Chloe's Talking and Swimming

I know I have not posted something in a long time.  I am posting a couple of videos of Chloe talking.  She is doing amazing with her speech.  We are continually impressed with her progress.



Chloe also recently completed a session of swim lessons.  She is doing great.  She loves the wa wa as she calls it.



We are coming up on our one year anniversary of our Gotcha Day!  I cannot believe she has been with us for almost a year.  My how time flies and how things change.  

Chloe's Personality

Chloe seems to have a way with entertaining people.  I'm not sure if it is because we forgot how cute toddlers are to be around or if there is something different about her.  Her personality seems to shine more and more each day.  She is still pretty quiet and apprehensive in new surroundings, but when she starts to feel comfortable, watch out.  She has a laugh and a smile that are contagious.  Anyone that spends a little time with her falls in love with her.  I love to watch her tell a story.  Despite the fact that she still is unable to say many words, she has an amazing gift of communication.  The other night she fell off a chair and hit her head.  When she tells that story she makes the cutest face and hits her head with her hand and says bonk.  Then she points to the floor and then she pretends to cry.  It is amazing how expressive she is.  Her speech continues to progress by leaps and bounds.  Every day it seems like she is doing more word approximations.  I'm amazed.  I'm sure there will be a time soon when we will wonder if she will ever be quiet.
 
We have really been working on the potty training and now she mostly goes in underwear.  When I started to get serious with this, I would give her 2 M&M's (one for being dry and one for going on the potty) as a treat.  When she goes, she points to the cabinet and says treat, then she holds up two fingers and says two.  A few weeks ago Kevin's parents were watching her and Chloe told Carolyn she got three treats and held up three fingers.  Carolyn of course gave her three.  She is so smart.  She knows three is more than two and she had just the right person to try it out on.  Now she asks for three and occasionally five, but I am more of a stickler and stick to the 2!

Chloe does things that Caleb never did.  The other day I had baked some cookies.  Chloe loves cookies.  I gave her one along with the rest of the family.  Then she asked for another.  I gave her another half.  Then I needed to get ready so I went back to the bedroom.  Next thing I know Kevin is asking me if I gave her another cookie.  I said no.  We went into the kitchen and she had pulled a chair to the counter, climbed up and helped herself to another cookie.  She has also pulled the chair to the door and tried to unlock it and go out.  She is quite clever and we have to keep our eyes on her all the time. 

One of her cute new things is "taking someone's nose off"  She takes her hand up to your nose and then puts her thumb between her index and middle finger like it is your nose.  She has to concentrate so hard to put her thumb in the right place.  It is so funny and the first time she did it to me I laughed so hard.  I had never seen her do it before and I had no idea where she learned it.  Thanks to Kevin for that adorable trick.
 
Every year since Caleb was a baby we have taken family photos in the bluebonnets.  It was fun this year to have Chloe be a part of it.  Here are a couple pictures from that and some recent ones I took of her.

My sweeties

The Family

Chloe concentrating on putting her thumb in the right place to show the nose she just took off

How adorable is that?

Posing for the camera

Picking the flowers

So happy

One Year Ago Today

One year ago today we were matched with Chloe!  What an amazingly exciting day.  I was at work when I received the email from our adoption agency.  The subject line of the email said in capital letters CALL A HELPING HAND ADOPTION AGENCY ASAP!  My heart rate soared and the excitement built as I clicked on the email that told us we were matched with a child and to call the office as soon as possible.  I think that may be the best email I have ever received.  I was in such disbelief as I listened to our case worker tell me about Chloe.  Here we had waited for almost 4 years and within a few minutes my life was drastically changed forever.  I had tried to call Kevin at that moment and kept getting voicemail.  I just kept calling and calling hoping eventually he would pick up so I could share the news.  He called back a few minutes after my call with the agency.  He told me that he had been on a business call and when he saw that I kept calling over and over, he had to tell the person that there must be something important because his wife had called repeatedly that he was going to have to call him back.  Little did he know what I was about to spring on him!  Caleb was equally excited.  He was finally going to be a big brother.  The emotions of that day were overwhelming.  It was hard to believe that there was a beautiful little girl with big brown eyes on the other side of the world that would be ours forever.  I wonder what they told her if anything on April 26th last year.  Did she know she was going to have a forever family?  Did she know she would have a Mom and Dad and big brother who would love her?  I hope so.  Now fast forward to today.  So many things have happened in her little life. She met us.  She moved half way around the world.  She has had surgery (now twice since she just had another set of ear tubes placed).  She has adjusted to a new way of life.  And she is flourishing.  April 26, 2011 changed our hearts and our lives forever.   Praise God!

