handsful

Getting her whale and dinosaur gown…

Lainey is currently sleeping on her daddy’s chest in the rocking chair, so I thought I’d write a quick post about her surgery. Yes, we brought Randy’s laptop to the hospital :)

We arrived around 7am, and were sent to a succession of 2 waiting rooms/play areas, the 2nd in which she received some “make Lainey loopy” medicine. The nurse said it was awful tasting, but in true Lainey fashion, she downed it and signed “more”. After meeting with her surgeons, her OR nurse walked us to the big double doors and told us to give her big hugs and kisses, she was taking her from here. So, choking back tears, we said goodbye and she was gone, no fuss and no crying (thank you, loopy medicine).

The tubes took literally 10 minutes and the ENT said it went fine, no problems. It was then about 9:30, so we went to eat breakfast. Returning to the waiting room, we were greeted by a good friend of ours from church, Julie and her adopted daughter from China, Cherish. So, what could have been an excrutiating wait time turned into great conversation that kept our minds (mostly) off what was going on behind the big double doors. Thank you, Julie! At around 11:30, the surgeon came in and told us all went well, no complications other than it being “a little tight”…which, our cleft clinic coordinator (who left a minute ago) told us meant that he didn’t have a lot of excess muscle/tissue and so had to pull to get it to close the cleft. She was in recovery about an hour and arrived in her room just a little after we did.

It was emotional seeing her like that, obviously in pain and probably extremely confused (and angry) about what just happened to her. She’s been in and out of sleeping, crying out fairly often but not as much as we expected. She’s on morphine and motrin and they’ll be weaning her off the morphine tonight. There is a lot of drainage and we’re told to expect that for a few days.

Reaching out for her puppy…

It’s my turn to hold Lainey, so we’ll update again when we can. Thanks for the prayers!!

Today is Lainey’s surgery day…we’ll update as soon as we get home on Friday. I can’t help but notice, it was exactly 3 months ago today that we took that LONG trip home from China!

Thanks so much for the prayers, we very much appreciate them!

We crossed off 2 “things to share with Lainey” this long weekend…the beach and the boat. We took the kids to the beach on Saturday. Lainey’s reaction? She stared at the ocean as I held her. I put her down and she held her toes up like “uh, what is this I’m standing in??” She touched the sand, then held her hand out for me to brush it off (see above picture). When we walked her down to the water, though, we could see her thinking ”yep, this is more like it”.

She loved the water, loved it splashing up on her, loved the waves, wanted Randy to take her farther and farther out. In the beginning, she wanted someone holding her hand the whole time, but she got braver as time went by.

All the kids had a great time…Ethan spent most of the time with the boogie board, Payton likes using the shovel digging big holes, Marley stays pretty shallow in the water and hates the sand (like her momma), and Abbey loves swimming deeper, into the waves.

We made the decision to keep Lainey in her bathing suit/swim diaper on the way home. Bad decision. She decided to “use” the swim diaper and we had to pull off the side of the road and change her. One car full of girls yelled “yahoooo!” at us as they passed. Not sure what that was about! Once changed, she spent the ride home licking the salt water off of her feet. lol…

Today, we took our ski boat out…finally, as Randy would say. This is our first time out on it this year…guess we’ve been busy? Lainey enjoyed when we went fast (big shocker there, the girl loves anything fast), didn’t like having to sit still for long, liked waving to the boys when they were kneeboarding, and wondered why everyone else was swimming and she wasn’t. Someone forgot to bring the packed diaper bag, complete with swim diaper. So, no swimming for Lainey Q. Here are a few pics…

She wasn’t thrilled with the life jacket, but she does look pretty cute in it :)

She hardly ever takes a bad picture…

The guys…you can see Ethan’s healing face. Last week, he dove too close to the underwater step in our pool and scraped his face in 4 places. I’ll try and remember to post a close-up of it. Yes, we realize how fortunate he was.

She likes riding in the boat, but doesn’t much like kneeboarding or tubing like the other kids. Did I mention that she’s like her momma?

We found out on Monday that Lainey now has a surgery date…May 29th. Yep, NEXT Thursday. Sooner than we anticipated, but we’re glad that she’s getting it done now. She’ll be all ready for birthday cake in July :)

They plan on trying to close her whole palate in one surgery, and the ENT will place tubes in her ears. She’ll be on various levels of a liquid diet for 3 weeks and have to wear arm restraints (www.snugglewraps.com) for 2 weeks. They don’t want ANYTHING to go in her mouth during those 3 weeks…fingers, sippy cups, forks, spoons, etc. The restraints will keep her arms fairly straightened out, keeping those fingers at bay. We will be feeding her with a syringe and tube set-up and/or a regular cup. She’s enjoying her cup lessons, as you can see above.

Her recovery period could be rough, but we’re trusting God. Lainey is one very resilient little girl, she has handled more in her young life than most and has come through it shining. God will be with us, as we help her, and she’ll be talking our ears off in no time :)

Today . . .

