Beautiful Baby Boy

A hundred thanks to my friend Christi for coming over last week with her camera and taking some amazing shots of Matthew.

When Maya and Sam were little, my then brother-in-law did a photo shoot of each of them, and those photos are framed in our bedroom. I wanted to capture Matthew as a baby too, since I know he won’t be one for long.

I know that in a few weeks (on August 16, to be exact), Matthew will go to Seattle Children’s Hospital and have his cleft lip and squished nose repaired. And that’s as it should be.

But as Matthew’s mama, let me confess to you that I think my boy is SO beautiful already. His cleft lip is just part of what makes up his face, but it IS part of his face, and I think he’s gorgeous just he way he is. And yes, I’ll still take him to Children’s for the surgery, because I want the best for him and I want his body to be healthy.

But a part of me will always miss the way he looks right now. I will miss this sweet face that I knew first—the eyes and lips and cheeks that I kiss and touch and know intimately. So I’m grateful to have these beautiful photos—so that one day my boy knows just how much his mama loved him from the start.

So here are a few of the amazing photos to share with you. I hope you enjoy them.

Just some photos

It's been very busy around our house, and soon I'll write a post updating you on all Matthew's new accomplishments. But for now, here are some shots of how we've been spending our time. I especially love the sequence at the bottom with all the neighbor girls who adore Matthew. It melts this mama's heart.

Man, can that kid smile!

A serious face

Love this look--he seems surprised

And here's another serious face.

Playing letters on the fridge with Maya

Our neighbor Maggie, who LOVES Matthew

Matthew's big-girl buddies

Matthew's first dip in the kiddy pool with neighbor friends

He loved it!

Now the big girls dry him off!

And he gets another hug from Maggie

Standing Tall

Our boy reached another milestone today, and he did it in the presence of dear friends. While having dinner with our friends Erik and Tauni (and their girls Emma and Lily), Matthew learned how to stand up on his own two legs from a crawling position ALL BY HIMSELF. The look on his face when he stood up for the first time was one of delight and pure joy. He knew he had just done something important, even without the many cheers and claps from the eight people standing around him. It was a big moment.

But honestly what delighted me the most about tonight wasn’t Matthew’s standing up (although it was pretty fun to watch). I was enchanted, all evening long, by the love and attention Matthew received from our friends, who are HIS friends now too. They carried him around, talked to him, clapped for him, commented over and over again how adorable he is, and asked us about a million questions about him. This was the first real time they had spent with him, and it was such a gift to me to see how enveloped he was in the friendship and love of this other family.

This happens all the time these days, and it reminds me that our call to adopt Matthew wasn’t just about our family—that we believe strongly that we have an extended family and community who have amazing love to give, and everyone gives it so freely. We knew that when we brought this little boy home, he wouldn’t just have our immediate family, but a whole host of friends and family members who will be part of his life, love him, and cheer him on. This is remarkable to me.

Yesterday, on the Fourth of July, we spent most of the day at my parents’ house celebrating with some of their friends. Matthew got love and attention from three extra grandparents yesterday, who took a zillion photos of him, helped him walk around, played with him, talked to him, and watched him all afternoon and evening. This kid already has four of the most amazing grandparents anyone could ask for, but what a double blessing to have all these extra grandparents (friends of our parents) who are also caring for him and loving him in that same way.

I don’t want to paint a picture of some fairy tale life at our house. Please hear me when I tell you that there are plenty of challenges, obstacles to overcome, and new things to learn. Most nights I literally fall into bed, I’m so exhausted. Aaron is really tired too. Just the change from two children to three is overwhelming, and trying to build attachment with a stranger from another culture is doubly exhausting.

But we are also so mesmerized by all the growing and changing this little boy is doing right here in the midst of us. He has the opportunity for stimulation, affection, attention, and interaction. And this has made a huge difference for him.

I know some of you who read this blog don’t live close enough to come over and tickle our boy in person right now. But we feel your love and support, even from a distance. Your emails, comments, cards, prayers and thoughts surround us and give us strength to keep on this journey, even when at times it feels insurmountable. Please know that you matter—very much. We couldn’t do it without you.

