Red Thread To China 2007

One year ago today Jerry and I received the most precious gift ever, our son Levi. I can remember it like it was yesterday. I had a very hard time sleeping the night before wondering what the day would be like. We were very nervous and I couldn't eat that morning, then we got word that we would have to wait until the afternoon to go to the Social Welfare office. So we had to wait longer to get our first glimse of our son other than in the few pictures we had. We got to the office first and our guide started to process saying that they would be here any minute. And then there they were walking in the door. The Orphanage director, and 2 of the nannies. They sat down next to me and the next moments became a blur of paperwork and trying to get him to calm down. They were speakiing to him in Chinese, telling him that we were his mama and baba, that much I could understand. Our guide was helping them with paperwork as the nanny handed me this crying little boy. At first I was very nervous, but then it just clicked and I felt all the fear just leave me. This was our son, the child we had waited almost 2 years for. And we were his parents. We had to bribe him with food... he loves goldfish crackers!!! He calmed down, but when the nannies left he started to cry again. He cried so softly. I just wanted to hold him and take away all the grief he was feeling. He was the most beautiful little boy ever and continues to amaze us everyday! He has come a long way from the scared little boy that I first held in my arms because he could not walk to this strong , independent boy that is constantly running around everywhere. We love you little guy!!!! Happy forever family day!
Love mom and dad

We met friends at the park yesterday and had a blast!!! Check out these photos.

Well the check up went great and Levi doesn't need anything at this time. The surgeon said everything looks good and well healed. They were amazed at his progress and how well he is walking, running, and even jumping! We got some new prosthetic socks and suspension sleeves and were on our way. Of course I had to stop and get Levi nachos at Taco Bell, which is his favorite. We had a good mommy and son lunch and then headed home. Since it has been raining alot we haven't been out of the house much int he last week. Makes for a cranky little boy. I know we need the rain, but not all at the same time right? I haven't even been motivated to clean much lately bacause I have a cold coming on. I hate being sick!!

Look at daddy's little helper!!! He wanted to help his daddy carry this board over to the shed that he was building. He is such a helper when it comes to this kind of stuff. He just loves to take stuff apart and then try to put them back together. He loves playing with his tool set and bench. Enjoy the picture!

My goodness, Levi just threw the biggest fit!!! I think I am in for it. Wow does he have the worst temper!!! We walked up to Mimi's house to let Levi play with his cousin Laylyn. They play so good together and I thought that maybe just maybe Levi would sleep better tonight if he was just plain wore out. Well it was getting dark so we needed to get back to the house. I was telling Levi that we needed to go and to tell Laylyn bye and he started screaming and jumping up and down that he wanted to play. I couldn't even talk to him he was so crazy upset. SO I had to just grab his hand and start walking. He kept on about half way to the house before my daughter Charla could calm him down. Man some days he just wears me out!!!! But it does just the opposite to me, when I get so worked up I can't sleep. I am so glad this day is over!!!!

Well Jerry has been gone only 2 days now and we already miss him so much. Levi had a really bad night. First I couldn't sleep last night, so when I finally did fall asleep he woke up crying and Marcus brought him downstairs... big mistake! I have learned that when he does this to never move him around or talk to him too much because it just makes it worse. So we went back upstairs and I laid down with him, but that didn't work to well, but eventually he started to fall asleep. so I went back to my room. Well by 3 am he was up again crying for his daddy. It took me about an hour to get him calmed down enough to go back to sleep. So needless to say I didn't get much sleep either. I hope tonight is much better. He usually is a very good sleeper. I think this deployment is going to be very rough on my little boy.

This has been one of those days for me. It started out with me waking up at 5:30am, already late.... and then going up stairs to find that Levi has barfed all over his bed and himself. So I take his clothes off and put him in the bath while I strip his bed and put the sheets in the washer. Call in to work and sound like I am just playing hooky because I only have until next week at me job anyway. Then get a call into the doctor, he can be seen at 9:50am. So I start to go get ready and put in the Sponge Movie for Levi. He really hasn't eaten much since yesterday afternoon so I give him a banana and some juice. Later in the day when I was cleaning up I was going to put the movie up and noticed that the case was awful heavy for it to be empty. Well guess what?...... I opened it up and a banana peel flew out onto the floor. My older son had this look on his face like what int he world, and we both just started laughing. SOme of the things that boy does.....go figure.

I am not sure what is going on with my job. This is the story...sorry it is so long.

When we adopted Levi we knew that I would have to use all my vacation and personal time for this year when Levi had his surgery and for his physical therapy and my employer was on board with that up until I gave my notice last month. Since finding out that Jerry would be deployed in Oct. and that he would need to go to 2 3 week trainings and a 2 week class starting July 6th, I have had to ask my employer to reduce my hours to part time so that I would be able to take Levi to daycare each morning since my hours ( 5am-1pm )do not permit me to do so. Well needless to say that they would not do that, so I had to give notice. Everything was fine until last week when HR informed me that I would be forced to pay back half of my vacation because I was quitting mid-year. That made me so mad. Under the circumstances my supervisor asked via e-mail that an exception be made due to why I had to take the vacation and Jerry being deployed, but I again got a big NO!! So I just casually suggested that I might have to go to the Dept of Labor because of that and another issue of being the only person on site not paid as punched. Well all of a sudden I am deemed a disgruntled employee and told they might have to let me go because I handle large sums of money at work. So now I am just waiting for the axe to fall and get fired. After 13 years at this job I will be getting FIRED!! Can you believe that? I have done everything asked of me by my supervisor, worked all kinds of crazy shifts, and even done the bosses job to cover his butt, and this is how I am treated. It justs makes me so angry!!! I guess my employer (a fortune 500 company) is not very patriotic after all.

