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!

Happy 4 months home, Heidi boo-boo. We love you more than you love ice cream!

Had to get this cow outfit for our ice cream lover!

A Glance Back to Focus on the Road Ahead

Our family had declared 2019 as the year of growth. We set some specific goals at the beginning of the year. Near the end of 2019 we sat together as a family to review what we set out to do and if we accomplished what we hoped to do. We all agreed we started out fairly well on our meeting the specific ways we hoped to grow in our lives. However, until the end of the year, if the goal hadn't changed into a habit, it likely fell to the wayside.

Even though we didn't accomplish everything we set out to in 2019, it's safe to say that adding Heidi to our family made all of us grow in completely new and unexpected ways. Heidi has taught the other seven Hesses to be more selfless, more patient, more compassionate, more understanding. We have to continually put her needs above our own.

This has looked different for each of us, but some specific ways we have adjusted are: Anne took over reading the school lessons in the afternoon (and I am SO glad we're in a good place for the start of 2020 where I've been able to start teaching again!). Abbey has set aside her own for-fun books and gotten Heidi up from naps, changed diapers, and helped with dinner. Maggie has a special knack for making Heidi break into gales of laughter. Caroline will drop anything she is doing to sing to Heidi and help me rock her to sleep. Ruth has willingly released her slot as “baby” for her preferred status of “big sister”. Ruth rarely complains that Heidi takes so much of my attention and has gotten involved with Heidi's therapies and encourages her to do all the new things (walk, climb the stairs, don't hit yourself) and has even provided the nickname we all started using; Heidi Boo-Boo.

I know all the cool kids are calling this year, 2020, the year of vision or the year of perfect vision as a play on 20/20 vision. I haven't been a cool kid for a long time so our family is taking a different track for the year.

My original idea was something along the lines of “2020, the year we don't do anything new” or “2020, the year where get lots of sleep”. Of course, when raising a family, you'll never have a year where nothing changes. Children, by their very nature, are constantly growing, learning, and changing. And of course, I want to see those things happen, especially for Heidi in her first year home.

As Trent and I discussed what we hoped to see happen in 2020, we realized what we hope our family can learn is to change some habits to create in our minds a constant state of thankfulness. We have dubbed 2020 to be the year of gratitude. 

I've purchased some inexpensive journals for each of the kids to keep track of three things per day that they are grateful for. It is my hope that as they go throughout the day they'll make mental notes of something that happened or an instance which made them grateful.

“...godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and neither can we carry anything out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these.” 1 Timothy 6:6-8

Practicing gratitude leads to contentment. While we have plans of some projects we would like to accomplish this year, if they don't happen it is my hope that we will not be continually striving for more and more worldly things and instead be content with our food and clothing. In an effort to raise children who are not spoiled by all we could give them in terms of possessions, we hope our whole family can show a testimony to the world that contentment and joy come not from what we have but Who we know.

“Give thanks to the LORD and proclaim his greatness. Let the whole world know what he has done.” Psalm 105:1