Still Here...just busy!

A few of you have asked....yes, we're still here and doing well. I'm
working on my new blog but am not ready to post it yet. Going back to
work has really put a crunch on my blogging time. Well, that and Dane
and I have been watching "Lost" on DVD and are somewhat obsessive
about it right now so that is occupying what little personal time
we've got in the evenings. Hopefully I can get back to blogging soon.

Tian is doing well adjusting to her new day care, but it still a bit
weepy about it. She has started cruising and I think walking is soon
to follow. Her first surgery is scheduled for the end of Feb.
Hopefully more soon....I've got lots of great photos, just no time to
post.

Jeannene

Plants and First Day of School

Here is Clio with her plants. Last year she grew an Amaryllis plant and really enjoyed watching it. They are so fast growing it's really fun for kids. This year, we're a bit behind due to being in China, so we won't have flowers for Christmas, but we started three bulbs. An Amaryllis, paperwhites and calla lilys. Clio is really proud of them and checks them every day and waters them herself.




Today was Tian's first day at school (a.ka. daycare). We wanted to give her an easy transition, starting with just a couple hours a day and working her way to full days, so she started today and will be going full time when I head back to work after New Year. It was an adventure for mom to try and get both girls ready, but they were surprisingly cooperative. Here are a few photos. So, yes I've got the house to myself for a couple of hours to do the final Christmas preparations and a little blogging! I wanted to let everyone know that I am planning to transition to a new blog soon. I want to have a general blog rather than just a travel journey blog. I'm also experiencing some frustration with the way blogger does photos and video (which I can't get to post at all!), so once I figure out what the new one will be, I'll let you all know. I imagine once I'm back to work, it will be harder to find time to do blogging, but I'm hoping to keep it up with some regularity. It's been such a great way to stay in touch with everyone and at the same time have a record of what is going on for our family.

Anyway, here are the photos of the girls as we are about to leave for school. Clio was VERY happy that Tian was finally going too!

Watch me eat!

One of the gaps in Tian's skill set was that she was never given the opportunity to feed herself. I suspect that they just had to shovel the food in with all the kids at the SWI and also, probably didn't want to deal with the mess of self-feeding. So our baby has been clueless about the concept that she can actually pick up food and put it in her mouth. We've really been working on this...and have a breakthrough. Here are some photos of her with a large piece of cracker. The funny thing is she will only pick up really large pieces of food and gnaw on them...once it's gets too small she won't even try. But we are so happy to be making progress.

I should probably also update you on her appointment with Early Intervention. She had her assessment last week and it was very interesting and the staff were SO nice. I highly recommend doing this for anyone who has adopted. Even if your child doesn't qualify for services, you'll learn a lot from the appointment about where they are at developmentally and how you can help in areas they may be a bit behind in.

Interestingly, Tian's fine motor skills, which I was most concerned about, tested about average for her age. I was really surprised at this because she doesn't self-feed and struggles to grasp some things. However, while there she demonstrated a pincher grasp between her thumb and middle finger which was a surprise to me. However, they felt she was behind in both gross motor skills and problem solving for her age. She has "low muscle tone," particularly in the hip area. I'm really not worried about this because she has made such progress in the short time she's been with us. Also, with problem solving, I think it is a matter of experience rather than skill. A lot of the activities she needed to do where things like reacting to a mirror or putting blocks in a cup. I think she is capable of this, but was a bit overwhelmed with all the "stuff" at the assessment and carefully watching the new adults. She also hasn't had the opportunity to do many of these tasks yet. In the end, they decided that she qualified for the services of a occupational therapist. She will be seeing one once a month.

Matching Dresses!

One of the cool things about having two girls is matching dresses. I'm not sure why exactly, but it's REALLY cute to put them in. Thanks to Elise for the gift of these stripy ones!

Special Delivery from China!

OK, I know this might not be totally PC, but it was too cute not to post!

Meeting with Dr. Benson

Today, we met with Dr. Benson, a pediatric orthopedist. She is the one who talked to us at length when we were learning about Tian's condition. She is also an adoptive mom and has several other little girls adopted from China among her patients.

She took a lot of time to explain to us how Tian's hands and feet formed in while she was in the womb and what likely happened to make them form differently. She believes it is a genetic condition called Split Hand and Foot disorder where the mid-portion of the hands/feet does not continue to form correctly. She drew me pictures of how it likely developed and really gave a lengthy explanation. She says ectrodactly (which is what we originally thought Tian had) is similar, but is characterized by a "less organized" and more erratic pattern of bones.

Basically, Tian's hands and feet began to form in the usual way, but then the middle parts did not continue to develop, although on her right hand, all the bones formed, but the middle two are fused at the very top, so did not split.

