Thursday, March 25, 2010

On the Move

I promise I will post a birthday recap soon, but I had to share this video. Myles decided to start crawling yesterday! He's progressed so much in the past two weeks.



And just for fun, here's an adorable pic from a friend's superhero birthday party. More soon!



Monday, February 8, 2010

Myles Update

I haven't taken one. single. picture. of Myles since Christmas because our camera battery has been dead. I need to work on that! But since I never posted any Christmas pictures either, here ya go!



Myles will be 11 months old this Saturday. I just can't believe it! I can't believe my tiny chunk is now a big ol' chunk. Chris and I had to take M to the doctor a week and a half ago for a double ear infection, and they told us he's 20 lbs! Granted, he was all bundled up for the snow, but seriously?!? And he's just as long as he is wide. He was 28 inches at his 9 month appointment, so he must be nearing 30 inches now.

As for his development, he's become quite the communicator. He says dada, mama, baba (for bottle and ball), yum yum, bye-bye, and doggie. He's starting to say hoop (basketball) and "did it," which is just something funny we taught him.

His favorite thing to do right now is look at pictures, especially of himself. :) We have several pictures on our fridge, and when he first sees himself, he does this low, gruff laugh to himself. He also loves to look at pictures of his friends Joseph, Mena (who he thinks is a hottie!), and Ramsey.

Myles has gotten much better with his eating. No more gagging issues. He's working on drinking out of a sippy cup. And he loves to feed himself wagon wheels and crackers.

We meet with early intervention tomorrow to discuss Myles's motor skills delays. He does qualify for services, so we'll be getting some help with his crawling and pulling up, neither of which he does yet. He's started scooting around a little on his bottom, and he can stand holding on to something, but he won't move himself of his own accord. M's fine motor skills have improved since he was first evaluated, with his pincher grip, pointing, and picking up small objects. And he was having trouble releasing objects from his grasp, but now he's quite adept at throwing things. Any thing. :)

The sweetest thing is that Myles is now starting to offer affection instead of just allowing us to hug or kiss him. He's also more sensitive and gets his feelings hurt easily. One day when he was really tired he was trying to play with my laptop, and I told him "no no." He started crying big crocodile tears and buried his head in my chest. We sang some songs and he was better. A few minutes later he reached for my laptop again, I told him "no no" again, and tears and snuggles again. Whenever I have to tell him no now, he hugs me like he knows he did something I didn't like. It's hilarious.

I'm sure if you're still reading at this point, you're one of the grandparents, so hi! We miss you! Be sure to save the date of March 13 for Myles's super-fun 1st birthday. :)

Monday, January 18, 2010

We Need a New Blog Name...

Because this Hollomon three is about to become FOUR!!!!

We are excited to officially announce that we have begun the adoption process once again! But the experience is quite a bit different for us this time around.

On September 18, 2009, on our last day in Ethiopia, we met a sweet 10-year-old (!) boy whom I'll call L at one of the government orphanages we visited. L really latched onto Chris. They were inseparable while we where there. I met L briefly but didn't spend much time with him. L was quiet and tiny, and we thought he was maybe 8 years old (ha!).

Chris asked a lot of questions about L while we were there. L has a tough story, one that I want to protect and not share too much of.

Cut to a few weeks after we were home. For several days and nights in a row, I couldn't get L off my mind. It seemed so odd to me because I had spent so little time with him. Finally, I said to Chris, "You've been praying about L, haven't you?" And of course, he had. Then we had our first of many serious discussions about adopting L.

We began talking to our adoption agency about the possibility of adopting L. We learned that he just turned 11 in December. He loves English and science, and he wants to be a professional soccer player. And he really wants a family.

And four months to the day after meeting sweet L for the first time, we're ready to share with you that we are going to be that family.

We are excited and overwhelmed. We never dreamed we would be going from no children to a 1-year-old and an 11-year-old in one year, and we never planned to adopt two children back to back. The responsibility and the financial obligations are intimidating, to say the least! After a long day at work and when Myles has been cranky, Chris will teasingly ask, "Are you ready to help L with his homework?" You can pray for us about that! :)

But we are so excited that Myles will have a big brother who shares his heritage and can teach him about Ethiopia in ways that we can't.

I don't have an estimate of when we'll be bringing L home. We're hopeful it will be by the end of the year, and the sooner the better, Lord willing.

Please pray for L, Myles, Chris, and me as we prepare for yet another life change. And if you have a new blog name for us, please let me know!

God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us. (Ephesians 3:20-21, The Message)

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

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.