Swingin' kids!

Miss I is, to say the least, enamored with The Magic School Bus books, as well as with the ocean. She loves the books so much we often catch her sleeping with them.

Ato T having fun rolling in the grass!

Egg hunt

Fun Easter egg hunt at church! Miss O loved it for the first time! Miss I was a bit overwhelmed, but still gathered her share of eggs. Ato T is still a little small to do it.

Easter eggs

We colored Easter eggs twice this year! Once with our homeschool group. Our friend Lori spent a lot of time boiling foods to make natural dyes for us to use on Friday! Then we dyed our own eggs at home on Saturday.

Miss I

Miss I has been earning money to buy some sea animals. This is her first purchase - a crab. She is really proud of herself, and has a plan about which animals she will buy next.

Grandma Bogie stopped by for a visit when she was in the cities for a class last week. The kids enjoyed seeing her! We have been playing outside a lot lately, and the girls have made up a number of fun games to play together. Here they are playing baby and mommy. Miss O is wearing an eye patch because we're patching it for an hour a day in hopes that it will help strengthen the other eye.

Ato T update

Despite all of his physical difficulties, this is the happiest boy I have ever met! Here's where he is at. He can sit on his own for up to 5 minutes at a time - when he wants to. :) He is working on getting into a crawling position, but when he does get into it he gets so excited that he tips over. Its' adorable. We have started chiropractic care for all 3 kids, and are seeing changes in Ato T. He is MUCH more relaxed, especially just after an adjustment. This will allow us to at least put off giving him botox and phenol injections in his legs and hand. Hopefully we won't ever have to, but we'll see how he does. We were hoping the treatments would help with the CSF drainage as well. It does seem to help, but unfortunately I don't think it's quite enough. He is still in a fair amount of pain almost all the time, and is beginning to vomit more because of it. We'll discuss this with his neurosurgeon this week. Ato T LOVES to be outside rolling around in the grass or swinging. He's definitely all boy! Thank you all for your continued prayers. We are continuing to pray that God's will will be done through his life.

Birth family visit

We were finally able to celebrate Christmas and birthdays with Miss O's birth family last week. It was good to see them - it's been too long!

Dance show

The other night was dance show night at our house! Always lots of fun for the whole family!

Broken elbow

Miss O broke her elbow this past week. She was playing on the therapy ball, and fell off of it just right (or just wrong). She was a trooper, though! Here she is sporting her new accessory, along with the dress to match that she picked for Auntie Stef's wedding.

Stander

We have been given a stander for Ato T to try out. If it works well, we hope to purchase it. So far he seems to love it! The purpose of a stander for children with CP who do not yet stand is to get some pressure put on the legs. Joints in the lower extremities can become deformed when weight is not being put on them regularly. The stand has the tray on it, and we can put toys on it for him when he's in it, which is what you see on the tray in these pictures.

MRI

Ato T had an MRI on Feb. 27 at Gillette Chidren's in St. Paul. It's a follow-up from the MRI he had done in Ethiopia. We should be getting the resuls from the neurologist this Thrusday, and they could not come soon enough. He has been having more and more pain in his head every day. Please continue to pray for his healing. We know the Lord has amazing plans for our son's life!

I love this picture!

Busy weeks

Our weeks are filled with busyness and fun! Ato T is getting physical and occupational therapies, and is on the waiting list for speech therapy. He has made a lot of progress in a short amount of time. He is now able to sit for about 1 minute on his own! Here he is having fun at physical therapy. Miss I also continues with physical, occupational and speech therapies.

Adoption do's and don'ts

Just a refresher course for people about adoption and what it means to be a family formed through adoption. I copied much of this from our friends blog. Thanks Randy and Jules! Well said!