Enjoying the beautiful northwest ourdoors

Matthew and Sam--they are such buddies, and Sam wants to kiss Matthew every 10 minutes!

Working on his balance.

Matthew meets a special friend: Another Matthew!

Bath time and snuggles with mama

Just the Opposite

We’re doing things in the opposite way around here these days. When you bring home an 18-month old baby to new parents and a new family, it seems like you spend most of your time trying to turn the toddler back into a baby.

It’s actually going well, honestly, although it’s quite a change in thinking. For instance, instead of holding his own bottle, we want Matthew to learn to let US hold the bottle for him. This helps him trust us, know that we will take care of him, and create attachment. We also rock him to sleep at both naptime and bedtime. By 19 months, both Maya and Sam were well on their way to putting themselves to sleep. We’d lay them somewhat awake in their cribs and they would fall asleep after they were down. This was something we did to try and help build a little bit of independence on their part, especially once they were past the infant stage.

But with Matthew, who didn’t have an infant stage with us (or with any “parent,” for that matter), we are doing things backwards, trying to help him be the baby he never got to be before growing up into a toddler.

This means when he’s hungry, we feed him. When he cries, we pick him up (immediately). When he’s awake, we get him up out of his crib. I have such a mixed relationship with his crib, knowing how many hours a day (possibly up to 20 hours) he spent in his crib while in the orphanage.

Some days Aaron and I feel joy and frustration in the same moment—like when Matthew learned how to unplug the wireless router. We were frustrated because he was getting into something he shouldn’t be touching, but in the same moment we were filled with joy because he was doing something that was developmentally appropriate for his age. Each milestone, even when it makes us roll our eyes, also delights us in ways we didn’t expect.

And I can’t speak for Aaron, but I have to admit that I find I have a deep well of patience and energy for Matthew. Any time he gets fussy, or when bedtime takes an hour longer than I was expecting, I just think about all early months of his life that we were not part of, and I feel a strong sense that we are re-writing those months somehow, reclaiming some of the time we missed. Any chance for a hug or some time in the rocking chair brings me joy and helps attach this amazing little boy more closely to us.

He’s changing so much—and learning something new every day. He continues his exploration of the world around him while standing on his legs. He’s not walking yet, but he pulls himself up and “cruises” from one place to another. He’s also making so many sounds with his voice, trying to communicate with us or at least join all the chatter he hears around him. He’s still only drinking from a bottle, which is definitely a source of frustration for me, but we are getting good support from a nutritionist at Seattle Children’s Hospital, which has helped a lot. He’s sleeping now in his shared room with Sam, at least during the night, and he has actually been quite a good sleeper too, which is a wonderful blessing for two already-tired parents.

Life is simple now, but we are still doing some of our fun normal activities. Yesterday Maya and I went and picked strawberries, and I made four beautiful batches of jam. Yum! We are enjoying hanging out with friends and spending time with family. And we even braved church for the first time this morning, although I spent the sermon walking around with Matthew in the foyer of the sanctuary.

So life goes on . . . with all its challenges and joys. And we are ever grateful.

And here are some photos:

Eating time

Taking a walk with Dad

Sam's birthday

Maya's ballet recital--with Grandma (Aaron's mom) and Aunt Chrisy (Aaron's sister)

He's all smiles

Cutie boy

Maya's field day butterfly face painting

Some of our homemade strawberry jam

 

Summer Solstice

I haven’t been the best blogger since we got home from China. Life has been full, as I’m sure you can imagine, and it seems like I spent every moment taking care of some small person. I’m grateful for what feels like an extra dose of energy and patience in my heart these days—I don’t know where it comes from, but it’s helping me find joy and deep gratitude in a season that could just as well be frantic and hectic.

We have finally passed through the crazy jet-lagged re-entry, and we’re settling into a new rhythm of life that actually feels really good to me. Getting enough sleep is a miracle—I feel like I can anything if I can just get eight solid hours of sleep. I’m not getting that EVERY night, but I am getting it enough nights to feel like myself again.

