Friday, December 19, 2008

Christmas with Grandma Jean & Grandan

Movies

I wanted to post, but don't have the time to write a proper one (too much time on Facebook . . . oh, and the holidays of course). Scott's mom came into town a few nights ago to give Christmas presents to us. I made this "movie" using Picasa - pretty cool, but I had problems uploading it to YouTube. I spent a few hours messing with that last night. I also love Picasa's touch-up tool . . . eliminate wrinkles and pimples in a flash!

There aren't a lot of photos of Alia because Luca was doing most of the gift opening while Alia looked on intently. It was pretty cute. Alia has had a very rough day or so. We think she has a tooth coming in that is really hurting her. Today, I thought I would take her for a long walk to the post office (it is 60 here). She cried the entire 50 minutes. It was like the night we went out to eat, but without the puking. There was gagging but no puking. I felt pretty inept. When Luca was that age and got upset, I nursed him . . . not an option now. Anyway, I hope that tooth comes through soon.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Thoughts for Thursday

Are You a Non-Mom?: I realize Teleflora corrected itself, but I can't believe they called adoptive mothers "non-Moms" to begin with!

Thoughts on becoming a mother through adoption: Poignant commentary on the complexities of adoption.

Maybe the 2nd link explains the 1st link. What do you think?

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Open Your Ear and Say AH

Alia had her first encounter with the American healthcare system today. We went to the FACES clinic at Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital in St. Louis. I have to admit that I have been worried about the visit. Alia seems perfectly healthy and ontrack developmentally. I didn't want anyone raining on our parade. Yet, there have been some things that we were concerned about.


Alia grabs her ear a lot. I have heard this can be from teething, which she is certainly good at (#5 is coming in as of today). She also pulls her hair HARD when she gets stressed. If I pulled my hair that hard I would cry. Sometimes she smiles. She also repetitively "head-butts" the mattress (and my chest) before she goes to sleep sometimes. We also weren't sure where she was developmentally. Luca hasn't been 9 months for quite some time and I don't remember a lot. I also don't think I should use him a barometer - I guess his development can be best described as asynchronous. He had great verbal & social skills, some of his motor skills lagged behind. He was also huge in size - often hitting 100th percentile for weight and 80th-90th for height. He is still big. I think he could use that head of his as a weapon.


Anyway, the good news is that Alia is tracking at about 12 months for her development. The only thing lagging behind is her verbal skills which are at 7 months. She is growing nicely - she is in roughly the 50% range (using American growth charts). She is almost 20 pounds. She was 18 when they were in Almaty and now she is about 19 1/2.


The bad news is she has an ear infection - both ears are red and fluid-filled. So, that explains the ear grabbing. It also may explain the verbal lag. She may not be able to hear so well. So, amoxicillin, here we come. I have zero experience with ear infections. Luca has never had one. I am not sure how we dodged that childhood bullet with him, but we did. I am amazed at how content she has been despite the raging ear infection. Maybe it is just her normal, but I have heard that ear infections can cause a lot of pain. You just wouldn't know it.

The hair pulling and head-butting are institutional behavior. The doctor suggested replacing the aggressive behavior with a gentle one. That never occurred to me, but makes perfect sense. So, no more hair pulling. Hair stroking - not pulling.

I won't mention the blood draw which still makes me dizzy to think about.

Oh Christmas Tree




I have to admit that I woke up on Sunday morning wondering how we would cut down a Christmas tree, get it home and decorate it within a day. Things seem to take a bit longer to do with 2. But, ye have little faith! We actually went to the Christmas tree farm where we discovered only 5' foot tall Christmas trees after squeezing on a trailer with 4 other families and being plopped in the middle of a field. We left the Christmas tree farm without a tree. Thankfully our high school band had a fundraiser and the perfect tree was right there. It took all of 5 minutes to pay for it and strap it to the top of the car. So, we went TWO places for a tree and decorated it all on Sunday.
In addition to all the ornaments we have collected and been given over the past 20 years, we hung some ornaments from Kazakhstan on our tree. All the while little Alia yelled with glee. Us too . . . us too.