Hess Happenings: Four Months Home with Heidi

Already another month has come and gone. At one point I started to feel like we were not making much progress with Heidi. Yet when I consider even the most mundane acts, I realize she has grown to feel truly safe with her forever family.

Heidi is laughing a lot these days. She is getting occupational therapy weekly. We alternate goals for this: one week we work on sensory play and the other we work on feeding. I quite like the weeks we play because she typically enjoys the activities. Feeding therapy is still very stressful. She is starting to chew occasionally but not regularly. There were a few days this month she wasn’t feeling well and she only ate applesauce for days. But, refusing food is something new and totally appropriate for any child.

Heidi is developing object permanence (a very young skill generally 4-7 months). She followed a ball under a chair and reached for it when it was out of sight. She noticed her doll was missing and looked for it. When she drops things from her high chair she will lean over to look. Again, a very young age skill but we were thrilled to see her develop this!

She signed “more” a couple of times one day but it was very frustrating for all of us getting her to do it. She said “mama” when I walked in her room to get her up in the morning so I’m pretty sure she’s connecting me to the name “mama” and that makes me happy!

Christmas was a hard day for her. We woke her up for presents but she cried the whole time so we put her back to bed. This was one of the days she didn’t seem to be feeling great. She ate good at Trent’s parents’ house and then was much more cheerful. She wasn’t interested in the wrapping paper or the gifts.

Trent and I got to go away one evening and two of our nieces (Addy & Emma) babysat for us. Anne was a terrific help in caring for Heidi.

Heidi continues to grow and grow! I moved her into 18 months clothes in January. For those of you keeping track, she was in 6-9 month clothes four months ago when we brought her home. She has steadily gained 1 pound a month since coming home. It’s astounding! Her meals don’t take nearly as long for her to eat. When she came home every meal took an hour but now we’re at a more normal paced 30 minutes per meal.

(First visit to Pine View Dairy to see the cows! She did great until she recognized the ice cream container then freaked out and lunged toward it almost out of my arms. She started crying that I wouldn’t give it to her so Anne had to take her to the car while I paid.)

She is getting stronger everyday. She can now climb the stairs easily. Crawling up, walking on the landing, crawling the last four stairs, then walking down the hallway or to my room.

Heidi started speech therapy and we really love her therapist. She had a lot of good ideas and we’ve already seen some tiny improvements. She also explained that the reason we were frustrated with teaching her sign language is because we’re skipping a step (like building a tower and attempting to place block 5 on top of block 2// it doesn’t work without all the pieces connected). We are instead hoping to see Heidi start consistently gesturing (waving, moving her arms to be picked up, clapping, etc.) and then we can start to build signs on top of those gestures.

We are seeing Heidi use her hands more and more. She picked up a tiny popsicle crafting stick off the hardwood floor. She started taking apart her foam mat (which is annoying but awesome). She will pick up a pencil or marker that the girls leave down and wave it around.

This is her “cheeeese” smile.

Maggie was singing a clapping song and Heidi started to clap her own hands. It’s always incredible to see her learning even the smallest things.

We received photos of when she lived in China and was only 4.5 pounds at 5 months old. It was shocking and heartbreaking to see these photographs but I’m so thankful we have them. Of course she’s significantly delayed, Heidi the Brave was quite literally fighting for her life for those many months.

(Five months old on a train to Beijing from Nanchang to go to a care center for some specialize care.)

She started shrugging her shoulders and raising her eyebrows and it’s hilarious but hard to photograph.

She really loved the snow this time! I was so surprised but it wasn’t too cold or windy so I think that helped.

We got to see our best friends for a couple hours and Heidi loved her.

(Haven’t seen Heidi laugh as hard as she did with my BFF in... maybe ever. She has good taste in friends 😉)

We are humbled and grateful to be her family. We love her and can’t wait to see the good things God will do in her life and those who will be impacted through her beautiful life and story. The month wasn’t without its hard days (a cold, some vomit, teething pain, etc) but the good outweighs the bad and that’s something to be grateful for!