The first picture we got of Chloe with our referral on April 26, 2011

Chloe now

Chloe's 2!

Birthdays last a long time at our house.  We like to celebrate, celebrate, celebrate.  And this year we had something great to celebrate.  We had to make up for the fact that she probably did not have a celebration on her first birthday.  We started celebrating her day at breakfast with pancakes.  We put 2 candles in the pancakes and sang Happy Birthday to her.  She loved blowing out the candles.  Later that evening we had cake and ice cream at the house followed by opening presents.  She seemed to have a great day.  That weekend my family came up and we celebrated again.  She got to blow out more candles and open more presents.  Finally, Aunt Joy arranged for us to go to Medieval Times and celebrate the kids birthdays with a show.  It was fantastic!  Chloe was a little fussy before the show, but the minute the horses came out, she changed her attitude in a hurry.  She was mesmerized by the show and sat relatively still for the entire 2 hours.  I think we all had a great time.   

Chloe continues to entertain us.  She has learned to tell you how old she is.  She can say something that sounds like two and holds up two fingers.  It is so cute.  I have tried to upload different videos, but the file size always seems to big.  Here was one video I was able to upload.  It is of Chloe practicing her me which was one of our homework words for speech.

Here are some pictures from her birthday.

Breakfast pancakes with candles

Opening presents

Playing with a bubble maker, one of her presents

Chloe and Caleb

I made a butterfly cake since her Chinese name means little butterfly

Grandma and the kids

Chloe with her smash cake (since she didn't get to have one at her first birthday)

Chloe and her cake

The kids playing with ipads

Medieval Times

Grandma and Caleb at Medieval Times

Chloe waving her flag

Chloe had her 2 year check up.  She has really grown since she has been with us.  We did find out that she had a urinary tract infection.  I have been feeling kind of guilty about it.  I was concerned months ago that she may have an infection.  She has had some random fevers and her urine has had a strong odor.  I talked with the doctor about it 3 months ago and he gave me a specimen container to collect a specimen.  I never did.  (That's what happens when your mother is a doctor.)  I decided I we would collect one and take it to her 2 year check up.  The urine dip in the office was clear, but the culture was positive for an infection.  She had to take some antibiotics.  She also had to have a kidney ultrasound to make sure there were no underlying problems.  She was so scared she cried for the entire test.  Thankfully everything came out ok.  So now we are good and she is healthy.  

Daddy's Girl

Chloe has become Daddy's girl.  When we first got back from China, Chloe was not interested in Kevin in the slightest.  She always wanted me to do everything: hold her, play with her, put her to bed, etc.  Back then I would tell Chloe that she was really going to like this guy and that he was staying around so she should warm up to him.  My how things change in a short period of time.  Now it is pretty much the opposite.  If Dad is around, she prefers to be with him.  It all started one night about a month ago when she essentially pushed me out of a room saying night night and shut the door in my face.  I am use to the door shut in my face thing now because it seems to happen almost nightly.  She wants Kevin to help her do everything including putting her to bed.  When I try, she starts to wave to me then leads me out of her room and shuts the door in my face saying night night and blowing me kisses.  I must say that if this would have happened with my first child, I may have had my feelings hurt, but I am much more comfortable as my role to know that she does love me.  Plus, it has kind of been a nice break.  It has been a good opportunity for me to spend more time with Caleb. 

One of the things Chloe loves to do is scare Dad when he comes home at night.  We hide around the wall by the door.  Chloe is so funny, she puts her finger to her mouth like the shhh sign so that we will be quiet.  The only problem is that on most days she has a hard time remaining quiet herself.  When Kevin walks in we jump out and yell boo!  She gets so excited and kicks her legs.  It always makes me laugh.  

Chloe continues to be busy.  She finished her first swimming lessons which I think she enjoyed.  She is loving her music class and continues to take speech.  I am not sure how to rate the progress from her speech.  I guess we will know things are good when she is speaking in recognizable sentences.  We are still trying to get her to vocalize more.  She can say Mama, no, yeah, night night, me, and pseudo words na na (which is Dada), Meme (which is baby).  But, just because she cannot talk, does not mean she cannot communicate.  She always amazes me how she can tell me what she wants without words.

Chloe turns 2 on Monday.  We are excited about celebrating her first birthday with us.  We are having a family party the following weekend.  She does not know what a birthday is, but she certainly knows presents and cake, so I know she will enjoy it. What kid doesn't?!?

