August 2011
1.5 MONTHS HOME
It has been a month and a half since Callie came home and in
some ways it seems as though she has always been part of our
family. She has had the most seamless transition we could have
possibly imagined; indeed it seems as though there has been no
adjustment period at all. From the day we met, she claimed us as
her family, and we are still amazed that she walked away from
all she has ever known and never seemed to look back. She
accepted us as her family willingly and without reservation, and
she is so sweet and loving that we fell in love with her the
moment we met her, and she with us. Surprisingly, attachment is
something we haven’t really had to work at with her, she seems
to know instinctively that she can trust us to meet her needs,
and while she is appropriately reserved with strangers, she has
wholeheartedly embraced each member of the family as her very
own. Holt affectionately calls her Callelujia, and she has
nicknamed him HoHo, which I don’t think he cares for too much
since it means “monkey” in Chinese, I think”
She is very loving and thoughtful, and she and Maili have become
inseperable over the past month. We had worried that her being
so close in age to Maili might create some issues with sharing,
both with toys and with parents. For the most part, however, it
has not been an issue. They have the occasional sibling squabble
over toys, but amazingly enough they usually manage to work
things out on their own and rarely require adult intervention.
Part of the reason for this is Callie’s technique, I think. She
is great at sharing and has little tolerance for those who don’t
share her beliefs. If Maili takes a toy away, she simply walks
up to her, grabs it back, pops her over the head with it, and
walks off without a word. Problem solved. The first few times I
observed this, I was tempted to step in and intervene. Then I
realized that rather than arguing over the toy, Maili just
accepts the fact that it was Callie’s to begin with and moves
on. Since Maili has had to work very hard to learn to share and
still has to be reminded at times, it’s been a pretty good
lesson in cause and effect, one which, amazingly enough, she
never questions. And I’m pretty sure Callie can’t do much
damage, since she is almost a foot shorter than Maili and almost
has to stand on tiptoe to even reach her head!
Sharing Mom and Dad, surprisingly enough, has not been an issue.
We had anticipated major jealousy issues with Maili when it came
to sharing Mom and Dad’s affection, but it hasn’t been the case
so far. In fact, both girls love to snuggle up in Mom’s lap
together in the reading chair to read books and sing songs, and
the rivalry we anticipated simply hasn’t happened. Maili seems
to understand instinctively that Callie needs extra attention
from Mom and Dad, and she tells me often that Callie is happy to
have a family now because she was sad in China when she didn’t
have one. The first time Callie went to the sitter’s house she
told me that Callie was crying because she didn’t know yet that
Mom would always come back. She is extremely attuned to how
Callie is feeling in different situations, and I am so happy
that they have truly become the best of friends. It is exactly
what we had hoped for, although we had prepared ourselves for
the possibility that they might not get along at all, especially
in the beginning. I know that there is a lot of controversy over
“artificial twinning” for that very reason, but for us it has
worked out perfectly. Holt has been known to refer to them as
the “Princess Patrol” and when they team up on him, poor GeGe
doesn’t have a chance.
After much debate, we decided to go ahead and enroll Callie in
kindergarten, which started 3 and a half weeks after we came
home from China. Even though she is old enough for first grade,
we felt that having her start at the beginning would give her
the best start to her school career, and due to her size no one
will ever know unless she chooses to tell them. We discussed
whether or not to keep her home for awhile to give her more time
to bond with the family before putting her in a school
environment, but because she is so attached to Maili we felt
that it would upset her to be left behind and she wouldn’t
understand. Also, we knew that it was likely that she would be
out for a long period of time if she had heart surgery, and we
felt that it was important for her to be there for those crucial
first few weeks of school. After weighing the pros and cons, we
finally decided to let her give it a try and if it seemed to be
too much too soon, we would pull her out and let her stay home
for awhile before starting school. Well, we were worried for
nothing, it seems, because she has done absolutely awesome! She
LOVES school and looks forward to going every day. She is a good
student and so far shows no signs at all of the orphanage delays
we had been expecting. And best of all, her English is growing
by leaps and bounds, no doubt a result of being immersed and
engaged in the language all day at school. She went from saying
short phrases in English while we were in China to making
entire, grammatically correct sentences in a matter of weeks,
and we are amazed at how well she comprehends and responds to
questions. She has the most adorable little accent, she tends to
add –a to the end of many words, making her sound like a little
Italian mafia or Count Dracula, we haven’t quite figured out
which. . As in, “ I don’t-a like-a that-a one.” and “What-a you
doing-a Mom?” She also has a few Callie-isms that crack us up,
such as the way she pronounces Stop ( See-TOP) and Spongebob (
See-BUNGEE-Bob) The other day I overheard her tell Holt “Hey
Holt, don’t-a touch-a the gameboy, that-a no you gameboy-a!”
