Pumpkin Patches and Furry Friends

Catch'n Up

I know that my posts have been few and far between, but truthfully, its the best I can do right now. Since surgery, Kai has not been sleeping well, and so neither have I. An unfortunate consequence of surgery for kids like Kai is that for many weeks, sleeping patterns are rough. Kai almost never naps these days, when he does, it is only for a half hour. For the first 4-5 days post-op, Kai had terrible insomnia and even night terrors one evening. These days, Kai wakes up every 2-3 hours screaming and needs to be rocked back to sleep. This will likely continue for another two weeks. As you can imagine, blogging is hard to do. Kai is extremely active. It's been difficult keeping up with him. His lack of sleep and "busy" play have caused him to bump his lip a few times. Unfortunately, the stitch above his lip was damaged and he will have a thicker scar in that area than he should have. It is really hard to keep a toddler from running, climbing, falling and all the other activities that come naturally to him. More on that later.
Anyway, last weekend, we had a great time meeting up with the other families that traveled with us to China. It was wonderful to catch up with these folks and watch the children play together. Here are a couple of pix from that event.


I broke out one of Kai's play costumes the other day to combat the tired tantruming and keep him occupied until bedtime. He perked right up when he saw himself in the mirror and gave his ears a wiggle. He matched his pet monkey perfectly. Who wouldn't be excited about a tail and monkey belly?

Some Photos of Kai After Surgery

This was taken two days ago. The rest show him over the weekend and how he looked during his hospital stay. He's really healing up nicely.

Kai's Home Again

Sorry for the delayed update, but Kai is now home and doing well. He managed the hospital stay and surgery better than we could have expected. I have limited time to post, but we wanted to let you all know that he is okay. The swelling continues to go down a little more each day and he is in good spirits. He is active as ever (too much so for someone that can't afford to injure his mouth). I'll write more later. Thanks for all the good thoughts!

As is evident in the photos, Kai is growing more and more each day. He is becoming a lean and long little boy before our eyes. Four short months ago, Kai was malnourished, wearing 3-6 month old pants; today, Kai is thriving and in a size 12 m! The transformation has been truly astonishing.

Kai continues to wow his speech therapist each week. He is a gifted little boy. At this point, Kai is using about 60 signs on his own. Lately he has begun combining signs to create phrases. He has begun to say the initial sound of words begining with the letters "b", "g", "h," "y", "m", "n" and "d" when prompted.

We have been taking advantage of the beautiful autumnal weather and visiting the playground as often as possible. He has begun to assert confidence in his climbing skills and is quite the ambassador. He sweetly greets each visitor of "his" playground with several fistfuls of wood chips, a sort of house warming gift really. He thinks he is a "big boy" ans eagerly joins the older children in their play. They kindly include him and enjoy his smiles.

Unfortunatly, Kai will need to scale back some of his physical activity after next week. On Thursday, he is scheduled to have his lip and nose revision surgery. The doctor will remove the heavy, visible scarring and make his mouth and nostrils more symetrical in appearance. Kai will also be fitted with ear tubes at this time to reduce fluid build up. He will stay one night, perhaps two before being discharged. He will be quite sore for several days as the inflamation begins to subside. By the end of the week, it is expected that he should feel more comfortable and resume normal play. It will be tricky to keep him from falling or bumping it, but we will just remain extra vigillant. I've started accumulating some new toys as a distraction during this recovery period. It will definately be tough for a few days, but he is resilliant and will benifit from it as he grows older. (Is my pep talk too obvious? I am really dreading this and am just hoping that we have made the right decision here. There is just no way to feel confident about someone operating on your child. Sigh.)