Just look at him, he is a natural born cowboy!!! LOL We had so much fun on the pony ride, he didn't want to get off.

Look at me I can stand at my chalkboard and color!!! I am lovin' this foot. It's digital camo just like my daddy's Army uniform. It even has the United Stated Army Emblem on the front. I support our troops and that includes MY DADDY!!!!

He is all over the place now!!!! I might just loose some weight WOOHOO!!!!!!!
Enjoy

Good news, Levi gets his prosthetic foot on Friday!! We have waited 3 months since his surgery for this day to come. And now it's here....WOO HOO!!! We are so excited for our little man to finally be able to do all the things he wants so desperately to do. Now if we can just get him potty trained before we bring his sissy home. He just seems so uniterested in it. You can talk to him until you are blue in the face and 5 minutes later he pees his pants. He just doesn't tell us he has to go until after the fact. Not sure what I am doing wrong. I haven't had to do this in such a long time, I can't remember how I handled it before. I am hoping that once he can walk he will learn to use the potty better.

We received the referral of our daughter today. We will name her Mylie Jaide Desta Maxwell. We may delete Jaide, but are just not sure at this point. Desta is her Ethiopian name and it means happy or joy. We are already so in love with her. I keep looking at her referral picture and thinking is she really ours? Happy happy day for us at the Maxwell household.

They let us go home yesterday afternoon and Levi was just a little upset that he didn't get to take it home with him. They needed to do some adjustments and when we went to leave they took it off of him and he snatched it back and said "my leg". We had to explain to him that he would get it back in a week or so after they fixed it. He seemed ok with that. The only problem we saw with it is that the second leg has a tendency to fall off, I don't know if it's because his leg has shrunk or just the design, but the other prosthetist took a look at it and said he would talk to Mr. Dwight when he got back. He is supposed to call us on Monday with the date to come pick the finished product up, sometime at the end of next week. We are so excited because he really wants to walk and getting so very independent.

I guess little man woke up in a not so good mood this morning. He was a little uncooperative with the physical therapist and the prosthetist at the first session. I was hoping that after he ate lunch and had a nap he would be better but no such luck. He didn't want to stand still for them to measure the length of his leg to see if it was a bit longer than it needed to be. They let him wear the leg tonight, but we were to take it off and check every hour and a half or so to check for red marks or places where it was rubbing.
We decided to take him to the mall and try it out. He walked the whole time we were there and did so well. He now wants to do everything himself. He always says I do it, I do it. We have one more session tomorrow at 11am and then we are free to go. They will be calling us Monday with a date to come back for the finished product. The prosthetist said probably the end of next week.

We also thought that since we were in a bigger city we would try some Ethiopian food for dinner. The beef I ordered was wonderful, and there was a type of salsa that tasted like pico de gallo which was very good. But I really didn't care for the injera bread. I think the thing that got me was the spongy texture, that is something that I just can't handle. Levi loved it, and Jerry liked the beef that he got also. It was good, but I don't think that it will be something that we eat often. I will however be getting the injera for the girls if they would like it.

I can't wait to get home so I can get a good nights sleep. This hospital bed is not very comfortable.

Today started out good. We got a phone call at 8am saying that they forgot to tell us that the doctor would be on rounds and we needed to be down in physical therapy at 9am. So we rushed and got ready and were down there on time. He looked at his prosthetic and thought there needed to be some changes made so we had to take him to get re-casted and then at 11am it was back to physical therapy for more walking. He did well but seemed a bit more agitated today when we asked him to walk without the little shopping cart. He wanted to play more today. Yesterday they thought that he may not need to stay the whole 4 days, but I am not sure how this will affect us leaving us early. So as it stands we have 2 days to go. Levi's schedule is all out of wack and it is hard to get him to sleep. Not so fun for us!!

Hey look at our Levi!!! He's walking. They said he did so well today at his 2 sessions. We will be here for another 3 days and he will have 2 sessions on each day. We are going to try to go to the zoo and the aquarium while we are here, I hope Levi likes it. He seems to be doing very well with the whole prothesis thing, he always helps the prosthetist put it on and such. We did think he would walk out of here at the end of the week, but now found out that it will be another 2 weeks until he gets the finished foot. So he will be scooting for a little while longer. We are going to try to find a small walker for a toddlersomewhere to make it easier for him at home. I will post more tomorrow.

Wow only 1 more day to go before we go to the hospital for Levi's prosthesis. I can't wait to see him walking round the hospital on his new camo foot!! We are using the ACU material ( the same as Jerry's uniform )for his leg. We go in at 8am. He has physical therapy at 11am and 3pm for those 4 days and we should be out by Friday evening. And then we won't be able to keep up with him. Well I better get ready for nighty night because I do have to work tomorrow. I will try to post as we progress throughout the week.

These were taken Friday evening before the kids left for the Junior Prom. Marcus' date was Jessica and they looked so cute together!!!

Well they are not the best pictures but I will be recieving copies of all the pictures that the photographer has taken so I can post more later.....enjoy