• Please don't ask/say:How much does it cost?
  Please don’t ask this unless you’re truly interested in adopting
  It makes us feel like you’re asking the price of something as trivial as a new sweater – the adoption process isn’t trivial and neither our our children.
• Why not adopt from the US (or some other country)?
  We’ve already chosen to adopt from Ethiopia and are thrilled with our decision.
  Asking this question implies you’re not OK with our decision. This is the decision God has led us to.
• Don't you want your "own" children?: Our adopted children are our own children.
• Adopting is right for our family. Don’t make comments saying how “lucky” our children are or about us “rescue” them.
  We adopted because we wanted to PARENT children – NOT rescue them.
  We are the “lucky” ones -- we get to parent these beautiful children!
• Don’t use terms such as “real mother” or “children of your own” Use terms that affirm the value of both our children's birth parents and us.
  I am their real mother
  They are my own children
• Please don’t ask why birth parents “gave up” our children, and don’t speak disparagingly of the birth parents with comments such as “I just can’t imagine how anyone could give up a child.”: None of us own our children, they are not commodities to be given away. Adoption plans are made for their lives.
• Never use the term “give up” when it comes to adoption – children aren’t “given up.” An adoption plan is made for them.
• Our children’s birth parents are an important part of who they are, and we are doing our best to foster love and respect for them. Please remember this is not our information to share – it is our children’s personal, private information and they can share it if/when they choose.

Please DO say/ask:

• Do ask questions about the adoption process, expectations and fears.
• Do feel comfortable about expressing your own fears and concerns, but realize that adoption is a very personal decision – maybe not one you would have made for yourself but one we have come to after much research, deliberation and soul-searching.
• Do embrace the differences each of our children bring to our family.
• Do speak positively about our children’s culture/heritage.
• Do treat us the same way you’d treat people who have boilogical children. We love our kids just as much as peole who have biological kids, and experience all the same joys and frustrations.

Thank you all for the wonderful support you always give us! We know this is information you all know well. - Please share it with your friends!

More pictures

Some pictures

A friend of ours from church came over to take some pictures of the kids, so we wouldn't have to subject Ato T to a portrait studio so soon. I'm really loving them! Here are a few.

Fun day!

Miss O's PCA is from Kenya, and her husband has been her visiting for 3 months. He is going back home to Kenya soon, so they had a party for him at their home today, and we were invited. I'm so happy we went - we all had so much fun! The girls had lots of fun playing with the other kids, and Mike and I really loved the conversations with all of the adults. There was even a gentleman there from Ethiopia, who was full of information and questions for us. He also gave me the name of a shop where I can go to get real Ethiopian coffee and spices! :) I also got some good tips from the men there on what to with with Ato T's hair. - Turns out I should be combing it! I just figured that it's so short I didn't need to, but I was wrong. They told me that if I continued to leave it without combing it, it would eventually turn into natural dread locks. Ato T enjoyed being around some African influences as well, but kept looking for mommy and daddy, which made us really happy. When I put his coat on to leave, he looked at me with relief, as if he was saying, "Oh good, I AM going home with you." Then when we got home, he was babbling like crazy, and extremely happy! It's nice to see that this is starting to feel like home for him. :)

Stories

When Ato T came to us, he was not eating anything but pureed food. He still mostly eats like that, but we have had some success getting him to eat some Cheerios in small amounts, as well as little puff snacks! This is a picture of the first time - he was so proud of himself! Hooray to the boy!

The other day Ato T was fussing in the family room as I was getting his lunch ready. I was trying to tak to him to calm him down,but he wasn't having it. After a time I noticed he was quiet, so I went in to check on him - and this is what I found! Miss I had covered him up, put a pillow under his head, and was rubbing his head. - What a wonderful moment for a mother to witness!

Castles

In school this week we learned a little bit about Castles. The girls had a great time building castles of their own after our lesson!

Baptism

We Baptized Ato T on Februaty 8, 2009 at the 10:30 am service at our church. We were blessed to have our friends Lisa and Jesse agree to be Ato T's sponsors. Thanks to everyone who came to the baptism or to our house after - you made it a very special day for all of us!

Update

Well, we are beginning to settle in as a family. I've found with our first 2 kids that it takes us about 2 years to really get into a good groove - 2 weeks down and 102 to go! :)

Ato T seems to be settling in well. It's hard to tell what he's thinking, since he doesn't really communicate and wasn't spoken to in English before we showed up. When I get him up in the morning or from nap, he still looks at me like he's thinking, "Oh, I'm still here? Um, okay."

Miss I and Miss O simply love having a little brother. After some minor attitude asjustments towards mommy and daddy, they are begining to settle into our new family life quite well. Daddy is working like a maniac trying to catch up on all the work he missed while we were gone, so he's exhausted. Mommy is exhausted too - but that was to be expected. We have certainly been blessed by friends and family surrounding us during this transition.

