Monday, December 21, 2009

Home for Three Months

It's hard to believe three months have passed since we returned home from Ethiopia. The time has flown by, and yet it's hard to remember what life was like before Myles.

Our now 9-month-old is 18 lbs 4 oz and something like 27 or 28 inches (I can't remember exactly). The first two months home Myles grew A LOT and tried to catch up developmentally. Now he's in a learning phase where every day he comes home from school doing something different. It's so sweet! Last week he loved giving high-fives. This week he loves to clap for everything. When we were leaving church yesterday, I told him to wave goodbye to the preschool staff and he clapped instead. When Chris got him up this morning, Myles clapped for him.

Myles is still a little behind in that he's not crawling or pulling up. We have a great (free!) early intervention program in our area, so we're going to have him evaluated soon.

We've also discovered that Myles has a strong gag reflex. At Thanksgiving we gave him his first taste of mashed potatoes, and the second they touched his tongue, he threw up. A couple weeks later we tried grits, and the same thing happened. So now we'll be trying table foods while he's dressed in nothing but his diaper. :) He's also starting to act like he doesn't like foods he loved just a few weeks ago, but we keep giving them to him anyway. It's just odd because we've never heard of Ethiopian adoptees having this kind of food problem.

Here's Myles' welcome home video from three months ago. I just can't believe how much he's changed. Or how much one week changed our lives forever.



Thursday, December 10, 2009

Thinking of You

Please pray for this sweet family and this sweet family.

Sometime overnight tonight judges in Ethiopia will issue opinions on their adoptions.

I had the privilege of meeting, loving on, and taking pictures of their adorable babies, and I can't wait for these awesome families to bring them home!

Monday, December 7, 2009

Family Photos

We took our first family photos about a month ago (I'm a terrible blogger!). Myles is already bigger and taller and has lots more hair. :) And the beginnings of a second tooth!











You can check out more photos here (just scroll down).

Myles has his 9-month-old check-up in a week, so I'll post more soon!

Saturday, October 31, 2009

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Wish You Were Here





Myles is 7 months old today! We celebrated with his first trip to the beach. (The pics I took were way overexposed and these are my lame attempts to fix them.) Myles decided he wanted to roll off his towel over and over again to get to the sand. Apparently he thinks it's yummy. He was not a fan of the water or being placed on the wet sand. He does, however, love the pool! He's growing up so fast!

I also forgot to mention in our last post that you can see more pics of Myles on Twitter.com if you search for #mylespicofday. We try to post a new photo each day, so you can catch up there.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

A Family for Four Weeks

I always wondered why it took people so long to post after they got home, ha ha! Now I know. These past few weeks have flown by, too quickly (well, not the first week and a half — see previous post!). But we are doing so well now! Here's a little about us:

Eating and sleeping: Myles was a great sleeper while we were in Ethiopia but he wasn't very interested in eating. When we first got home he was starving all the time and never wanted to sleep. We also discovered Myles was probably held quite a bit, which is a great problem to have but made bedtime challenging. We all finally adjusted to the time change and we're on a good schedule. And we don't have to rock Myles to sleep anymore. We can lay him down drowsy and he'll go to sleep. We're at the beach right now and he's sleeping like a champ. We've also started cereals and have some squash to try out this week. We've tried a little juice also but so far he's not a taker.

Bonding: Myles is such a sweet, easygoing, and funny baby that it's easy to love him. But the bonding really was not instantaneous for me. It's a process, and jet lag and the flu didn't help. But it gets better all the time. I'm not sure yet that Myles knows we're his parents. He will go to anyone without fuss, so it's hard to tell.

Development: We've been to the pediatrician and the Vanderbilt International Clinic for Myles to be checked out. He's in the 17th percentile for weight, the 19th for height, and his head circumference is something like the 71st percentile! We haven't gotten back all of his bloodwork yet, but so far so good. Myles isn't too far behind developmentally, with the exception of his torso strength. When we first got home he wouldn't bear any weight on his legs, but he does now. In fact, Myles had an ultrasound on his soft spot to be sure there wasn't excess fluid on the brain that was hindering his development (there wasn't). He continues to make progress and does amazingly well with tummy time. I don't think it will be too much longer until he's able to sit. He's also very vocal (it's so hilarious to hear him roll his R's) and says new sounds all the time. He loves to "sing" in the car.

More about Myles: When we were in Ethiopia Myles wouldn't take a paci, but we've found one he loves. Give this kid a paci and a blankie and he's out! He loves blankies, really fabric and anything with texture. He's fascinated with his hands and feet. He actively tries to make us laugh. His first trick when we got home was scrunching his nose and sniffing in and out for laughs. His newest trick is fake coughing, which he learned from our nephew Eli last weekend. We got him a Baby Einstein stationary jumper to help with his leg strength (that and tummy time has really helped), and he loves it. He also loves music. He does this funny little wiggle and nods his head when music comes on.

The dog: Myles seems to like Topher, or at least doesn't mind him. Topher has been really sweet with Myles, which is a miracle. I've had to pry fistfuls of Topher's hair out of Myles' hands and Topher has been so gentle.

We're on vacation right now, so I don't have my laptop with pics from our trip. But I do plan to post about our trip soon. I don't have tons of pictures anyway because our camera broke on our first day in Ethiopia. A few families have sent us some great pics, which we really appreciate!!!

For now, here are a few shots I have from Chris' computer: