Four Month Update

Four months ago today, this little one made us a family of three!

That smile...I LOVE seeing that sweet look and am so glad she gets to share that with us.

Sleeping

Lily is a great sleeper at night once she goes to sleep and I'm so glad for that.  Biggest change is that instead of laying down with her to go to sleep, I'm sitting in a chair by the bed.  In fact, the other night after reading books, she "pushed" me and said "Mommy chair" so I guess she was ready for me to give her some room.  Although, she still likes my hand to be by her side.

She sleeps from about 8:30 to 7:30 each night and no naps still - except for the little ones she can catch in the car and continue inside if she lets us carry her in without waking.

Funny how these two pictures are from different days and so similar - ha, ha!  She is consistent, huh?

And, speaking of sleeping...

Lily enjoys reading before we go to sleep.  Her favorite books now are books that have flaps for her to look under.  Each time she looks under one, she likes to name what's under it.

Possibly a quick nap coming soon if I were betting...

Eating
Lily continues to love to eat! Her favorites right now include eggs, spaghetti, pears, chips, soup, taco meat and anything she can dip a chip into (guacamole, ceviche, queso).

Yummy soup!

Enjoying a fruit smoothie

Crackers and salami anyone?

Ceviche?  Yes, I think so!

Attachment
I have to say, in my opinion, Lily is very well attached to her forever people!

Loves her time with her Daddy!

Playing
Play, play, play...Lily is up for all sorts of play.  Her favorite things currently include playing with her stuffed animals and babies, pushing them in the stroller and grocery cart, playing with her zoo/farm animals, blocks, and playing outside.

Getting a pedi while outside - along with a headless stretchy bunny!  Doesn't everyone have one of those in the water when getting your toes done?

She likes to get all her things lined up.  She likes things in order like her Mommy!

Helping to cook spaghetti

Rearranging our pantry one morning

Communicating
Lily continues to add vocabulary almost daily!  Aside from understanding most things, she is starting to put 2 and 3 words together.  Her favorite phrase right now is "Lily do it"!  I love seeing/hearing this transformation in her.  See yesterday's post if you haven't for Lily's knack at naming animals and sounds. :)

The past 4 months have been a whirlwind and I'm thinking that's the way our lives will be from now on.  There have certainly been a few tough times but when I see this sweet girl looking up at me, I quickly forget any troubles and my heart melts. Can you blame me?

Happy Mama here with Lily (and a cup of morning coffee)!!!

Animals

Lions, Tigers and Bears Oh My!

Lily loves animals and those three are some favorites!

 She loves to name animals in the books we read, play with her stuffed animals, and play with her toy farm and zoo animals.

Notice the Tiger made it in the picture!

My sister had her class (thank you Debbie!) make Lily some get well cards and they all had animals on them - perfect!  Lily loved naming all the animals she knew and learning some new ones also.  I tell ya, if there is a test on animals, she's ready!

The teacher in me got pretty excited doing that with Lily since I think that was her first set of flashcards and she rose to the occasion!  I see more of this in our future. :)


The other day we also got some very cool reusable stickers (and Lily loves stickers!!) with various mats that you can put them on and then do it again and again (thank you Karen!).  One of the scenes is a farm with a bunch of farm animals and that is her favorite.

Naming those animals again - she's a pro!

I feel that some sort of trip to a farm is in our near future!

Life Lately

Part of Lily's recovery is to keep her as healthy as we can and as the doctor says, we aren't exactly quarantined to our home.  We are just trying to avoid crowds inside and places where there are a lot of kids.  That doesn't leave a whole lot of places around here. :)  

We run to the stores during the day when it's not too crowded, take a lot of walks, play inside, go visit family, and take rides in the car (Thank you drive thru restaurants that serve coffee - nothing beats a large afternoon cup of Joe!!)

So here's a peek at our life lately:

Lots of playing.  Love this little one sitting with me!

Smile Lily

The Ironman competition was going on the other day so I thought Lily may enjoy going to watch some of the bike riders on part of their total of 140 miles.  140 miles?!?!?!?  That's just crazy - that's a whole lot of swimming, biking and running!  Having run a half marathon (13 miles, actually 13.6 - let's not forget that .6 part!!)  that I thought was taking FOREVER, I can't imagine an Ironman .

I loaded Lily and the stroller up, drove to the part where I knew we could see some bike riders and I could get in a good walk at the same time, and we set off.  At first, Lily was quite serious about watching...

After a few minutes though, she began to channel how the athletes must have felt.

Just a little cat nap and then I'll be good to go again!

Lily's Daddy had a great idea the other night - let Lily stay up late with us.  And eat brownies. Well, I like brownies with ice cream while sitting on the couch so I was all in.  This was the first of many for Lily:  first time to stay up late (all the way til 9:15!), first brownie and ice cream and first time to eat on the couch.  Yes, I did put a towel around her to catch any crumbs there may have been.  I was all in for this adventure, but let's be real - I was a little nervous about chocolate crumbs everywhere!

I tried to get a few pics but Lily was just too excited and thought this was all pretty silly.

Silly Lily

A little dress up time one day can certainly pass some time and make for a bit of fun.

Precious - loading up her backpack

Several times a day we enjoy our walks with our puppies.  When it's just me, Lily rides in the wagon but when her Daddy is here, she rides in the stroller.  I love this stroller and am so glad we got it because I really went back and forth whether to get it or not.

Evidently Lily likes it too!