Maya and Sam are doing really well with this transition too. They are sweet, lively siblings—always willing to lend a hand with Matthew. Neither of them have said to me, “I wish Matthew hadn’t come home to our family,” which I consider a small miracle. I sort of expected them to have a tougher time. But instead they have a lot to teach me about acceptance, about not over-thinking everything, about just allowing relationships to develop naturally.

Sam, especially, has surprised me with his affection for Matthew. I expected him to be the most jealous and to have the hardest time with this transition. Instead he’s the sweet one—he kisses Matthew and hugs him all day long, and Matthew absolutely loves the affection from his big brother. He’s really attentive to Matthew’s needs, bringing him a toy or a blanket when he needs one, running to get a towel to wipe up Matthew’s “burble” (that’s what we call spit-up in our house).

And Maya is also such a great big sister. She’s helpful, thoughtful, and really attuned to what Matthew needs. Really, both my kids have surprised me with all their affection and love towards their littlest brother.

But perhaps the one who has surprised me the most in all this is Matthew himself. He is learning something new every day. I predict that in less than three weeks, he’ll be walking. He’s strong—he pulls himself up on anything he can find (chairs, the handle of the freezer, the coffee table, my pant leg). Instead of the army crawl that he did in China, he’s doing a real crawl now, up on hands and knees. He is starting to babble and make sounds that resemble English consonants: Gs and Ns and Ps. We sit him in the high chair during mealtime and let him experiment with food (normally rice cereal and applesauce) and he’s actually starting to put some of it in his mouth. He cracks himself up all the time—and he’ll just sit on the floor and laugh. He still loves his mama’s tickles, and he’ll pull my hands back down to his soft, squishy thighs just so he can laugh some more.

I find that I wake up each day grateful that our boy is home, that our trip is over, and that we get to spend another day learning to be a family. I still have moments when the enormity of what we’ve done hits me, and I feel a little overwhelmed. Parenting three children is harder than parenting two children. But then when I think about the alternative—my sweet boy still living in his orphanage in southern China—I feel a rush of gratitude that he is here with us.

We had our first visit at Children’s Hospital this past Monday in their craniofacial clinic, and we felt so supported and encouraged by the staff there. We received many complements about how beautiful and healthy our boy is, which was such a gift. It looks like the first surgery Matthew will have is the cleft lip repair, and it will be sometime in early August. We’re still waiting to schedule the specific date, but we have decided to move forward with the first surgery as soon as we can. The lip surgery is actually a fairly routine thing—it’s mostly just a plastic surgery that will leave Matthew with some stitches that will need to heal. We’re told that it’s only a few days of intense recovery before he feels pretty much back to normal, which is really amazing.

I was tickled to meet Matthew’s surgeon and find out that he himself is an Asian male. Nerdy me, I looked up his last name and see that it’s Cantonese in origin—so my Cantonese son will have his lip and palate repaired by a smart, handsome, Cantonese-American doctor. I know that’s not really a big deal, but I thought it was kind of sweet for Matthew to have that connection.

We continue to be well cared for by friends in our neighborhood (and friends in other cities too) who come and bring us meals and hugs and warm care. I know that perhaps it’s a bit overused, but I love the saying that “it takes a village to raise a child.” I really believe that’s true, and we are feeling the warm warms and deep love of our village in so many ways these days.

Sam’s 4^th birthday is on Friday, and we will celebrate with a family party on Friday night and Sam’s first “kid party” on Sunday with 7 friends who are his age (that was very important to him—to only have people who are his actual age). Aaron’s mom and sister are coming tomorrow to be part of Sam’s special weekend, and to see Maya’s ballet recital on Saturday evening. It’s bound to be a full weekend, but we’re so looking forward to being together with family and friends to celebrate our sweet almost-4-year-old.

And the sunshine today, on the Summer Solstice, brought streams of yellow light into our house all day—which didn’t really matter because we spent almost every waking minute outside, enjoying what felt like the first REAL day of summer around here. Maya’s done with school next Wednesday, and then we will really relax into a summer schedule. Lazy days are our number one priority!

