Six Months

Yes, that is how long it has been since I whisked our new little boy out of the orphanage. It is hard to believe that it has been that long already but as you look back and see all the changes that have happened, I am amazed it has not been longer. Here is a picture of M the day I picked him up:

And here he is today:

WOW! One of the most noticeable change is his speech. I mentioned in the last post he was getting evaluated by the school district for a special preschool to help with his speech delay. We thought he would get some type of assistance, BUT they said he was just below on qualifying so no assistance from them. At first I was a little frustrated because we has been waiting and doing testing to get him in this but as it sunk in, HE DOES NOT NEED IT!, I started to realize that it was a good thing. He has progressed so much that just putting him in a regular preschool will probably get him up to speed by Kindergarten. An example of how well he is doing... We were getting in Russ's SUV to go somewhere and as Russ was putting him in he said, "Papa's truck, Mama's van" point to each vehicle. Wow that just floors me when I think of how he has changed.

Other changes include not focused so much on food. I used to be able to use it to get him to do something - I know not a good idea - but now things like playing and going outside are more interesting. The one negative thing is that he is starting to have more temper tantrums - or more like crying fits. THe worst was a day he had to come in from playing outside for an hour. We needed to get dinner ready and he just kept crying about going outside. No matter what I did he kept crying. Finally after 30 minutes he calmed down. I told him after we eat, we would go outside. So after 2 bites at dinner, he was done and ready to go outside. 

The other big milestone since I last posted, was we went on out first family vacation.  It was one of those busy ones that you need a vacation when you get home but we did have fun. Our daughter had tried out for a National Youth Choir that was performing at a conference in Washington D.C. SO we decided to spend the week walking around the city. And walking we did! Little M was the luckiest because he got to ride in the stroller a lot.  He just took it all in and of course wanted to touch everything! The hardest thing was when we were in the basement at Mount Vernon on a tour. We were not suppose to touch the walls or anything - it was like trying to hold on to an octopus trying to keep him from touching anything. I know he did not appreciate where we were  ( But he sure LOVED riding the metro - a.k.a. train)but it was wonderful to know that he was visiting our National capital as an American citizen. Here are some pictures of our trip.

Before I leave, I need to ask for a prayer request.  As I mentioned earlier in the year, Russ's mom passed from cancer. His dad has also been battling cancer for awhile and unfortunately things are not looking good. So please pray for peace for his father and strength.

God bless you all

God's Promises

Ok, as I checked my blog, I realized that I only had one post in February - Oh I am such a bad blogger! So here is my March post(hopefully there will be more then just one).

Things are improving on a regular basis and if I were to type this yesterday, I would have said that things were great - but today Little M has been a testing mode - testing to see how many rules he can break before Mom explodes. So I just count it off as growing pains and make sure he gets down for a nap a little early.

But really, he is doing so much better in so many things. His speech just amazes me! He is now saying 3 word sentences! For a kid who barely said 10 words 5 month ago, I am so in awe. Yesterday we had our evaluation from the school district for speech. He will get into either just speech therapy or be entered into their special preschool program - either would be fine with me I am just anxious to get him some more help. He is speaking so much now but it is still hard to understand what he is saying - which is frustrating on everyone's part. The only concern that I have now is that they called today to get me to fill out a behavior study, so now I am wondering if they are concerned about his behavior yesterday. I know that he has some issues but overall his behavior seems pretty standard - so we will see what they say.

So what has been the highlights of the past month? First it is Micah trying to climb out of his playpen(successfully) and falling on his head. He also got his first official haircut since he was home - He did great, however the other 2 yo girl did all the screaming for the both of them. So far we have only been hit by a minor bug in our family ( only two kids down for 1.5 days), I am so thankful he has not been sick since we have been home. We are at epidemic proportions where we live right now and I am hoping that we can make it through the season with no more illnesses.

One thing that has happened that has saddened me some is an encounter we had with a lady from Russia. She is a seamstress that I use periodically and she got to meet Mfor the first time. SHe was great and so excited to meet him. The thing that was sad was that she would talk to him in Russian, and he did not understand her. It is a reality that I knew about since I have not spoken to him in Russian for 4 months, but none the less, it is his first language and now it is gone. 

However, with something being lost there is always something that is gained and the big new thing for M, is that he likes to cuddle! Now not all the time, just before nap and bed time. I started rocking him and signing to him and as the weeks would pass, the time got longer and longer. And finally, last week, he came up to me during playing and asked to be rocked! Wow! that was wonderful to hear. He has also started to day "I love you" with no prompting and out of the blue. Those are moments that just melt your heart!!!!

And speaking of melting hearts, I have to say that little M  is starting to feel more like my son now. I knew that it would come, and there was no one thing that made a difference, I think it is just time. There is still more that needs to develop but it will come too. I now can't imagine a time without him in our family. Drop down below to see the latest pictures.

With that said, however, it has been a very difficult 5 months. Just the fact that I did not have these special feelings towards M, has opened up an entire can of worms for me, issues that I have never had to deal with. It felt like everything in my life was becoming a struggle and I was having difficulties handling it all. My response to it all was to go to God, to pray and to see what His word said. However, things were no getting better, that is until this weekend. We were studying the feeding of the 5000 in John Chapter 6. Something I had read many times before and several more just in the past week, but something the writer of the study said hit me like a brick wall. After the miraculous feeding, the people are seeking Jesus the next day and find Him, His responds to them in John 6:26 is"... Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate the loves and were filled." It was obvious that they did not want Jesus but what he provided. The speaker(Kay Arthur) asked, "Are you seeking what the Lord provides or the Provider? When I thought about it I had to say that I was seeking what the Lord provided. Now, I was not seeking for Him to make food appear on my table with no work or that I would win the lottery( that I never play) but I just wanted to be more like Jesus. More loving to others, more kind, more patient, less selfish... things that He tells us to seek in the Bible. The problem is that I was still trying to do it myself. I had bible versus everywhere, trying to following them and remind myself how I was to be. I was asking for help in my prayers but not doing much praising of the Lord. I was reading everything I could on the problems I was struggling with. I was trying to work my way into being the way God wants me to be and I was not just wanting to be with Jesus - fixing my eyes on Him. I was not letting Him and Him alone be my bread of life. I know that some of you may read this and not get it - I did not get it the many times I read that verse, but it has made such a profound impact on me I just had to share it. I know there are many of you out there who are struggling now and I hope that this will help you. It may or may not but remember to stay focused on Jesus. I kept doing my bible studies and going week after week and there were so many times I just wanted to stop, because they were not addressing the problems that I was having but God used one little verse and a wonderful women to open my eyes - to point me back to Jesus. I will still be doing my bible studies and reading and learning versus but my emphasis has changed, it will no longer be on me but on Jesus.

 Loving from big sis
Big sis "girling" me up
 A FULL rainbow - Remembering God's Promises