As we had thought and hoped, Dr. Benson does not recommend any surgery on Tian's feet. However, her recommendations on her hands were a bit surprising to us.

She recommends two surgeries. The first would be done very soon and would take the webbing out on her left hand between the thumb and first finger. This would be fairly simple as far as surgeries go, but she would have a cast on that hand for four weeks. It will give her a lot more mobility and flexibility with that hand and much better ability to grasp.

The second surgery would be more complex and involve both hands. We would probably do this sometime in the fall after she is fully recovered from the first surgery. On the right hand, she would split the fused finger into two fully working fingers. She will need a skin graft to make up the skin in between the two fingers. The Dr. plans to use some tissue from her left hand and also some from her groin area if necessary. Also on her bent pointer finger which she believes is missing a tendon, she will fuse the top joint, so it will be straight, but the top joint will not move.

On left hand, she will actually move the pointer finger over into the gap left by the missing finger. This was a surprise to us, but seems to make sense. This would allow Tian to have three fingers together rather than a large gap. Some of the tissue from the gap would also be used to help reconstruct the fingers on the other hand that are being separated. Dr. Benson believes this will be much more functional and also will look better; as she gets older this missing space would continue to widen and be much more noticeable. Currently, with this hand, Tian tends to pick things up between the middle fingers using the space of the missing finger, rather than put things between her thumb and fingers. The Dr. believes this change will help with that function.

After the second surgery, Tian will have casts on both hands for four weeks. I'm sure that will not be fun, but when it is all done she will have two very functional hands, one with four finger and one with three fingers.

We like Dr. Benson very much. She and her staff are very nice and we have a lot of confidence in them. She showed us several plaster casts of all kinds of different kids hands that she has operated on. Two of them were Chinese adoptees. (Not that it matters really, but it was interesting.) I feel very confident in her and the fact that she comes so highly recommended.

Right now, Dane and I are feeling that we would prefer to do the surgeries here at home rather than travel to Philadelphia to the other surgeon all things being equal. We need to make sure our insurance will cover these surgeries. And we need to give it a bit more thought and make sure we are making the best choice for Tian.

Dress Up for Movie Night

We have started a new tradtion at our house of movies and popcorn on Friday evenings. Clio insisted that the whole family also play dress up for this one because we were watching Cinderella III.

 
 
 

Winter Fun!

Clearly, Tian LOVES her snowsuit!


Sleddin' Sisters!


Clio and her new friends!

Tian's First Ortho Visit

Tian had her first visit today with a pediatric orthopedist and we finally got a glimpse of just what is inside her little hands and feet. It was actually very interesting. Poor Tian screamed as if she was being tortured during the xrays though.

Mostly good news, although we haven't heard directly from the top doc. yet, just the PA at this point...In her little feet, she has the bones for most of four toes, but only the "tips" for two. The good news is that everything is aligned well and she shouldn't need any surgery for her feet (YEA!)

Her hands are a bit more complicated. The fused finger does indeed have all the bones for two full fingers. The xray could not show if they are fused at the very top or just close together, however the rest of the joints are separate. It may be possible to separate into two full working fingers. It will depend on the nerves and some other stuff. We may have a decision to make on that as it does function pretty well as is. We'll see what the Dr. has to say about how it will grow in the future and the risks/benefits involved in separation.

Her hand with the missing finger just has one bone for the missing finger deep down in the hand, the others are just not there. The good news is that everything here is aligned well too. We were worried there might be some bones going the wrong way and causing spreading, but there aren't.

The PA says the webbing between her thumb and first finger is a pretty easy fix and that is the part that is actually causing her the most issues with grasping. She also has a first finger that is curved inward and can't be straightened. This is still more of a mystery as the xrays didn't really show what the issue might be. The bones appeared to be normal in the xray. We are hoping the Dr. will know more.

The PA is supposed to consult with the Dr. this week and call us back before the end of the week. I feel very relieved to finally see what is going on inside her hands and to learn what we need to do. Now that we have xrays, we are also planning to send them to a Dr. at Shriner's that we have been in touch with. We will have to decide where to have her treated once we know more.

More LYG photos

Here are the photos that were taken on disposable cameras we send to LYG SWI. It is a gift to have a glimpse into Tian's life before she joined our family.

Holiday Ball

We've been trying to do some special things with Clio that only BIG sisters can do. She went to the Holiday Ball on a date with her dad and had a great time! Here are some photos to give you an idea:

No we didn't fall off the deep end...