When Maili was asking me about taking our dog Lola to a birthday
party, she interrupted the conversation with “ It’s okay-a Mom,
Lola no come-a birthday party, doggies no eat-a cake!”
On the medical front, Callie is doing well at the moment but
there are still a number of unanswered questions about her
heart. Her EKG was inconclusive so she underwent a heart
catheterization in order for her doctors to get more information
about what is going on with her heart and how best to treat it.
They found no sign of the large VSD that we were told she had,
however, she still has a small ASD which can be fairly easily
corrected. Unfortunately, that was not all they discovered. She
has a very rare congenital heart defect called Scimitar
Syndrome, which basically means that veins ( or arteries, I
forget) which should be pumping blood from the right side of her
heart to the left are instead pumping too much blood to her
right lung, causing increased pressures in that lung. Long term
this can cause her some serious problems if not corrected, but
the surgery is a complicated one and the risk of doing it too
soon is that the veins close up over time and it has to be
re-done. On the other hand, the longer we wait for the surgery,
the more damage that lung sustains, causing surgery to cease to
become an option at some point. A team of 20 doctors recently
met on her case and we were told 2/3 of them were in favor of
going ahead with the surgery, while the other 1/3 want to
monitor her closely and wait awhile. We will have some tough
decisions to make over the next couple of months, so please pray
for guidance for us as we work with her doctors to decide what
is the best course of treatment for her. It is truly a miracle
that she is with us today, many children with her particular
heart defects don’t survive past infancy.
Many people have asked “Would you have still adopted her knowing
what you know now about her medical condition?” The answer is an
unequivocal YES. In all honesty, her medical diagnoses on paper
were enough to scare away most people, people who would say that
there are too many unknowns, why not adopt a child who is
“normal” (whatever that means). Well, here’s why. Callie is not
defined by the medical terms on that paper; she is a beautiful
little girl with a sweet spirit and a sparkle about her that I
can’t even describe but that anyone who meets her notices right
away. She loves spaghetti, anything with glitter, playing with
Barbies, dancing to music, and most of all her FAMILY, which she
would not have if we had not somehow realized what a special
little girl she was in spite of her many medical issues. For
anyone thinking about adopting an older child with special
needs, I think that although you have to know what your family
can handle, you also have to remember that what you see in that
file doesn’t tell you the most important thing of all; that this
is a little person with his or her own personality, hopes, and
dreams whose biggest special need is needing a family. We are so
very blessed to be Callie’s, and we wouldn’t change a thing.
Every call has a beginning
A quiet moment when
God whispers a promise
to a mother’s heart
A holy place where
a father bows and faithfully
accepts the journey set before him.
A miraculous morning that
unexpectedly dawns…
Casting its first light on a chosen threshold.
A gentle knock..
a closed door opens.
A sacred invitation sent by the Father..
Leads to the other side of the world.
Where lonely hearts stare out orphanage windows
Praying for someone to care..
And then one morning,
On an ordinary day
An orphan’s life changes...
God sends them a second chance...
Through you.
~author unknown |
Advice from big sis
on the first day of school
The Princess Patrol
Siblings
Hornbuckle, party of 5
The reading chair
Our Callie girl
Daddy's girl
Playing dress up in Mommy's nightgowns
Hanging out with Skip
Silly girl |