. . . Gotcha Day

3 months since Gotcha…since we heard “here is the one from Bengbu” and we turned to see her coming through the door. Hard to believe the difference 3 months can make. Gotcha day was an amazing day, but the time since has just been extraordinary.

Enjoying her first playtime in the rain today…she marveled at the raindrops hitting her face and arms. We missed a lot of her “firsts”, but the ones we are having with her are extra sweet.

A few notes on Lainey…

she’s no longer scared of Jack, but doesn’t exactly love him. She’d just as soon block him on the head with her shoe as pet him. It’s an interesting relationship.

loves: shoes, pencils, the recycle bin, my purse, running, and food on other people’s plates.

hates: getting licked in the face by Jack, wearing her shoes in the truck, keeping her hair clips in, long rides in the truck, not being picked up when she wants, and just plain hates being still.

she loves helping around the house…she hands me the laundry from the dryer for me to fold; unloads the silverware and throws it in the drawer; holds onto the broom vac while I push; and LOVES throwing her diaper (or anything, really) into the trashcan.

she loves anything that can function as a stool, especially her cube toy (she doesn’t play with this, it’s ONLY her stool). Anything that can make her a little bit taller (and, therefore have access to MORE items on the table) is good with her. Not so good with mama.

she sleeps…I hate to even say this…perfectly. She goes down for her nap and bedtime without fuss, usually waving at us as we leave or just snuggling with her pillow/blanket. She also wakes without fuss…no cry, no demand to get out of her crib. She simply waits until it’s time for us to come and get her, and she smiles as we walk in the door. Effortless. Now, I fully expect this to change as we go through her surgery recovery. For now, I’ll enjoy it.

her favorite activity to do by herself is playing with the plastic cups/plates/bowls in her “allowed” cabinet. She lines them up on the window sill, pretends to eat and drink from them, and loads them into her grocery cart. She also has her own kitchen now (thanks, Angie!) and loves to play there.

she’s making lots of progress in communication! She still uses her signs regularly, but is beginning to copy sounds and mouth movements a lot. Her favorite right now is a growl, when she sees a stuffed animal. So cute! It’s so good to see her opening up with this, and being so willing to try. Receptively, she understands more and more everyday. She knows what so many words mean…for example, she hears “diaper” and she pats her bottom and runs to where we change her. She knows her hair, nose, eyes, ears, bellybutton and understands up and down. It’s such fun to watch her learn!!

 

Taken before heading to the game…

Our boys had their final Red Sox baseball game today, to decide the champs in the Minor 9 division and they won! What a game! We’d score, they’d tie it, they’d go ahead, we’d tie it up…again and again it went back and forth, until we were last to bat and brought the winning run in. My heart was racing the whole time…couldn’t they have just beat the tar out of ‘em and made it easier on me?!?! And, while I’m complaining, couldn’t it have been a little less hot? lol… It was great.

One of EJ’s TWO hits today…see where he left the ball? Nice bunt. He got another base hit later.

Pate got the job done in the outfield, with some great fielding.

Trophy time…EJ

Pate

Back row, last kid on right – Pate; Front row, 3rd from left – EJ

We’re Number 1…

One of the 17 ladybugs that we released

I mentioned on an earlier post that we had lots of “life” around the house and I wasn’t talking about the 5 kids. The ladybugs, butterflies, and tadpoles were all busy making changes and…voila…it was time to let them go their merry way. The tadpoles-turned-toads have been leaving us a few at a time. Marley gathers them up each morning and takes them to the pond behind our house. We still have quite a few to go!

Abbey helps a ladybug make her break from the habitat. We had 17 larvae, that all turned into ladybugs. However, one of them looked “lame” from the start. We decided we’d just keep her (I know, ladybugs can be boys, but I call them all girls) rather than release her, but she died the next day. Poor gal.

Lainey enjoyed the release time, but she wasn’t so good at sitting still!

One of the 5 Painted Lady butterflies that we raised and released. One of the caterpillars never crawled to the top of the cup to attach and cocoon, so we thought that one didn’t make it. When we opened the cup to put them in the butterfly tent, there he was, cocooned on the bottom of the cup! So, we laid that one on a papertowel on the floor of the tent and he did just fine.

Handsome dude. Needs a haircut.

Needs a haircut and a pair of sunglasses.

Abbey held the last one, after the others all flew the coop!

On a serious note, I’m sure you’ve all heard about the massive Wenchuan earthquake that hit China in the Sichuan province that has claimed the lives of at least 20,000 people and damaged or destroyed 4.5 million buildings. Read that again…that is almost impossible to imagine. Our adoption agency,www.chinesechildren.org has established an earthquake relief fund (ERF) to help orphanages purchase tents, food, diapers, medicines, and other supplies needed. 100% of your donation goes to help the orphanages affected. You can donate online at the above link, or send in your donation to CCAI marked “ERF”. We have found out that Lainey’s orphanage, Bengbu, was thankfully not damaged in the earthquake.