Joshua becomes more aware of the permanence of his new situation. She feels that his foster parents were very loving and caring and that they did a great job of preparing him for this life changing event. Of course we have felt that all along, but it was good to get a professional opinion as well. The developmental specialist had him engaged in a variety of fine and gross motor activities and he did great with all of them. She told us that he is right on target for his age. The pediatrician checked him out and gave us a list of blood work to have drawn by our local Dr. and she gave us instructions for collecting stool samples as well, what fun!! We have an appointment with him next Friday and I was relieved to hear that they will send us to a lab to have the blood drawn. I was concerned that if they had to draw blood in the office I would never be able to get him in there again. The clinic Dr. wants us to see an ENT and an eye Dr as well. We will go back in February for our next visit with them unless we feel we need more intervention before then.
For those of you who have not heard, Jason will be starting a new job on September 17th. He will be working for an IT company in Alpharetta called Xcentric Group. He will be starting as a level 2 consultant, trouble shooting clients IT issues and reccommending services to better suit their needs. This change was orchestrated by God and although we are sad about leaving Walk thru the Bible after nearly 15 years there, we are excited about the new opportunities working for an IT company will bring.
Joshua and I met my Mom and the twins at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens on Tuesday. We all had a fun time enjoying the "Big Bug" exhibit that is going on and the kids loved playing in the Children’s garden. Joshua’s favorite thing was spotting all the frog statues throughout the park and he even enjoyed having his picture taken with a few of them.
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Friday August 24th, 2007
This week overall has been a good week. I read this week on one of our travel buddie’s blog’s they were told to view things a week at a time, as each day could vary quite a bit. Joshua has been showing more signs of grieving this week. He is crying at bed time, and even though he sleeps in our room, he now wants someone in the bed with him and he just snuggles up against us and basically cries himself to sleep. It is emotionally difficult for me to see him going through this. I want so badly to communicate with him and help him understand that we are a family forever and he does not need to worry about us sending him away to yet another MaMa and BaBa. At the same time I am relieved because it is healty for him to show these signs of grief. It would be worse if he did not grieve as that could be an indication that he was not attached to the foster parents. He does continue to amaze us daily as he picks up more English and shows more understanding of what we say to him.
We have been eating dinner at the table every night and it is always a fun time. Since we came home, we have been singing a blessing song that Julie sang with her students. It begins with "God our Father, God our Father". Joshua now reaches for our hands when we sit down and he will look at us and begin to sing the song. When we join in he usually stops singing and starts to eat his food, but tonight he made it through nearly the entire prayer, and his amen was the sweetest thing. When we are finished singing he always says "yea, good job". We love to watch him as he tries new food. With the first bite he always makes the same face, which you cannot tell if it means he likes it or is about to spit it out. We have to wait and see if he follows the face with a "yum" and another bite, or the pleading look to MaMa for a good place to spit out the offensive item. Today we learned that he likes grape tomotaoes, navy beans, and ice cream sandwiches. We also learned that he does not like bell peppers or fruit cups.
We will travel to Birmingham on Sunday for our Monday appointment at the Adoption Clinic. We will see a pedeatrician, a social worker, and a therapist. Please pray that God will grant Joshua an understading that this trip will be a short journey and then a return to the home he is learning to accept. Pray also that he will not be traumatized by the exam and blood work that he will have to go through.
Sorry there are no new pictures. We will try to post some soon and we will update early next week after our Clinic appointment. We will also have an update about Jason’s new job.
Julie and the boys (the little one A ND the big one)
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Wednesday August 15th, 2007
Over the weekend Joshua got the chance to meet nearly all the family and many of our friends. He had fun playing with everyone especially Uncle Matt! I will try to get the video Matt filmed of them playing and post it to the site. It is way cute!!
Jason started back to work this week and Joshua and I are trying to get into a schedule and create a routine for our days together. We are very close to having a normal bedtime and naptime. I just wish I could stay up a little later than 9:00 myself so I could spend some time with Jason.
Joshua continues to pick up new English words nearly every day. He understands quite a bit and he does a good job of pointing and gesturing to let us know what he wants. He woke up this morning sat right up in his bed and said to me "MaMa eating" while pointing at his mouth. It was not difficult to figure out that he was hungry.
Thanks again to all of you who have come along with us on this journey. The fun part has only just begun!! We look forward to sharing the "rest of the story" with you as well.
We will try to post weekly for a while to keep you updated on our happenings.
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