Red Thread To China 2007

I am so glad we have Levi here to put some fun back into Christmas. You see my older kids just want money these days, which is no fun. I love to shop and this takes all the fun out of Christmas for me. My daughter is the only one who I can shop for. She loves the anticipation of opening the gift just like me. But this year I decided not to give money, I shopped for the boys too. They probably won't be too happy but oh well. Levi still doesn't get the whole Christmas or Santa thing yet, and he hasn't really been too interested in the tree either. Maybe next year. I am a little sad still because our daughter Mylie is still out there somewhere waiting for us to bring her home. When we started the whole adoption thing we knew we wanted to adopt a boy and a girl, we just had the idea that the girl would be first. Well God must have had a different plan for us because he brought Levi into our lives first. We had been thinking girl so much so that we had her room almost all ready when we found Levi. I am so thankful that we have Levi and he is such a blessing to us and the whole family. He has brought so much joy and happiness to our home. But I can't help but feel sad that my little girl is not with us to enjoy the Christmas season with her brothers and sister. Someday little one, someday.

I hope everyone has the best Christmas ever and the happiest New Year. And to all those still waiting for your little ones, hang in there it will happen.

MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY NEW YEAR

We have filed the re-adoption paperwork for Levi and have received our court date of January 7th at 8:30am. It will be in Dallas at the courthouse downtown. I wish that all my kids could be there, but I am not sure that Kyle or Charla can get off work for just about a 15 minute ceremony. Levi's Mimi is going to come with us. I am thinking about having a little party for him after all this is a very special day for him. We will receive a Texas Birth Certificate after going through the re-adoption with our names on it as the parents. Wow that's only 2 weeks away. I can't believe that this year has flown by and it is almost 2009. I know that when this time next year comes around I won't be saying that because time will seem to stand still while Jerry is in Iraq, just like it did last time. I thought that year would never end.

I took this picture the other day of 2 of my boys in front of the Christmas tree. aren't they just cute?? Levi loves his big brother Marcus and waits for him to come home from school everyday. When he gets up in the morning he always looks in Marcus's room and says his name over and over until I say Marcus is at school. He doesn't get to see the older 2 that much since they live about 30 miles away so he is still kinda iffy about them. He has come so far in just a couple short months and I am begining to relax a little. His bonding with me has gotten so much better and he will actually come to me when his daddy is in the room now....sometimes. He still has a few minor temper tantrums, but they are very minor. I better be getting ready to go now, take care.

Yesterday I had to take Levi back to the hospital to get more blood drawn. It seems they lost the second page of the prescription for half of the tests. So I had to put him through that again, he was good though, he only cried a little. He got two sesame street stickers and all was good. We already got 2 of the test results back. Everyting so far is negative. We are waiting on the lead and melamine testing to come back.

Today Levi and I were going to go shopping to get the rest of our Christmas shopping done when I started to pull out of the driveway I notced that there was water running from the shed. When I got up there the whole thing was flooded and water was running out of the shed. We have water run to it and it had frozen and burst, the portion where the crack was happened to be in the wall. I had to find where to turn the water off and call Jerry to come home to fix it. What a day we had. It is all fixed now and now we have water back to the house now.

I really need to get the rest of the shopping done so I guess Levi and I will head out tommorrow after his PT appointment in the morning. They are going to bring him a tricycle that he can pedal with his hands. Should be really neat.

Until later.....

Well just 2 short months ago we were waiting in a small office in Zhengzhou, China waiting for them to bring Levi to us. When they brought him in he was very scared and so shy. He has come a long way but still has some issues. Mostly with me. It is hard not to take it personally when he pushes me away or does this growl type scream at me when he doesn't get what he wants or things don't go his way. He seems to do great some days, but then others are bad. Today was one of the bad days. I guess that was why I was in such a mood today. On the way to the family Christmas get together he was in one of his moods where I coundn't do anything right for him. I was in the back seat with him and he was pinching me and would not even let me look at him much less touch him. At one point he actually made me cry. I know I shouldn't be taking it personally, but boy is it hard not to. Sometimes I just wonder if maybe I am doing something wrong to make him act like this to me. Just when I start to feel like he is starting to bond with me, we have one of these days. Everyone says wow he looks like a normal kid to me, and he is in some ways. But in others he is not.