Happy, happy girl with her snack and water

Later that day after going to the above mentioned drive thru for a coffee, Lily fell asleep in the car. Remember, she doesn't nap but if she happens to be in the car in the afternoon, then that's another story!  This day I was able to bring in her and lay her down.  

She slept for a whole 15 minutes! She just doesn't want to miss anything.  Who can blame her?  She has a lot to see and do!

Books, Books and More Books

Have you read any good books lately?  We  have!  Books with flaps to open seem to be a favorite around here.

People often ask me what Lily's favorite things to do are.  She honestly is pretty much up for anything but one thing she really likes is to look at books.  We "read" every night before going to sleep and several times throughout the day.

Lily loves to look through the pictures and name things she now knows: kitty cat, puppy dog, cow, horse, flowers, water, duck.  She's doing awesome at learning those animals and the sounds they make - I mean, those are very important things in life you know!

Sitting at her table and going through many books one afternoon

Seeing this, makes my teacher heart happy!

I guess Lily is getting a jump start on her high school summer reading list with this one:

She's such an overachiever! (She's already heard about how competitive the high school here is!)

Not many pictures in this book so I guess I'll save it for her for a little later.  Maybe she'll be ready for it next year?!?!

Thankful

It's hard to believe that 9 days ago we were here:

Lily laying in bed hooked up and being monitored by all this

We are so thankful to all the people who helped take care of our little one last week.  We are also thankful that we are now here:

And here:

I saw this the other day and it immediately made me think of Lily.  

She has the most infectious laugh and laughs a lot!  It is truly a sound I love to hear around the house.

Here is the very first time we got to hear her laugh and see her gorgeous smile while we were in China...

Happy Mother's Day

Today holds a very special place in my heart...my first Mother's Day as a Mommy!!!!! Although I'm not exactly where I want to be, I am definitely with who I want to be with. We are so happy that things are going well on our road to recovery!

I am so very blessed that Lily Grace made me a Mommy!

Health Update

This is a big week for us around here and I decided today to share with you this part of our story.

 When we adopted Lily, she was under the "special needs" umbrella.  Almost all of the children for adoption from China are now "special needs".  With the one child policy now changed for many in China, that has not always been the case.  China also realized with previous years of adopting out numerous "healthy" children (many who were females), that they may be creating a gender imbalance so healthy girls were again desired for their society.   Many Chinese families make so little money and simply can not afford the care needed for a child with a disability which they must pay for up front.

Children in orphanages have various needs ranging from very, very minor to major medical needs.  Many disabilities considered a special need in China, we don't think much about at all in the United States because of the doctors and care we have available to us. These can be physical, mental or a combination of both.  Through questionnaires and discussions with our agency and doctors, we decided what type of needs would be a good fit for our family.  

One of the checklist we completed was several pages long and listed just about any and every condition you could imagine that someone may have.  We had to check yes, no or maybe to each disability.  So with our computer handy to look up some of these, we made our way through the list.  But saying no to certain conditions made us feel horrible in many ways because we weren't just saying no to a condition, we were saying no to any child with that need.  Our heartstrings were greatly pulled that evening as we sat at our dinging room table making those decisions for our family.

So that brings us to this little sweetie:

Lily has a congenital heart defect (meaning she was born with this) called Tetraology of Fallot.  Now before Lily, we knew nothing of this condition.  We know quite a bit now and I'm sure we will continue to learn more as we travel down this road with Lily.  Thanks to a dear friend (who is a pediatric cardiology nurse) for sending us some very special stethoscopes, the three of us can always hear how Lily's heart sounds.

This isn't a phone?!?!

Without going into a lot of details, we knew of her condition and knew she had open heart surgery when she was quite young.  We also knew we wanted to get her here as quick as possible to get her the best care possible.

Once we were home and began having her evaluated, we learned that she needs to have another surgery to help her heart.  The surgery done previously saved her, but wasn't totally complete.  The good news is that we are here with the best care for her and she won't go through this surgery alone as she did her previous one.  Her Mommy and Daddy will be there with her every step of the way.

Is that Dr. Wilson?  Love how she's watching her Daddy!

This is a big week for us because it's the week of surgery.  We are looking forward to having this behind us and getting back to our "normal".  

The three of us have a lot to see and do and plan to be busy as soon as she's healed.

A Rainy Day

With a lot of rain around here lately, I've been tasked with being inventive at entertaining a two year old around here when we can't get out to the splashpads or parks.  Here is a peek into a day at home while it rained of and on all day.

Checking out the back porch and watching the rain in the morning:

Good shoes for a wet day

Lily set up a picnic

Checking out the front porch and seeing if it's still raining

Making banana bread

Mashing up the bananas

Licking the spatula

Of course when we are finished, we get to clean the dishes!

Afternoon Snack Time!

Lily peeled her own mandarin orange, separated the pieces and shared them with me.

We got out shaving cream and played on the counter

Finally in the late afternoon, the rain subsided and we were able to get out for a bit.  A quick change into these for our time outside:

Those little red, white and blue boots are the same ones we bought and used in our adoption announcement pictures. So glad they fit because when we bought them, we had no idea who would be wearing them.  They are a perfect fit!  :)

Of course, we had to play in some puddles!

After walking Gracie and Roxi Lily helped to put things away

Next up, was some Barney watching.  Today's favorite:  Bingo!

We ended our afternoon with a quick run to CVS to pick up a few things.

Love my sidekick while running errands!