But it sure felt like we were in some deep dark hole for about a week. Seriously, I had conveniently forgotten just how hard that transition home is. (I guess it's something like labor pain...if you let yourself really remember you might not do it again...) But we survived it and it appears that we finally have both kids back on a fairly normal sleeping schedule.

While we had planned to have Clio attend her preschool part time until I go back to work in January, we came to the decision very quickly, that she needed to go full time. She's always been such an adaptable child, that I didn't realize how important her schedule really is to her. There was a moment in China where we were eating dinner and out of the blue she teared up and said, "I miss my Spanish teacher..." Her little heart was breaking missing all her friends and activities. So, she went all week last week and has been much much more enjoyable to be around. Still a bit jealous that Tian stays home with me, but I assure her that we are only doing boring stuff and getting her ready for school in a few weeks. I'm feeling a bit guilty about this as it also is helping me big time to be able focus solely on Tian during the days, but I do think it's for the best.

As for little Tian, she is doing better and better each day. We had a few days when we arrived home where she was crying inconsolably for many hours at a time. I now believe it was a combination of sensory overload, fear, tiredness and hunger. While we knew she was a good eater in China, she has turned into a major food inhaler once home. Seriously, she eats all the time and is eating more the Clio most days. I don't know if she is making up for lost time or having a huge growth spurt, but we are trying to keep up. Luckily she will eat anything so we are bulking her up with healthy foods...unfortunately, she will not feed herself, so it occupies a lot of parental time shoveling the food in. Part of the way we finally got her to sleep through the night was giving her a huge meal of cereal and fruit prior to bed time.

We have also been running her around the a variety of medical appointments with more to come this week. I will be glad when we know what to expect regarding surgery and future medical treatments.

She continues to improve her motor skills daily and I don't have a lot of concerns about her development, other than the fact that she doesn't put food into her mouth. She has already learned a few signs of baby sign language and is crawling and pulling up like crazy.

So now I'm going to go back and post some photos from our last days in China and our first days home.

Here are a few from our last couple of days in China...






Including the infamous sake photo...I ended up leaving about half of this for whoever cleaned the room. They probably had a really good day!



Here are some photos on the famous red couch...the girls weren't cooperating a whole lot so the photos worked better with parents involved. Unfortunately, there wasn't anyone around we felt comfortable asking to take one of all four of us.




Here are some others around the White Swan Hotel.



We finally found someone to take one of all of us near the waterfall. Yes, this is IN the hotel.

Finally back home...we went on lots of walks trying to get the girls some sun and help reset their internal clocks. The swing was not a big it with Tian...just one of many ways she is the opposite of big sister...

Some photos of Tian learning about her new home:

Despite the smile here, Tian is much more cautious and observant than her big sister. She is getting used to riding "Blue" but it's been a gradual process. Big sister was riding this thing standing on one foot at her one year birthday. It amazing to see the different personalities already at work at this young age.

Here they are in their new double stroller, courtesy of my friend Kelly. I would have killed to have this with us in China.

On Dec. 1, our Homeowner's Association did a nice event with carriage rides and Santa. No Santa photos through, Clio was terrified of him. We feel really lucky to live in such a nice neighborhood.

We're Home

We are home and safe and sound. The trip really wasn't bad. Went much better than I had feared, but was of course long and tiring.

Tian did not sleep a lot last night and seems pretty confused by the time change. She was up for the morning about 3:30 a.m. and now is sleeping probably thinking it is night. I plan to wake her after about two hours and try to keep her awake for awhile. Clio did pretty well and was in bed by 9 p.m. last night, but up around 5 a.m. She should adjust pretty quickly, I think. Dane and I are planning to take shifts. I take the last nights and he takes the early mornings until Tian gets adjusted. All three of them are actually napping right now.

We took the girls out for a walk and to the park early this morning. The more sunlight they get, the easier it is to adjust their internal clocks. I can't say the swing was a big hit with Tian so far.

I'm going to keep this short as I've got lots to do and a rare opportunity with the rest of the household asleep.

Heading Home

Hello everyone! We are in the final countdown to our journey home. I can't wait to be back in the states and get Tiany settled into a regular schedule...however, I can't say I'm too excited about the flight. Many of the folks we've been hanging out with here leave tomorrow, so we may be a bit lonely. We leave way too early in the morning on Sat. Have to be packed and in the lobby at 5:20 a.m. Ick. So this is likely to be my last post from China. We take the oath tomorrow for Tian's citizenship and have a bunch of last minute shopping to do, and then packing in the evening, so I don't imagine I'll be on the blog much. I'll probably do a final email check for the great adventure home begins.

I have more photos of the girls, and we are heading over in their matching outfits to the White Swan tomorrow for some red couch photos. But internet is seriously slow again this evening, and I just don't feel like fighting to get the photos up here.