Sam plays with his brother

A neighborhood walk--Matthew loves riding up on Daddy's shoulders

Practicing with food

His thumb still tastes better than the food

The almost-four-year-old.

Sweet big sister!

Seattle Children's & Father's Day

Seattle Children’s

June 17, 2012

Tomorrow is our first appointment with the Craniofacial center at Seattle Children’s Hospital. We check in at 11:00 am, and we’ll meet with six different doctors or specialists, finishing up around 2:00 pm.

We have never experienced Children’s Hospital, but we have heard many wonderful things about it. Two friends work on the nursing staff there, so we have some inside perspectives about how amazing it is. And even though it’s a little nerve racking to take a child fresh of the plane from China and begin the cleft lip and palate repair, it’s also a blessing to get going on the journey of repair, which moves Matthew closer to full health and development, especially with his speech.

I spent some time on the Children’s website today, looking up each of the physicians or specialists we’ll be seeing. And by the time I was done, I found myself in tears. Each face that came up on my screen seemed so kind to me, so wise, so caring. We’ll literally be putting Matthew into the hands of a team of people who will support him through two major surgeries (with more to follow in the future, likely) and all the healing, development, and new learning he’ll have to do.

Every doctor had such a child-centered philosophy of care—I felt grateful for the opportunity to work with this group of people, and I haven’t even met them yet.

We will continue to use this blog site as a place to update our friends and family on our adoption progress, including Matthew’s surgeries and healing. My friend Kaitlin will no longer be managing things, as I’m back in the U.S. and can do it myself. That also means we won’t be sending out any emails letting people know there is a new blog post up. But I will try to write a couple times each week, so if you are enjoying following our journey, I’d encourage you to continue stopping by when you think about it.

Also, if you have a blog reader program or have a Google account or some other way to read or keep up on blogs, please feel free to snag our blog address or sign up to “subscribe” to our blog.

We enjoyed a simple, sweet day together celebrating Aaron and my dad Bruce for Father’s Day. True to what you’d expect from the Pacific Northwest, our picnic plans turned to rain, so we huddled under a shelter to eat our sandwiches—but we had a blast. Just being outside was a delight.

Sweet Maya at the park

Matthew is playing and moving around so much these days

Sam comes out of the slide

Matthew's 2nd time on a swing--he loves it!

My two big kids!

Matthew's first Father's Day with a daddy to celebrate!

Waiting out the rain under the picnic shelter.

Maya, Sam, Bapa and Marmnie.

Good, Hard Work

It’s really good, sweet time at our house right now, but it’s also intense and lots of hard work. More work than Aaron or I were expecting, to be honest.

There are some things that are going really well. Maya and Sam LOVE having Matthew home, and they seem to have adjusted to life with him without any struggle. They are very happy to have us home, but the minute we were back with Matthew, they fell back into their normal patterns and seem very happy with things. That is a relief. We recognize that an adoption is a transition for everyone in the family, and we fully expected both our older kiddos to sense the disruption more.

There are some things that are really hard too. Attachment, for one thing. We are parenting this child whom we have known for less than three weeks. Yes, we stared longingly at his photos for six months before we went to China, and yes, we chose to have him in our family, but in some ways he is a still a stranger to us. This is compounded by the fact that he can’t talk, and can’t even really communicate to us in any concrete way. I am quite sure that he is also not yet attached to us. He’s very independent—probably from all those months in an orphanage—and he doesn’t put up a fuss when he’s passed around from one person to another. We are trying not to pass him around very much, just so he gets some consistency, but we’re also juggling this new life parenting three children, and the extra hands of friends and family members have been so helpful.

We have also stepped back into parenting a baby, which isn’t something we were expecting. We had in our minds that we were bringing home a toddler—which would have given us a very different set of challenges—but the endless bottle feedings, diaper changes, rocking to sleep, wake ups in the middle of the night, and constant supervision has been something that hasn’t been easy for us. Perhaps you could argue that we should have been more prepared for it—should have expected it—and you’d probably be right. But one thing we did realize is that parenting an almost 7- and 4-year old is really different from parenting an 18-month old who acts more like a 12-month old. We’ve stepped back into the world of babies, and it’s taking us time to adjust.

