If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands!

Peter started clapping his hands yesterday and has been doing so today like it's his job. It makes me so happy to see the smile on his face when he's clapping and to see him develop this cognitive and motor milestone. He claps mainly when listening to music while we are driving in the car and when he gets excited about something while we're playing. Sometimes he just does it because it is something new to do. Whatever the reason, it brings me great happiness to see him clapping his hands.

It has been about three and a half months since Gotcha Day and while this whole journey has been extremely rewarding, I have to admit it has not been a cake walk. I never want to complain, because I know God has blessed me beyond measure. However, the past several months have been a real challenge for us and we want to be honest about that. I write this because I was recently reminded that it is OK to admit that I'm not always OK and Matt has been encouraging me to share our struggles.

For several months leading up to Gotcha Day, my anxiety level was at an all-time high. Not about the adoption, but about a hundred other things that have never come to fruition. While it has calmed down some, it has not nearly subsided as much as I need it to. I remind myself that nothing I am ever anxious about ever actually materializes, but that does not seem to help at the moment.

Aside from anxiety (always in relation to my children), the biggest struggle for me has been going from Mom to Referee.

As a mother of one, my relationship with my first child was absolutely amazing. And I recognize how easy I had it. Now, I feel like I am constantly trying to figure out how to balance the desires and wills of a three-year-old and a two-year-old who both want all of my attention at the same time. While I try to do my best for them every day, I have not yet figured out the balance and it tears at my heart. I am told I am too hard on myself, but raising my two children is the most important thing I have ever and will ever do - I just want to give them the best childhood (including the best me) that I can. Many days, though, my emotions are raw and I am mentally exhausted.

In all of the training, reading and talking with adoptive families that we did prior to Gotcha Day, the one thing we were never warned about was the impact of the adoption on our biological child. Everything and everyone talked about the adopted child. What we were not prepared for was the regression displayed by our biological son. The time period when he stopped talking because Peter can not talk. The grunting and groaning because that is the way Peter communicates. The increased whining, disobedience and rebellion in response to now having to share my attention. I know that none of this is unique, but it is still difficult. It is not all the time, but it is still trying, frustrating and draining.

I must compliment Noah's patience with Peter's intense, frenzied, loud and incessant groaning in relation to his food obsession, and his way to express impatience for any reason because he can not communicate verbally yet. But even though Noah is so patient with it, I know it must wear on his nerves, because it frays ours.

For Matt, attachment has been a major issue -- both Peter attaching to Matt and Matt attaching to Peter. This is very common and is something that we both read about and were told to expect, but that has not made it any easier on either of them.

Honestly, integrating our adopted two and a half year old (who is developmentally around 12 months old) into our family is by far the most difficult thing we have ever done -- and I went to the Naval Academy and we both served in the Navy, for goodness sake!

All that to say, I love my family of four beyond words and am working hard at it, but this season in our lives presents daily struggles. When people ask how it is going and want a response consisting of a smile with an 'it's going great,' - well, it is going great, but that is not the whole story and does not even scratch the surface.

I write this not to complain, because like I said before, I dearly love my family, I know I am blessed, and I do not for a moment regret our decision to adopt. I write this to be real, honest, transparent, and admit that it is not all rainbows and unicorns.

Now that I am mentally fried from publicly laying all that out there, here are some pictures of my little loves:

Bye Bye, Summer!

Our end of summer beach trip is over, Noah is back in school, and Peter's speech therapy has begun - bye bye, summer!

Our annual beach trip with Matt's parents, his sister and her family ended on a high note, despite Noah beginning the vacation with a trip to Urgent Care and five stitches on his chin the evening before we left for the beach. Poor kid fell off his bike and the sidewalk was not his friend. At the beach, Peter hated the sand with a passion, but bonded with his grandparents, aunt and female cousins (his little mommies who played so sweetly with him). Of course, he loved the pool and the water park, where he laughed so heartily in the wave pool that we took him in it over and over again. 

We are moved into our new home. Still a bunch of organizing, picture hanging and little projects to do, but we are settling in. Peter's speech therapist is coming to our house once a week while Noah is at school. Peter has grown leaps and bounds in the past three months when it comes to play, non-verbal communication, understanding, and physical/motor development. So, although he does not speak any words yet, we are hopeful that speech therapy will help him grow in that area. While he is almost three years old, his speech therapist assesses him verbally at 11-12 months. (I just updated that based on her now written report.) I am especially glad for all the tips his therapist has given me - practices for us to implement on a regular daily basis in order to help him learn to talk. 

Peter also has an appointment with a pediatric neurologist and an appointment with a pediatric ophthalmologist in his near future to evaluate his little brain and to check for any vision or depth perception issues. We are praying for reports of good health in both areas. 

Next Steps

Today was Petey's (so nicknamed by Noah) hearing test that is part of three appointments evaluating his development in order to make a therapy plan, most likely for OT and speech therapy. In the following weeks, we will have two one-hour evaluations at our home where our early intervention service coordinator will assess him while he plays. The hearing test showed that he can in fact hear, which we knew but had to have confirmed as part of his evaluation. The service coordinator, however, did note that he has a concerningly short attention span. She thinks that while he can hear language, he is possibly not able to pay enough attention to language to learn to speak it. This will be evaluated further during our two upcoming evaluations.