I also got our cameras that we had sent to the SWI developed and have some additional LYG photos. Many have different kids in them, most I don't recognize, so it will be interesting to see if some of the rest of you do.

I wanted to do an update on Tiany (as Clio and I like to call her) before signing off. She is really blooming before our eyes. Despite the update that she wasn't sitting up, wasn't crawling, basically wasn't doing anything...she does all that and more. Each day she shows us a new skill. She crawls very well, both army style and a full crawl when she wants. She can pull up and balance a bit, but is wobbly still. With daddy's assistance she's has taken some tentative assisted steps. She grabs everything in site and flings it to the floor. She will eat anything and everything we put in her mouth and while she hadn't demonstrated this before, tonight she started putting food into her mouth, only big items, but it is great progress. She smiles and giggles a lot. And while she still is fairly fixated on mommy, she's decided that daddy is not such a bad guy after all. In fact, she won't go to sleep easily for mom, so that's become dad's job. While originally she wouldn't let me put her down, she graduated to sitting next to me, to crawling around in the area I'm in. She has also tolerated a high chair and stroller for brief periods. She is babbling all the time and we believe we heard both mama and dada come out of her mouth today. She loves her sister and wants to imitate everything she does. We are so happy with her progress and her pleasant happy demeanor. She is a great addition to our family.

She reminds me so much of her big sister in many ways, and yet is her own unique self. If you cover her mouth she looks so much like Clio, but then she has those pouting Angelia Jolie type lips. And she has the cutest, charming giggle. Very different from Clio's belly laugh.

Clio is still having a rough time. She has been eating better here in Guangzhou, but is now refusing naps which makes for very tempermental evenings and afternoons. She desperately needs to be back home and on a schedule and back with her friends. It is hard for her to not be the center of attention all the time anymore and she really misses interacting with kids her age. She's been a trooper, but her patience is gone and the novelty has worn thin. She's learned that she can exploit the fact that we are in a hotel room and many public places, so our discipline has gone down the tubes. Today she was throwing a huge fit in front of our hotel and I couldn't get her to calm down at all. A police man came over and waved his finger at her and that scared her a bit and she settled down. I was grateful to him actually. Everything was different here, the schedule, the rules, the bathrooms (she is terrified of the Chinese style ones), the food, the kids...so who can really blame her for being on edge. We just have to survive the 24 hours of travel and I think we'll be able to get back to normal.

If we were to come again, I don't know if I would bring Clio or not. We are traveling with several families who left kids behind and it's been really tough on them in a way we haven't experienced. Despite the challenges for us, I think overall it's been good for her to be here. I think the bottom line is that it's a hard trip anyway you do it.

Like when we returned home with Clio, I think it will take a while to settle into a new routine with Tiany in the mix. For instance, we had getting ready with the three of us down to a science and were pretty quick. Now we can't seem to do it in under 2 hours. It's more than doubled, because we can't trade off the way we did before and we end up each watching the kids while the other gets ready and then each getting a kid ready. Not very efficient, but we haven't learned how to have one of us get two ready at once. And with Tiany refusing to be put down most of the time, it's tough. So my hat is off to all you moms reading this with 2 or more...I've got some learning to do!

I'm not sure what else to add. There's been so much this trip and I've only captured a small part of it here. Dane is off getting a hair cut and massage. I had a foot massage last night which was GREAT! And about $10 for 90 minutes! We love China and feel so fortunate to be able to bring these little girls into our lives. But the trip also makes me realize how blessed we are to live in the US and how very much we have to learn about the Chinese culture. I find myself wondering what our girls will make of all this when they are grown and how they will feel about their birth country and their new home.

I'm going to call it a night. Thanks to all for the support, prayers and wishes during our journey. We can't wait to see you back at home and introduce our beautiful little girl to you!

A few last LYG photos

The beach...



And park...


Our travel mate Rebecca and her son David with Dane and Tian. At the SWI we learned that these two kiddos had cribs next to each other. David's family lives in Castle Rock so we thought it was pretty cool that they were "neighbors" in the SWI and will be neighbors back home!


Tian's bed. I forgot to add in the post about our rough day getting to LYG, that when we arrive we discovered that our hotel only had one crib. The first room they wanted us to go in had one bed about the size of double and they expected all 4 of us to sleep in it! There was no room for a rollaway and even a crib would have been tight (had they had one). We did manage to get moved to a bigger room with two single beds and more room and got a rollaway for Clio. We let our travel mates take it as their son was more likely to climb than Tian and made her this little bed by pushing two chairs together, stuffing pillows into the arm holes and covering with a comforter.