The Land of Hand

Our Joshua is such a fantastic helper!  He helps with dishes, laundry, groceries, the mail, opening and closing doors, (pretty much everything except his toys) and now he is helping with food preparation in the kitchen.  It started a few weeks ago while I was making taco soup for dinner.  I let him dump a couple of cans of beans into the crockpot and he talked all through dinner about how "Joshua Help".  The next night we made cookies for BaBa and he wanted to do as much as I would let him.  So when I had a Pampered Chef party a couple of weeks ago I ordered Joshua his own little cutting board and a "safe cutter" knife.  When the order came in and I showed it to him and told him what it was for he was soooo excited!!   His fist "victim" was a zucchini for stir fry.  I just had to get a picture of this proud little chef. 

Other news……last week Joshua had an eye doctor appointment.  It was confirmed that he has a very lazy right eye.  He is wearing a patch over the left eye for 3 hours everyday to try to help the lazy eye.  We go back in December to see if there has been any improvement.  Please pray that the patch will help!  The other alternative is surgery and we would rather not add any more of those to his to do list.

We had a fun week having play dates with friends.  Lydia who is 3 and also adopted from China was off on fall break this week and Joshua got to have 2 play dates with her and her neighbors.  It rained on Monday so we played with play dough and cars at our house and today we went to the Jump Zone.  Joshua jumped his little heart out and had a great time. 

We are slowly making progress in transitioning Joshua to sleep in his own room.  He is currently napping in there and we have been able to put him down for the night in our room and leave the room before he falls asleep.  I am not sure that I am quite ready to have him out yet but I am making progress too. 

We are looking forward to a wonderful holiday season as parents and feel so blessed by this sweet boy!  We are also blessed by our family and friends who help and encourage us.  I am especially grateful as I think about where I was at this time last year, in the hospital with what was the start of a very long illness.  Thanks again to all of you for the prayers, visits, and cards.  I am still so moved by the love that has been shown to us in the past 12 months.  God is good and we thank Him for you!!

Pictures  I know it has been a few of weeks since I posted.   I hope this makes up for it.  We had some pictures taken near the end of Sept. that turned out really good.  Below are a few of my favorite proofs.  The other pictures are from our outing to the Duluth Fall Festival on Saturday Sept 29th. 

Prayers     Joshua has started saying the prayer all by himself at meal time now.  We had been singing the same blessing at each meal , but a couple weeks ago Jason started saying the blessing and we all pray together each night before bedtime.  Joshua does like to do whatever his Ba Ba does so I am thrilled to say that now includes prayer!!  He knows many words (mostly nouns and a few verbs) in English, however the "filler" words are just mumbles.  He is aware that there should be more words in his sentences, he just does not know them yet.  His first prayer went something like this "Mumble,mumble, fish not chicken, grapes, mumble, mumble, cheese, colors, Ma Ma, Ba Ba, Joshua, family, mumble, mumble, mumble, Amen!  You can probably guess what we were eating for lunch that day.  It was very sweet and it had his Ma Ma in tears.  Our prayer, for this little boy to have a heart for God, has been answered in a big way.

Preschool     Our good friend Jenny has an in home preschool program for her daughter and a couple other children.  On wednesdays Joshua and I join the group for the morning part of the program.  I am now the "specials teacher" for the kids, providing music, movement, stories, art, and cooking activites, one day a week.   We have just started doing this and both Joshua and I enjoy the time at Ms. Jenny’s house. 

Monday marked the 12 week anniversary of the day we first met our son.  We have been both blessed and challenged during this time.  Joshua has certainly added a lot of joy and entertainment to our lives, he has also taught us how to live with less sleep and less T.V, and he has given me bicep muscles again.  Carrying a 30 lb child around can "do a body good". 

Thank you for the continued well wishes in our guest book.  It is a pleasure to be able to share this journey with so many people in so many places.  I will try to post more often than once a month.