We're still alive!

For those of you who are still reading our blog, God bless you. I have really neglected our blog since bringing Paul home from his first surgery and I regret that for several reasons - mainly because I know some of you (I have heard) are getting frustrated checking the blog and finding nothing new AND because this is my way of documenting our journey for Paul Daniel to read one day!!

Well, I will do my best to catch you up. Paul Daniel has healed up very nicely from his first surgery. We have had no complications whatsoever. Three weeks after surgery we visited the pediatrician, an ENT doctor, an Audiologist and pediatric dentist. All said Paul looks great. He also had his hearing re-tested and his results were normal. Paul had a speech evaluation this past week with a private therapist and together we have decided that Paul will begin speech therapy next week and will have therapy twice a week. I am excited that the library is about to kick off storytime for the new year...I plan to take Paul to the one-year-old storytime session and the 2&3 year old session to give Paul the extra help with language, but I'm also hoping it will help him learn to focus BETTER and for LONGER periods of time.

Carl and I drove to Alabama for Christmas this year. We broke up the trip both going and coming with an overnight stay in Little Rock. Paul did okay for the most part. Going he slept a good bit. Coming back he was more wired and fussy, but we managed. We stayed at Grandmother Irene's house (my Dad's mother) and she fell in love with Paul! She was so hoping that he would be interested in her and boy was he ever!! I think he could sense the love! He also bonded right away with Papa (my dad). Papa introduced Paul to a puppy dog puppet and Papa and Paul played and played together. It was fun to watch. It was so nice that Paul got to meet his aunt and uncles and his cousins. I look forward to the day when he understands the word "family." Paul's only real difficulty in Alabama came the last day we were there - Christmas day. As more and more family arrived to meet our new son, Paul became overwhelmed with all the noise and people. But Christmas day aside, we were actually very pleased at how well Paul seemed to handle this change of environment.

We then traveled north to TN to visit Carl's mom (Christmas afternoon). We got to visit with some of Carl's family over supper at her house. We saw a lot of friends at worship on Sunday and visited with our good friends, the Marshall's on Sunday afternoon. We decided to leave TN on Monday, rather than Tuesday. As I mentioned earlier, Paul was fussy on the trip home but I think he was just ready for the journey to be over.

The best news I have is that my sweet mother in law has returned to TX with us. She is going to stay with us a month, unless I can convince her to move in. :) She is loving her new grandbaby and it thrills Carl and me to see them together. Paul is blessing all of our lives and we all feel so fortunate to have him with us. He has such a sense of humor, so much energy and seems to be very eager to learn. If I haven't told you, he now says "all gone," "Grover," he has said "thank you" a few times, and he's trying to say "mama," we think. He now is giving kisses on the cheek and two arm hugs!! This is big! We have a long way to go, but there's progress.

Our second surgery is scheduled for Feb 23, if I haven't mentioned that already.

Thank you to all who sent us warm wishes in your Christmas cards. We loved getting them! Thank you again for keeping up with us. This really means a lot to us...more than we can express.

Photos of Paul from Photographer

I'll just be honest...

I'm not sure if I'm going to have time to do another entry ever again! :)

Mom has come and gone and I'm re-learning how to do laundry. We had a great time. She adores her new grandson and of course, he can do no wrong in her eyes. Well, good. She's a normal Grandma. And of course she is gloating that Paul can say "Nonna." It's going to be a while before Paul is able to say, Mama, Daddy and Papa. These are all sounds he will have to learn to make because of the new way he will be able to use his lips and tongue.

We are busy now doing doctors appointments - he had 3 this week. Sometime I will do Christmas cards and finish Christmas shopping. We rec'd the photos from the photographer in Ohio. Oh my, they are cute. I promise they will go up on our blog soon.

And so the next question is...once again, when will I end this BLOG? Well..I'm changing the end date. It will be after surgery #2 in Feb. THEN I will end it. As far as we know, surgery #3 will not come until he is 8 years old and I can't blog that long!!!!

For a quick update on Paul...he is doing JUST dandy! His arm braces are off and NOW he sleeps all through the night. Yea for all of us! He is happy. Hungry as ever. Learning all kinds of new stuff. He has finally figured out his wooden puzzles and now he flies through them at the speed of light. We are so proud of this new accomplishment. Paul is frustrated that the weather has turned cold and he can't go out as much. So I had the brilliant idea of making him a mini sandbox and bringing it indoors. Oh my. Well, a little sand all over the house never hurt anything. Um, what else? Well, I have to be the bearer of bad news. Carl and I have decided that Paul is not ready to do a 2wk trip cross-country to AL, GA AND TN. From everything we know about adopted children, this would be too much for his senses and it would be a rough time for him. Sooooo...please forgive me GA and TN friends. We are only going to AL this year because we promised my grandmother last year we would be in AL on Christmas day. Carl's mom and aunts will come to AL to visit with us and we'll just have to make a special trip to GA in the Spring. I hope you will all bear with us! sniff. sniff.

Webcast

The link below is the extended interview that Nationwide Children's will put on their website. I don't exactly know when it will go up...but I imagine it will be sometime next week since that is when the commercial will be airing and the newspaper ad will run. I will try to post a copy of the newspaper ad tomorrow if I can find a split second. As I said in our previous post, they sure did a good job of condensing our interview down to 4 minutes...I'm actually surprised I was able to conceal how nervous I was. I was SWEATING! Carl, on the other hand, was cool as a cucumber, as always! And for someone who hates to be the center of attention! :)

Let me know if you have a hard time getting this link to open. This link will expire in 14 days...

http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=batch_download&send_id=1000405305&email=58c1cc1358de25fab5447441137f00fb

Commercial Ad/Webcast

Nationwide Children's Hospital sent us a sneak preview of the television commercial - it will start running in Columbus next week.

(It's amazing how they were able to take an hour of our rambling and run-on sentences and reduce it down to this! :) Just so you know, we had to do the intro about 5 times. Paul was not being cooperative at ALL! Then one of the girls gave me these two little play cans of vegetables and Paul calmed down! Notice he's missing one shoe, as well! Anyway, notice how he is looking directly into the camera as he sits on my lap!! Wow!

If you want to see this commercial, you will have to hurry. This link will only be active for 14 days. Let me know if you have trouble opening it!

http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=batch_download&send_id=999439907&email=a620d99f9b1124bcaa18cc04a088016d