Fate...

I finally tackled my tubs of "Papers and stuff I NEED to save".

Everyone has at least one tub filled to overflowing with cards from 20 years ago, every card your kid EVER made or gave to you, the super cute preschool artwork through 3rd grade writing assignments,  lost teeth (not sure why I keep those-gross really), all the extra class pictures, etc...  

And that's just Syd's stuff, I don't have an Alex tub yet.

One of the papers that I found was from a journal entry 

that I wrote 10 years ago. 

If you can't read my handwriting, it basically says that we were trying IVF again and "when" it works we'll have a baby in January.

In October of that year, we decided to adopt and started the paper chase for our child from China.

That child was born in January, 2003. 

Exactly when I said there would be 

"...another Dahl in the world ...".

Fate.

It works in mysterious ways.

Guess who turned 3 today?

It was a party kind of day around here!

Alex's entourage of ladies (ie: mommy's friends)
came over for breakfast.

Then,

All the grandparents came over for pizza ...

...and cake

...and presents

Are you getting a sense that the boy likes his vehicles?

Happy Birthday Alex,  I love you!

The feet...

...are doing great!

The casts came off last Wednesday and he's still walking around like a little old man!  It's hard getting used to all that extra weight being gone I guess.  

The surgery was successful!  Alex's heels dropped down where they need to be and he even has tiny little arches now :-)

His feet look curled in in this picture, but when he's relaxed, that's just they way they go.  Normally they are nice and straight like they are in the first picture.

So the goal now is to keep everything where it is and re-teach the muscles in his legs to work properly.  Stretching and exercises to do several times a day, Ponseti bar at nap and bedtime, AFO's the rest of the time for a few months-maybe longer depending how he does.  It would be ideal to leave him in the brace all the time but he's almost 3 and never stops moving.  Staying in the brace all the time would be too difficult, plus he wouldn't be able to play outside.  

We're also going to try electrical stimulation on his leg muscles to hopefully get them working the correct way.  I've never heard of  using e-stim for clubfoot treatment, but I'm willing to give it a try. 

We're hoping that being more aggressive with PT will prevent another relapse.  I think 20 sets of casts and 2 tenotomies is quite enough!  

It feels like yesterday, it feels like forever...

Two years ago today, we held this wonderful little boy that we 

had been waiting soooo long for.

 

 

He's still pretty stinkin' adorable!!!

9 things I love about my 9 year old...

1. Hockey, Hockey, Hockey! She wants to be the first female NHL goalie!

2. In the warm summer months, she wants to be a marine biologist.

3. Thankfully, when I was down with a 24 hour bug, Syd was out of school for a snow day and took care of her brother all day.  Even made him lunch!

4. When we played “If you could take anyone you want on a Di*ney Cru*se, who would you take?” I realized that I like all of her friends :-)

5. She loves to read and loves math even more. She got her love of reading from me and the love of math from daddy.

6. Syd loves watching her adoption video and agrees with us that she was soooo cute!!!

7. She is unbelievably excited to go to China this summer, mostly for the pandas but she really wants to see her orphanage too.

8. Syd is so very curious about her birth family and I love that she is able to talk to us about them, which she does on an almost daily basis.

9. She is very proud to be Chinese American and loves her Chinese culture.

Can't stop this little guy...

We were a little worried about how Alex would get around in his "Special Boots".  The last time he was in casts he wasn't near as active as he is now.  He crawled most of the time and could only go down the stairs, not up.  

It took him a few days to figure out how to get around but now there's no stopping him!  Walking, running, climbing on furniture, up and down the stairs.  

We're loving it!!

Check out the video :-)

Success-we hope...

Dr S said Alex's surgery went really well yesterday.

Yeah!!

She said as soon as she nicked his achilles tendon, the heel dropped right down where it's supposed to be.  She's hoping we'll only have to do the 2 weeks of casts but we'll know for sure after they come off. 

He woke up very badly from the anesthesia, we don't think he was in any pain but just seriously pissed that he couldn't move his legs!  And they put the IV, pulse ox, etc... on the hand of his "sucking fingers".  He fought and fought for almost an hour, drank a little juice and ate some Popsicle but didn't start calming down until they took all the junk off his hand and his fingers could pop back in his mouth.

We've just been alternating ibuprofen and acetaminophen because he doesn't seem to be in pain at all.  He's having a tough time getting around and wants to be carried everywhere.  He weighs a ton now!  I'm hoping he'll figure out how to crawl again soon :-)

Feeling a little stoned before surgery!

He started feeling pretty happy though!