Chinese New Year

Happy Chinese New Year!  I guess we are starting a new tradition and celebration in our house, Chinese New Year.  I had been working for that last couple of weeks on a menu for our celebration.  Last weekend we went to the local Asian market and picked up some supplies.  I had read that Chinese dumplings are an important dish for Chinese New Year.  Caleb and I practiced making them last weekend and we perfected them for the dinner.  We ate Chinese dumplings/potstickers, chicken fried rice, a chicken noodle dish, sweet and sour pork and Chinese almond cookies for dessert.  We also decorated the dining room.  We invited some friends over who adopted a little albino girl from China 10 months ago.  Unfortunately, in addition to being an albino, she has some significant neurologic issues that were not disclosed to them until they were in China.  The officials in China tried to talk them out of adopting this child.  I could not imagine how hard it would be to go over and then not come back with a child.  They already considered her their daughter from the day of her referral.  She was 2 when they got her and she was not sitting or eating solids or walking.  She was only content when she was left alone and did not like being held.  The doctors here now think that a majority of her issues are due to neglect.  Although she has made significant progress in 10 months, they still have a long way to go.  This family helped us prepare before our travel to China.  They shared their stories with us and gave us some great pointers before we went.  They have a son close to Caleb's age that is very similar to Caleb.  They seem to have similar personalities and picky taste buds, so it was nice to get some eating tips from them for Caleb before we went.  They also prepared and gave us a note to open every day while we were in China.  It has been fun developing our relationship with them and so seemed very appropriate to share our first Chinese New Year together.  Below are some pictures from our day. 

Caleb making Chinese dumplings

Chloe making Chinese dumplings

Our Chinese dumplings

The dining room decorated

Chloe

Chloe

Mom and kids

Dad and kids

The group at dinner

Katie

Chloe

Katie and Chloe

God bless these children and all the orphans in China and around the world.  I am so thankful God placed these children in our homes.  What a blessing they are to us!  Happy Chinese New Year!

Happy New Year!

Christmas was great!  We had a wonderful time celebrating with family.  Chloe loved opening presents and then would love what was inside them.  We had a pretty busy Christmas.  It started Saturday morning at our house.  We got up and had a nice breakfast.  Then we opened presents at our house.  I think Chloe really enjoyed it.  Then we went to our 4:00 church service and then off to Kevin's parents for Christmas Eve dinner with the extended family.  Unfortunately Chloe did not sleep well that night.  After being up and down all night, she woke up at 5 am and was hungry.  Just when she finally fell back to sleep, Caleb came running in to wake us up and tell us that Santa came.  Needless to say, Chloe was a little fussy that morning!  I figured for sure she would fall asleep during church but she did not until the last 5 minutes of the service.  Then what do you do?  We woke her up and put her in the car and headed back to Kevin's parents.  She made it through lunch and of course opening some presents which I think put her in a better mood.  Then she took a much needed 3 hour nap and after that she was her happy self again.  We headed to Austin on Christmas evening to spend time with my parents.  Chloe is not always a huge fan of her car seat.  About 1/2 way there she started to cry and pull at the car seat harness.  The crying went on and on.  I would say it lasted at least 30 minutes which seems like an eternity when you are in the confined space of a car.  But at last we made it to Austin.  We had a nice time there with family and of course Chloe liked opening presents.  My brother's family got her a toy set with a hair dryer and curling iron etc.  She loved the blow dryer and went around the room fixing everyone's hair!  It was a great first Christmas with Chloe.

Chloe opening a present

Caleb opening a present

Getting ready for Christmas Eve service

Thanks Santa!

Thanks Santa!

Chloe fixing her hair

Chloe fixing Tim's hair?!?  What hair?

Our social worker came over to do our 6 month post placement report.  Yes, it will be 6 months that we have had her on January 26.  I really enjoyed sharing our Gotcha day and trip to China with her.  We shared some of our videos and pictures.  I got a little teary eyed watching the video of when we first met Chloe.  Still melts my heart.  I think Chloe liked watching the videos too.  This was the first time that we had shown them to her.  It is really amazing the progress Chloe has made and how she continues to adjust with such ease.  But what is more amazing is how different she looks.  I am posting a couple of before and afters.  What a transformation.

Gotcha Day

Now

I am excited to report that Chloe's speech therapy was approved through our insurance.  She started her speech today and will go weekly on Tuesdays for about an hour a session.  She did great.  She is such a smart and social/interactive girl.  She was really trying to do what was asked of her by the therapist.  Caleb is going with and he brought a note pad today to take some notes about the therapy.  How sweet!  I cannot wait to see the progress of her speech with some formal therapy.

Chloe has really adjusted to American life.  She has quite a busy schedule.  She is taking swimming lessons and is going to start a music class tomorrow.  She also likes going to story time at the library.  I can't wait to see what her interests will develop into as she gets older.