Ok, so I'm a little late posting Lian's First Halloween.....but it's been a crazy couple of weeks! But first............. (as Julie Chen says)......here are the pics!
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| Baby's First Halloween for Lian! |
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| Great creepy shot of scary pumpkin |
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| Lian in his "Little Mac" costume |
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With his pumpkins
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| Trick or Treating Lian with Dada |
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| FRANKENLIAN chillin' |
Lian has had a busy couple of weeks. The Early Intervention team came out and reassessed Lian. The speech therapist agreed with our speech pathologist's findings and qualified him for speech therapy once a week. They said he is at about a 11-12 month level for expressive speech. His overall motor/sensory skill level is at 14-15 months so he doesn't qualify for that. Lian has progressed some with speech but I guess not as fast as he should be.....so we will do as much as we can to help him out! :) Lian is very smart so I know it's just a matter of time until HE wants to talk, lol. After waiting a couple of weeks our coordinator finally called to say she found a speech therapist in our area. He has had 2 sessions so far and basically what I found out is that I'M ALREADY DOING WHAT THE SPEECH THERAPIST IS DOING! Which kind of surprised me and surprised the speech therapist as well....but I guess she deals with parents that are not so involved. But we'll see how he progresses and we'll see how she interacts and teaches Lian, because we can always go privately if needed if we feel that he's not progressing more like he should. We also got him a great speech DVD called "Baby Babble".....Lian LOVES it! It actually has helped him *want* to talk more and has helped us develop some other teaching methods. He has learned more signs and knows: more, all done, drink, help, please, thank you and he already knew eat. He also now knows "Night Night" and will lay on the ground to sleep and then get up when we say "Wake Up". He can nod his head for yes now (he already learned to shake his head no several months ago). He learned these in about a week span.....he is SMART and picks up on things so quickly....Mama and Dada are waiting for those words to just fly out of his mouth soon!! :) He also has started to try to color and is still figuring out how to best hold the crayon.....so cute.
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| Me ambidextrous |
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| Heh?! |
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| Bad hair day |
He also started another class called "Tot Rock" :) It is alot like his "Little Learners" class but this one incorporates small musical instruments with singing and one on one time. So he's played so far the mini piano, jingle bracelets, clapper, drum, maracas, and enjoyed the PARACHUTE again.....I think that is his favorite, although they have a much smaller one than the one in the Little Learners class. I also signed him up for 2 more classes for the winter. "Kid Rock" and "Little Tykes Gym". They should be FUN.
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We also finally started the readoption process, it isn't mandatory but it's recommended so that he will have a US birth certificate which will be very helpful when registering for school or anything where a birth certificate is involved. We got a lawyer through one of the recommendations that our agency provided and we're happy with her so far. We only have his Chinese birth certificate which is allowed to use in the US but I know other families have had to go through the hassle of explaining what that document is because it doesn't look like a birth certificate and having to say he's adopted. Which brings me to another point:
Folks, if you know of a family who has adopted a child.....PLEASE do not refer to that child as their "ADOPTED SON/DAUGHTER". He/she IS their "SON OR DAUGHTER".....PERIOD! It really irritates me when this happens, I know it's because they are ignorant in adoption but I wouldn't say....oh that's your "Biological Son/Daughter" would I? I don't really like posting things like this because this blog is for Lian (and if it helps other families that is great), but it's for him to read once he's old enough and hopefully will laugh, smile, and just get a kick out of himself and all the silly shenanigans he was doing......so the above is really off topic but I wanted to point it out as I'm sure not everyone is aware of it.
Lian also had his surgery for his circumcision. We were really dreading this day as we didn't know what to expect after the surgery (emotionally). Lian already went through his lip surgery in China when he was 4 months old....everytime I think about this I feel so sad since there wasn't anyone to really comfort him or be there for him 24/7 like a PARENT should. I can't imagine the pain and confusion he went through and it makes me realize how STRONG he is. He is our "Little tough boy" as Dada always says. He has already been through so much in so little time, it is important not to forget that.
So we got to the hospital before 6AM since he was scheduled at 6 and got him checked in and all gowned up. He looked so cute in his little gown, but not something I want to see him in frequently at all!!
He did so well while the nurse was getting all the initial assessments and then the doctor came in and spoke with us and then he just reached out to take Lian and then they were off to surgery. When the doctor reached out to take him I was surprised because he didn't give me any warning that it was time.....but thinking back on it, it was smart to do it that way so that Lian wouldn't freak out. I was expecting him to cry and fight but he didn't because he didn't know what was going on, even when the doctor was carrying him to the surgery area. I really like his urologist, he's very soft spoken, calm, and direct. Has such good bed side manners for children. Then we waited until we were called to go back. I think it was around 8AM when we got the buzz (we had one of those buzzers that you get at restaurants when you're table is ready....I didn't know they used these at hospitals now too). When we got to his room he was sleeping in a hospital crib and I started talking to him and rubbing his back and he started crying. He was REALLY out of it. He acted like he was having a night terror. He didn't want to look in our eyes and kept crying. I felt so aweful :( I was really hoping that he wouldn't regress in his attachment to us and I didn't want him to feel that we had broken his trust or had abandoned him in any way by doing this and literally he was NOT happy with us :( We tried to get him to drink something as the nurse said we should try so that he keeps hydrated and to see if he had any nausea, but he refused and we had to take turns holding him while standing as he did not want us to sit down at all. They took the IV out and gave us the post-op instructions which I won't go into detail here, but it is no joke....it is painful and probably traumatic. Once we got his clothes back on and went to the car he still did not want to look into our eyes and was basically ignoring us. No smile, no laugh, not our son Lian that we know :( Finally we got home and we set him on the floor, the nurse said to be careful because he probably will have numbness in his legs due to the caudal block they used for pain (similar to an epidural), but he was walking around almost normal. Then we got into our routine as normal, put on Blues Clues, and literally within minutes he smiled, started laughing and was our son again. So grateful. So blessed. Can't think of anything sweeter than that.
