Playing Catch-Up
I have been playing musical computers lately and that is my excuse (this time) for waiting so long to post. I am going to catch up on all the activities of the last few weeks and include a bunch of pictures too.
In January, Joshua and Mom went to the Georgia Aquarium with Grandma and some family friends. It was fun and Joshua enjoyed pretending to catch all the fish that swam by. Once he said "Mama I caught it" and then proceeded to pretend to eat it and then spit it out as he proclaimed "yucky!" The next fish he pretended to eat, he thought was delicious. He has quite an imagination and sense of humor.
We enjoyed a snow day in mid January. We got just enough to build a family of small snowmen. Joshua loved the snow and Mama and Baba enjoyed watching his excitement.
Joshua attended a birthday party at a park and had fun helping to eat the "smash cake" that the 1 year old birthday girl did not want to eat. He thinks his party should be at the park too. (It will be at Grandma’s instead) He has finally decided (with lots of prompting from Mama) to have a "Mater and McQueen, Cars" party theme. This was his first choice and Mama made him stick to it. We are all very excited about celebrating his 4th birthday and his 1st birthday as a part of our family. Mama and Baba however are NOT excited about celebrating our birthdays this year. We both hit a BIG one. (Joshua’s age x 10) We will be relaxing for a week at the beach the end of this month to gear up for the momentous occasions.
Joshua has had many Dr. visits and evaluations recently. His vision is improving in his lazy eye, but that will require surgery late spring or early summer. His latest hearing test showed only a mild hearing loss in the ear that has the large hole. The Audiologist was pleased with this considering how large the hole is. His speech evaluation indicated that he is right on target for his age, which really impressed the therapist since he has only been speaking English for 7 months. The hand surgeon will perform corrective surgery on his left hand on April 8th. He has performed surgery on several other children with the same condition and we were very impressed with what Joshua will be able to gain as a result. The Dr. will be able to improve the right hand function as well and will perform that surgey later this summer, IF we decide to put Joshua through 3 surgeries in such a short time. His most recent assessment was his 6 month follow up with the International Adoption Clinic in Birmingham. The social worker, developmental specialist, and pediatrician were all VERY pleased with how well Joshua is adjusting to his forever family. His Mama is a little worried about some of the information and skills that he missed on the developmental assessment, but that is most likely because she feels responsible for not exposing him to those concepts yet. In addition he will be tested for private preschool in the next couple of weeks and she really wants him (and herself) in that school for next year (ha,ha)! Over all we are so blessed by how amazingly well this little person is growing and adjusting and we are praising God daily for the answered prayer that he is.
While we were in Birmingham we had a wonderful reunion with most of the families from our China travel group. The Pintaro’s hosted 14 adults and 19 children (10 of the kids were 2 and 3 year olds). It was so cool to see how God’s plan was unfolding for each one of these kids from China. Each child chosen by the family through prayer and God’s guidance. Each child so obviously created to be a part of these families. We are all so thankful for the birth parents and the care givers who were used by God to help shape these precious little lives and prepare them for their forever families. So many faithful followers, answered prayers, and miracles all in one place!! We attended church the next day with the Ferrill family and had lunch with them afterwards. They adopted 2 toddlers and both children have had surgery. I picked Laine’s brain about how to handle the 3 or 4 hour wait while your child is in the operating room. She told me that someone came out evey 15 -20 minutes to give progress reports. I hope that will be the case for us too!!
I think this post has gone on long enough, so I will end now.
A very Happy Easter Season, from the VERY blessed Hand Family