I know we must have looked like some sort of over protective crazy parents to his family, but since he is not 100 percent bonded to me, we decided that it was best not to let everyone hold him like all the books that I have read suggested. I just hope everyone understands how hard it is on us also to have to keep everyone including family at a distance at first. It would be wonderful to be able to treat him as I did my older kids, but we have to do what we think is best to give Levi the foundation that he has missed for the past 3 years. I know sometimes these things take some time, and I have to stop and remind myself of this when he has one of these days. The good thing is his good days outnumber his bad days by a long shot. And eveyday he makes more progress. By this time next year we can just let him jump right in with the other kids, and all will be good.

Well I decided to call TSR today after talking with the lady that comes for Early childhood intervention. I had no idea that I could call to check on te status of our application. I got to talk to the nurse and she asked some questions about Levi's disability. She then told me that the earliest appointment they had was January 14th. Wow, that is 2 days after I go back to work, and it is at 1:30pm. I really was hoping that we could at least get the consultation in before I had to go back to work, but no such luck. Anyway we will do what we have to do. I am very anxious to hear what they have to say. We did get the x-rays back from the hospital and Levi is missing half of one of the bones in his lower leg, and only has the bones for his big toe in his foot. So our ped. said that since there was only half a bone he would not be a candidate for limb lenghtening. So now we have to be prepared for them to tell us that he will need to have his foot amputated and then be fitted for a prosthetic. It is something that we had discussed before we accepted his referral as a possibility, but was really hopeful that they would be able to do something for him so that he would be able to keep it. I am still holding out some hope but I am also preparing for a different outcome. Bottom line is, I just want my little boy to be able to walk one way or another. We feel fortunate to have him in our life and are ready to go back for his sister soon.

Take care and have a great weekend everyone,
Sandi

Well we still have no word on the application for Texas Scottish Rite Hospital. I was hoping to hear from them since they called earlier this week to inquire if we had sent in the info they needed, which we did. Maybe today we will get something in the mail. I surely would like to get at least the consultation done before I have to return to work in January. It might be a little hard to commute back and forth to Dallas once I go back, but we will do what it takes. Otherwise everything else looks good so far. We haven't gotten the bloodwork results yet, but his other tests were normal.
On the other hand Marcus has one heck of a case of pink eye. The doctor was a little worried about it so he sent him to an Opthamologist in Denton. So we had to rush from Bridgeport to Denton to get there by 11am. We did just in time. He said that yes it was pink eye, but it was a pretty bad case and he needed 3 types of eyedrops. So from there it was off to Walmart, and boy is that a joke. Waiting for a prescription there is like waiting for pigs to fly, but it was late and the other Pharmacy was closing. So I was gone from 8:30am until about 7:30pm yesterday with a 16 yr old with dilated eyes and a toddler that didn't get his nap out. WOW was I one tired momma yesterday.
Today is the Christmas get together at the National Guard at 5pm. I will try to remember the camera because they had Santa last year and maybe Levi will sit in his lap for a photo. Thats if they do that this year. Friends of our also had a large plaque made for all the soldiers that will deploy next year. And they will present it to the unit today. What an awesome gesture.
Thats all for now, Levi is waking up and I must go.

Today started out good, but turned out badly. Levi had another doctor's appointment today at the ENT's office. The only appt. I could get was at 2pm. Right in the middle of his nappy time, not good. First we were late getting started, then he started to get really squirmy and then down right mean. We had to stop by WalMart to get a humidifier that the ENT suggested and he kept trying to pull things off the shelf. I told him no probably 10 times, the last time a little firmer and he proceeded to hit me a couple times with his blanky. The blanky itself didn't hurt, but the little bear head that smacked me in the eye kinda did. He was like that the entire time we were in the store, the whole time whining. Wow I couldn't wait until bedtime. Lesson of the day.....No more appointments in the middle of nappy time!! Oh the life of a toddler.
On a lighter note. We have been working with his potty training a little and when he actually goes in the potty we always say good job!! Well today he walked into the bathroom, he can open doors now. When he heard me going potty he jumped up and yelled while clapping "Good JoB". How cute is that?