1 Month Home - the love of brothers - and first eye exam

OUR "ONE MORE PIECE" - HOME ONE MONTH

We have been home from China one month now and have had Emily for 45 days as of today.  She is blossoming and growing and somehow, during the past two weeks, has just started feeling like part of the group vs. more of a visitor.  She knows her way around the house now.  She goes from room to room chattering and playing.  She knows how to follow us to the kitchen or up the stairs.  She knows where the toys are and which kitchen cabinets have pots or bowls or playthings for her.  She knows which (closed) boxes contain her brothers’ tiny Legos (and she points to these boxes and yells, “no, no, no!” because that’s all she hears when she approaches the Legos when brothers are playing!).  She knows where the dog sleeps and where to look for the cats under our bed.  She knows where the blocks are kept and where her dolls and books are.  She also knows just how to sit down on a stool near the TV, hold up a remote, and act like she is turning on a show.  She yells “hello” whenever a phone rings in the house.  Instead of screaming as the dog approaches her highchair, she now grins and purposely hands food from her tray right into his mouth.  She runs to the door when she hears a car pulling into the garage.  She dances around when brothers are in view.  She bangs on the door to the basement when she wants to play downstairs.  She opens cabinets to get out food.  She yells "Cracker!" every time we put her in her car seat (have I bribed her with too many Goldfish??).  She dives and rolls all over the mattress on the floor next to her crib.  She jumps into the beanbag chair.  She helps put out dog and cat food.  She unrolls the toilet paper from the rolls in the bathroom.  She eats off of all of our plates.  She has just become one of us. 

She laughs and plays with us and she holds her own with her almost 6 and almost 8-year-old brothers.  She isn’t afraid to tell them “no!” if they squeeze too hard when they try to pick her up.  And she isn’t afraid to approach an untucked shirt, pull it up, and blow a raspberry onto the available stomach!  She has pulled all of the throw blankets from the back of the sofa and has made a little pile/pad of her own where she puts her dolls, books, muffin tins and whatever other treasures she has pulled from around the house.  If you dare try to put a blanket back in its place, she pulls it back down and sits on it.  She loves to ride in the car and the stroller and to play in the yard with balls or ride-on toys.  She loves to go to Target (good thing since she is my daughter!).  She loves sidewalk chalk and has learned to scribble pretty well with crayons and markers.  She wants whatever food anyone else is eating and sends big boys running for the hills if they try to have a special treat without sharing with her.  She dances, she sings, she claps, she yells “yea” when she “scores” a goal by putting a ball into a bucket or trashcan or something similar to her brothers’ basketball goals.  She repeats whatever we say and has already learned (just turned 19 months old) about 25 English words to speak – and responds to even more.   All in all, she is just the perfect fit for our family.  It is getting more and more difficult to even imagine life without her.

Among my thousands of worries going into this process was how it would impact the boys.  I didn't want to do anything that would be detrimental to them.  I knew an adoption - just like any new addition to a family - would be something new and different and would disrupt our scheduled lives.  I hoped and prayed that our new child would bring more love to our family and that the boys would understand that our attention would be divided three ways vs. two and that we couldn't always "drop" our new child's needs in favor of theirs and would understand that we'd have more time at home and maybe not immediately be able to do all of the family things we did before.  I scoured blogs for information on how people's existing children reacted to the adoption and fared after the adoption.  I cried hard the night before we left for China because I was worried about what might lie ahead for our family. 

And where did we end up and how are the boys?  They are IN LOVE with their new sister!  They want to hold her and help her and take her hand.  They want to feed her bottle to her in the morning.  They strip down (probably not a good idea, but I've allowed it so far) to stuff themselves into the bathtub with her.  They help her dress.  They (who have never voiced an opinion about their own clothes) choose her outfits and hair bows.  They talk about how cute she is and laugh at her antics and they try to engage her and to make her laugh and dance.  They've taught her to "score" a basket in a make-shift just-her-size basketball goal.  They've taught her to kick a ball.  They cheer for her sports accomplishments.  They've taught her how to crawl up the stairs and to go down stairs on her bottom to be safer.  They warn me if she has a toy (or anything else!) in her mouth.  They have even foregone some play dates to "stay with Emily."  They were invested in this process and I think they "get" it and that they understand that there are so many children (estimates are 150 MILLION - yes - MILLION - worldwide) who need homes and a chance at life in a family.  Just as ours have (a la "The Grinch" - :)), their hearts have grown several sizes bigger this summer. 

Some pictures of brotherly love in action:

And with our one month "anniversary," we had our first eye exam for Emily.  A three-hour appointment (total insanity with a 1 1/2 year old!!) that left me feeling a little bit sad.  My feelings don't make sense, but they were real.  I was dreading the appointment because we are AMAZED every day at Emily's abilities and intellect and humor and grasp of English.  She can do SO MUCH.  I didn't want this appointment to burst my bubble about how well she is doing. It was my own craziness leading to such thoughts.  She is - of course - the same amazing, smart, funny, loving little girl AFTER the eye exam as she was before.  I just wanted to believe that her vision might be better than it is and, to be honest, I didn't want anybody to tell me that it wasn't as good as it seems (even though the way it "seems" is her normal way of functioning and it's so good that most people wouldn't have any idea that her vision wasn't/isn't totally normal).  I didn't love the ophthalmologist and felt he was a little condescending and "pitying" - as if I had no clue that she had albinism and that along with that condition, comes come vision issues.  He began by telling me that her vision was not normal.  I stifled a "no kidding" comment and listened further.  He said that she has nystagmus (eye movement) (which I already knew and which is very common in children with albinism) and that she had "significant" refractive errors and a "significant prescription" for glasses.  This is not necessarily any big news either.  The vision issues typically caused by albinism are not necessarily correctable with glasses.  Astigmatism (refractive error) - which many people have - with or without albinism - can be corrected.  So, I guess I'm glad that he thinks that with this "significant prescription," she may have much clearer vision.  He then told me that 15 years from now, "she likely will never drive a car."  Again - no big news.  We knew this was a possibility.  But, when we considered her file and researched albinism, we decided that we would not worry about 15-16 years out.  Technology is advancing all the time (as it happens, there was an article about the debut of self-driving cars in the Delta "Sky" magazine I read in route to China) and, depending upon where you live, driving is or is not a big deal.  When Justin lived in NYC, he hardly ever drove.  Where we live now, everybody does drive. I just found it slightly annoying that the doctor acted as if I'd done no research on this "need" and had no clue about possibilities or should feel sad about a "significant prescription."  Nope.  Just want to be sure that we're doing all we can for her so that she can benefit from whatever aids or accommodations will help her achieve her full potential -- which I think is going to be pretty "significant" itself!  I told the boys about the appointment and their response put me back in the right frame of mind.  Their view:  "she is beautiful and smart and we can always be her eyes."  I like the way they think.  So - next pictures will probably show her cool new purple glasses (assuming they come in on time).  We'll also have an assessment done by the local center for visually impaired in order to get a good idea of what she might need school-wise - even at her young age.  We are "on it" and will do whatever we can to help her.