Speaking of Petey's service coordinator, she asked me to clarify what country he is from because "he does not look Chinese." What this really means is that he does not look Han, which is the ethnic majority group that makes up at least 92% of China's population. Ironically, Matt and I have been talking about this recently because of his dark skin. There are 55 ethnic minority groups in China. Based on physical description and geography, we think it is possible that Petey has Mongolian or other ethnic minority influence. If any of you readers happens to be Chinese or is well-versed in Chinese ethnic groups, we'd love to hear your input! We are fascinated by this, simply because we are interested in anything and everything about Petey's background.

Here are some more pics of the brothers:

 

Thank you for Mickey, Aunt Sue!

~Allie

Peter's Baby Pictures!

We are so blessed that Peter's orphanage gave us a CD containing lots of photos of him during his time there. It is so amazing, heartwarming and exciting to be able to look at pictures of our little boy and see what he was like as a baby and young toddler! I am so very thankful to his orphanage staff and caregivers (one of whom is pictured) for providing us these photos. Here is a sampling of the best photos:

April 2013 (5 months old)

April 2013

August 2013

March 2014

April 2014

May 2014

July 2014

August 2014

November 2014 (LOVE the jacket!)

November 2014

January 2015

~Allie

We like to move it move it

So, we are doing two of the most stressful things a family can do...at the same time: integrating an adopted child into our family AND MOVING! Granted we are just moving 10 minutes away, but we are moving nonetheless. Not the best timing, but it is the opportunity of a lifetime that we just could not pass up. We are blessed to be moving into a house no more than a couple hundred yards from Matt's parents. We move at the end of the month and the home's location is perfect for us. In addition to the close proximity to family, the house is on a cul de sac, and we can easily walk to the neighborhood playground and pool. We are very excited about our move.

In other news, Peter has had a few promising developments. He now climbs the 14 stairs to the second story of our home on his own (with me walking behind him as a safety net, of course). Peter learned by following his big brother upstairs a few steps at a time and is now quite proud of himself each time he motors to the top.

Also, the last two times we went to the pool, Peter played with other children in the kiddie pool. The first time, Peter approached a girl his age, traded his bucket for her two containers, and they bee-bopped around in the water together. The second time, Peter similarly approached another girl around his age, traded his yellow sprinkling can for her blue one, and the two traded back and forth several times as they played with the toys in the water. It made my heart smile to see him interacting like that.

Peter is also starting to be able to follow simple instructions once in a while. It involves a lot of pointing, gesturing and repetition on my part, but over the past few days, he has succeeded in following:
Get the box.
Roll the truck.
Put the apple in the bowl.

Here are some recent photos with Peter.

Peter's first train ride:

Playing around in the kitchen:

~Allie

A Whole New World

Allie here. We have been home from China for just over three weeks now and Peter is growing more and more accustomed to his new world. He is snugly, playful and into everything! He is also healthy as a horse. We had his second pediatrician visit this week and all his labs came back perfect, praise God!

Peter is not speaking any words yet, but definitely understands some. He knows and responds to his name, "no," "your turn" and "come" (come here, come with Mama, come this way). Matt and I joke that his command of the English language is currently much like that of a puppy :-)

Peter's favored method of play is taking everything out -- out of bins, out of the pantry, out of cabinets. He also likes knocking things down -- mainly blocks and towers made of paper towel rolls. His happy place is in the water, any water -- pools, the bath tub, sprinklers. And, of course, he likes to do whatever Noah is doing. He loves being around his big brother.

Peter is still uncomfortable with people he does not know well approaching him and he protests physically and audibly, but not quite as dramatically as before. And he still gets overstimulated, but not quite as easily as before. It is remarkable how much more physically capable, confident and comfortable he has grown over the past five weeks!

Playing at a splash pad near our house.

Playing with blocks - his new favorite toy. Thank you, Ms. Betty and Mr. Joe!

Peter is totally warming up to his grandparents - Honey and Ozzie. Here he is with his Ozzie. I love the love in this photo! 

Three weeks!?!

I can't believe it was just three weeks ago yesterday that Peter officially joined our family. It seems like he has been with us for so much longer!

Today was our first post-placement interview with our social worker. She came to our home and spent an hour and a half talking with us and watching how we all interact as a family of four. We discussed what we did with Peter each day that we were in China and all that has gone on since we've been home. It was a very comfortable time, and our next evaluation will be just before the six-month mark.

Peter continues to delight us. He still gets quite overwhelmed if someone new approaches him, so we've hunkered down a bit to allow him more time to adjust. We have been playing a lot so that he can learn through play, investigate his world, and just plain have fun. This week he learned to stack one block on top of another, and today he learned how to stack rings on the classic stacking rings toy. He is quite curious and determined -- and let's not forget adorably hugable!

~Allie