TIME is the key word here, I know. These relationships we are building with Matthew are all so new to all of us. I found out I was pregnant with Maya almost eight years ago. She was born seven years ago. And Sam was born four years ago. Seven years and four years are significant amounts of time compared to the less-than three weeks we’ve known Matthew.

And really, when it comes to parenting, logging in hours matters. No matter how attentive we are to Matthew right now, we can’t make up for the lost months we haven’t been with him. What we CAN do is keep moving forward with intentionality, starting the hour log NOW. Time is the great blessing in this situation—time to be intentional, time to be casual, time to just “be” together.

So we aren’t discouraged—not at all. We know this is part of the adoption path. When I hug my sister or laugh with her, when I look into her beautiful face, I feel SO attached and so connected. And this kind of attachment and connection happened because of all the years we’ve logged together.

I am not the kind of person who wishes to paint an ideal picture of the life we lead. There are many amazing, rich moments right now. Sometimes I freeze in my tracks and just stare that this little boy who, three weeks ago, was living in an orphanage in southern China—without parents, without family, without community. And now he’s here, with us, growing into a person who has a huge amount of potential. I continue to feel lucky to be part of his story and his family.

But I also know that transitions are hard, that new routines mean grieving the loss of the old ones, and that attaching to a little person who is new to our family doesn’t happen in an instant. So we’re logging the hours, faithfully trusting that the attachment will come. Until then, we keep gratitude in the forefront of our minds: gratitude for Matthew, gratitude for each other, and gratitude for the community around us who continues to support us so faithfully.

Our boy is getting used to his new house.

Sam holding the stickers we brought him from China.

Maya's been great at helping give Matthew his bottle.

Here Maya is reading to Matthew while he drinks a bottle.

Smiley big brother Sam

A Big Transition

Sorry the blog has been a little quiet these past few days. I have to admit that I’m quite overwhelmed right now with this process of re-entry.

It’s mostly because I haven’t been able to sleep—first because of jet lag, second because I have an 18-month old who isn’t sleeping much at night, and third because I’m dealing with some anxiety about the transition. Aaron and I keep reminding ourselves that we felt the transition with our homegrown babies too—coming home from the birth center or hospital, being up a lot at night, trying to establish a new routine and find some equilibrium. If I could just get a solid night of sleep right now I’d be a little less weepy and more functional.

That will come, I know.

One of the things about being alive for almost 37 years is that I have enough wisdom to know this is just a season. We have created an intentional life for ourselves that, during a normal time, has plenty of room for rest, play, work and time together. It all feels out of balance right now, but we will get back to that sometime soon.

In the mean time, we are trying to figure things out here. Matthew seems to be adjusting quite well. His sleeping schedule is (hopefully) settling down a little bit, and I can tell he’s getting more comfortable in our home and with his brother and sister. There are plenty of good times and sweet moments in the midst of all the re-entry challenges, and we are forging ahead together, knowing that this all just takes time.

Maya and Sam are particularly fond of their brother, and they are great about playing with him and spending time with him. Maya has another two weeks of school (they go LATE this year because they are making up snow days from the winter) and then she’ll be home with us full days, which will be lovely. And my parents have been a good support—in fact, my mom is coming over this afternoon to lend an extra set of hands. I’m hoping to go for a run and have a moment by myself to think.

We have been so grateful for all the calls and texts the past few days. Several friends have volunteered to bring us meals, which has been AMAZING. I have to admit that I'm not so good at asking for help or accepting help, but right now we need it and we've been so grateful. I'm learning to say a thankful "yes" to everyone's offers.

Here are some more photos from the past few days:

Maya's birthday cake, decorated by Aaron

Marmie plays with two of her grandsons

The birthday girl (a week after her birthday)

Love this shot of Parker holding Matthew's hand

The cousins

So glad to be able to squeeze this little person once again!

Our seven year old.

A drooley-faced Matthew boy.

We spend many hours in this position feeding Matthew

My favorite shot so far--three kiddos playing cars on the floor