5 1/2 Weeks Home

I wanted to write an update for those interested.  I know you're out there.

It's hard to take the many thoughts and compile them.

Maybe I should start with, we are not great people.  I don't know what we are, but not that.  Pretty sure we're the same.  Pretty sure we are craptastically sinful screw-ups.  Pretty sure that we are taking this one step at a time and it is what it is.  And isn't that a fun update to read?  It is what it is.  ;)

I hope that didn't sound negative.  I hope it sounded even, steady, constant; I don't have profound things to say about where we are.  But we are a family.

Caleb started school a week and a half ago.  I think he really likes it.  He is finishing the year as a first grader in a multiple disabilities classroom. I think it is a good fit.  On his first day of school, he was so excited when we wheeled him into his classroom and was very excited as each classmate was introduced to him.

First Day of School!

I never planned to have a child with special needs.  Or if I did, the special needs would fit within my parameters.  But we committed to Caleb.  And to loving him.  And providing for him.  And the fact that he wasn't born to me doesn't lessen that commitment.

Time and I work well together; change takes some adjusting; and I'm becoming a mom that doesn't need her child to make good eye contact.  I'm becoming a mom that cares for a child that cannot communicate with her.  I'd say the hardest parts at this point are a.) he gets somewhat bored at home (hopefully this will be better once we have some therapy appointments and specific things to work on) and b.) I hate that when he cries I do not know what it is that he needs or wants.  So I hold him.  And I get him water.  At this point, he probably thinks--better cry so mom knows I'm thirsty again.  ;)

We have nice moments.  Little moments of connection.  Moments where you feel like the two of you are in on a joke together.  Or sharing something with one another.  Maybe a kiss or a cuddle or some "Mama tickles Caleb"--three individual words that I thought I should start stringing together.  We're working on the word "sit" as when he wants a drink out of his sippy cup I ask him to "sit" first.

Overall, he is a very nice, happy, easy going, and cheerful boy.

I'm making appointments and taking the troops to appointments all of the time.  And the only appointments I've actually been able to get to so far included general pediatrician appt., dentist, school appointments, and DDD (an Arizona thing).  The more important appointments are all coming in May, like with the orthopedic surgeon.  (I tried to make all of these while we were still in Ukraine, but no one would let us until he was officially ours.)

He has a wheelchair now, but I just realized that I don't have a photo of him in it to share!  (And I can't wake him up now for a little photo opp.)  It's super-cute and is a loaner as long as we need it from the family of one of his classmates.

I tried to get him a wheelchair... had to call our pediatrician and ask her to request a wheelchair evaluation for us.  Thus began a two week saga of hounding both her line and the phones of the company that was supposed to be doing the evaluation.  I seriously called back and forth 10 times one day:  "They say they haven't gotten the fax."  "They say they sent the fax."  "They say that if they had received the fax it would be in their system within an hour."  "They say they talked to guy named Paul and he's going to be calling us."  "They say no one who works there is named Paul."  And back and forth.  And in the end, we received this wheelchair (that fits him perfectly!) to use as long as we need to.  So I called to cancel the wheelchair evaluation that had finally been scheduled only to wait on hold for 20 minutes and then be told that there wasn't a record of our appointment in their system.  Hah!  We plan to schedule an evaluation for him with a different company after his orthopedic appointment in a few weeks.

Please pray for all of us.  I'm doing much better--sort of in the swing of things now.  Pray for Matt too, though, it's definitely a learning curve.  And the kids.  They're all doing well with him and they interact with him off and on throughout the day.  Please pray for Caleb.  I feel like his brain is used to these patterns and will need to learn how to break out of them.  For instance, he's not the child rushing to do everything on his own--he is so used to others doing things for him.  I just picture that someday, regardless of how far it is in the future, it will finally don on him that he doesn't have to just throw things.  That he can choose to not throw things and I picture that the floodgates will really start to open.  :)