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.