Ato T has had LOTS of doctor appointments. The Neuro surgery appointment isn't until the 27th though, which is the one we are most anxious to get to. General docs we have seen are tending to think that his cyst may not not need a shunt. It seems that part of his brain is quite possibly missing, and the cyst formed to fill in the area that never formed. We'll know more after the MRI and visit with neurosurgery.

I hope to post some pictures soon. I haven't had a lot of free time to sort through them all, but I am excited to share our Ethiopian experience with you all, as well as recent pictures of all the kiddos!

Ato T

It seems that I should explain what we are calling the boy in these posts. I don't like using my kids' names on a blog that is open, so I use Miss I and Miss O for the girls. For the boy - Mr. T sounded too mean, especially when in the first picture we had of him he had a mini-mohawk. In Ethiopia, Ato is the term that is fairly equivelant to Mr. here in the States, so that's what we decided to use. - So that is where we get Ato T from. Hope this clears up some confusion!

Our days

Well, the days have been flying by! Monday Ato T had an appointment with his pediatrition. Tuesday morning he had Physical Therapy, and Tuesday afternoon Miss O had Physical and Speech Therapy. Wednesday afternoon Miss O had Occupational Therapy and at the same time Ato T had Occupational Therapy. Today the kids all played fairly well while I spent the morning on the phone getting appointments set up for Ato T. This afternoon we've all just been playing together and getting to know the feel for what it's like to have 3 kids here. Tomorrow we get to go back to our homeschool group! :) Busy days make for a tired mom!

This is a picture of Ato T sitting in a Bumbo chair that our friends Lisa and Jesse were kind enough to loan to us. The first time we tried it he was crying after 2 inutes. Today he sat in it for about 25 minutes playing and having fun! :)

Family of 5

We are home, and officially a family of 5!!! Our trip to Ethiopia was terrific, until the last 2 days. Tuesday last week was Embassy day - the day we went to the Embassy to recieve our children's visas, so that we could all leave on Thursday. We were under the impression that the visas always go through - the interview was just a formality. Turns out - not so much! At first when the clerk said he didn't think we would be getting the visa, I actually thought he was joking. But then he started explaining it.

I guess there was a mix-up with the form that the embassy doctor had to fill out. She filed Ato T. as class A. Well, Class A visa is for someone who is a threat to the US (like someone with TB, for example). The form the doctor had indicated that anyone with CP should be class A. This would mean we would need a waiver to come home, which takes up to 2 weeks.

So we called around, and found that we needed to get the CDC here in the US to issue a statement saying that he would not need a waiver. The US Embassy in Ethiopia was closed on Thursday, so we would have to wait until Friday to find out. But the CDC assured the embassy that it would be the first thing they would do Wednesday morning, ans since they had 2 full working days to get it done, we didn't think it would be a problem. Ha!!!

We were extremely blessed with the best travel group ever surrounding and supporting us! Many of them left baby care things behind for us to use during our extra stay, and we are eternally grateful to you for that! Thank you all so much for your love, support and prayers! We wouldn't have made it emotionally without you, as well as our many chances to journel. ;)

Friday morning comes, and the staff of CHSFS in Ethiopia was kind enough to take us to another guest house to stay and feed us there. We called the embassy Friday morning, and they still had not heard from the CDC. To top things off, it was 9:20 and the embassy closes at 11:45 on Fridays. So it was looking like Heather would have to stay alone in Ethiopia with Ato T and Mike would fly home.

Well, the CHSFS Ethiopia staff worked their tales off on Friday morning for us! I'm not exaggerating at all. The president of the organization in Ethiopia ended up leaving a meeting early to call the doctor and request that she change the form. In the meantime, Mike and I talked with Scott at the embassy, who agreed to stay late for us if we knew the amended form would be coming in. After the president talked with the doctor, she wanted to talk with us, which we gladly did, and she agreed to change the form for us.

While she was working on that, the staff picked Mike up to go get the form and bring it to the Embassy. They also had to take the form for otarization. They finally got to the Embassy about 2 hours after it closed, and Scott processed the visa for us.

Friday morning was nothing short of a miracle! We are so thankful to the staff in Ethiopia and Scott at the US embassy in Ethiopia! However, we are NOT thankful for the stupid CDC, and our congress person will be getting a letter about that organization!

For now we are home and trying to settle in as a family. More about that transition in another post. Thank you all for your prayers!