Bill's back

We've been quite busy as you can imagine, but all is good!! For those of you who saw the article in our paper know that at whatever level a 4 year old can think she's a rock-star, Aidai took in all of it everywhere we went that morning that sold the Sentinel, Aidai was pointing her photo out to everyone who cared or seemed to! I will say this, we are the luckiest couple alive, our daughter is awesome. Every bit a 4 year old, having gone through this once before, I'm totally diggin' the instant fun of having a 4 year old. Elizabeth has said I need to post some photos, especially of Aidai in glasses, but I'm a bit of a thechno-phobe, and a bit of a techno-dork, so I'm not sure I can pull that off tonight, but I will try to post a link to a youtube video of Josh and his "band" playing a spoof of a Jimi Hendrix tune....Josh is the guitar player....and Aidai LOVES HIM....check it out if you have time, and I'll be back, hopefully with photos!!!

Bill......here's Josh......http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOR9WgjQDU4

We made the front page!

The wedding we attended the day after we got home was covered by the local newspaper. The reporter was a wonderful woman who had spent time in Central Asia and speaks Russian. She asked if she could get in touch to do a story about adoption. She interviewed us this week and called yesterday to say it would be in today's paper. Little did we know that it would be on the front page!

If you want to see the article it should be on the website all day at www.keenesentinel.com Our picture will show up on the home page and you can click on that or the link on the right that says "A connection unplugged?"

We are so excited!

Elizabeth

Maggie wins!!

Since her arrival home, Aidai has had to slowly learn that the dogs aren't going away, nor are they there to terrorize her. Slowly she's warmed up to them, playing games with them through the safety of baby gates from time to time calling them over, of course all three of them are totally into her. Well the other day I had Aidai on my lap on the couch, and called up Maggie, she's our..hmmm...let's say "challenged" one. Aidai was handling the close proximity fairly well, Elizabeth went to grab the camera. Aidai is a bit of a ham when it comes to the camera and leans a little closer to center, and opened herself right up, Maggie saw her chance, the chance they've all been waiting for, for oh so many days, out came the tongue and miss Maggie planted a big "I love you" Kiss right on miss Aidai's lips. Her eyes opened as big as I've seen them open, and her for arm was wiping of cooties before you could blink, but the look on Maggie's face was priceless, she had won!! Even now you can see her savoring that moment in time over and over, needless to say Aidia is a little less hesitant to let down her guard again, but if the stooges have nothing else, they have patience.

Pediatrician Visit

We headed to the pediatrician on Halloween afternoon. We had an interpreter for this visit, actually 2 (no clue why) so they sent one home. I'm thinking about reporting the interpreter we had because she crossed some serious boundaries and she knew it. She kept saying, "I'm going to break the rules just to say..." and she did that numerous times. She told us she thought the doctor was wrong about what we think is cleared up scabies or other insect bite. She thinks it is measles (ummmm so not). She told us not to give her processed foods, she should be a vegetarian, she doesn't need to eat meat, we shouldn't give her too many vaccinations, don't give her the chicken pox vaccine etc etc etc. It was really annoying and soooo not her place. I know I know, it is just cultural but I'm in freaking America now and I'm not going to put up with people telling me what to do with my kid unless they are a respected medical doctor.

So anyway, she did make it easier to give Aidai direction. Basically what we got out of the visit was that Aidai weighs 38lbs and is 39.5 inches tall (which everyone seems to think makes her a giant). The doctor thinks her feet will be repairable with orthopedic shoes and maybe splints but she's not totally sure. She gave us a referral to the pediatric orthopedic doctor that we wanted to see and is also going to give us a referral to the international adoption clinic so that our insurance will cover it. She also said to let the adoption clinic do titres and figure out the best schedule for future vaccinations.

Elizabeth

Eye doctor visit

A note about her medical info - on trip one we were promised a translated copy of her entire file. Yet another lie, we only got one page of information which was the same page we had at referral. I couldn't tell the doctor when they noticed her eye turning in and I can't fill out the school's paperwork which asks when she sat up, when she said her first word, etc. I bet the information is in that file that we were promised.

On Thursday we took Aidai to her appointment with the eye doctor. I was very anxious to find out what the treatment for her eye would be and I was worried about how the appointment would go without an interpreter. They measured the level of her eye turning in and then dilated her eyes which didn't go well because we couldn't tell her that they were going to put drops in but that they wouldn't hurt so she screamed through that. Then we went to the playroom to wait for the dilation and she didn't seem to want to play nice with the two girls that came in (although the girls were pushy) so she had a meltdown when we removed her from the play area. She eventually got over it and we went back in to see the doctor. She had to do the exam and that required me sitting with Aidai in my lap and restraining her hands while Bill stood behind the doctor and tried to get Aidai's attention. This would have been easy except the lights were off and they were shining the light into her dilated eyes and she wouldn't keep her crossed eye open so they had to hold it open which just increased the crying.

I'm not quite sure of how any of those tests gave them her visual acuity. When I scheduled the appointment they said there would be matching games for her to do and such but they didn't do any of those. I think it would have been easier with an interpreter but we managed. Anyway, they somehow did determine what was going on with her vision and determined a treatment plan.

Her right eye has no prescription needed. Her left eye is the issue. It is crossed because the vision is so poor in that eye that she hasn't been using it so the muscles have weakened. For those of you that don't know about eye prescriptions, I'll give you something as a comparison. I am nearsighted, I can't see far away. My prescription is a -2.00 and I can't see the TV guide from the couch 10-15ft away. Aidai's prescription in her left eye is -6.00 which means she really can't see anything with that eye that isn't right in front of her face. So we ordered glasses for her on the spot and we will pick those up Tuesday. I am also going to be taught how to put a contact in her eye on Tuesday. They want us to have both options for her. In addition, we have to patch her good eye 4 hours a day and engage her in visually interesting inside play when she is patched. In December we go back for another check to see if her muscles are getting any stronger in her left eye.

Here is a picture of her eye patches. The box has 5 different styles.

Gift from Alihan and family

Aidai received a beautiful and most appropriate gift from Alihan and family today!
A Build-A-Bear girl with glasses! Aidai LOVES the bear and it is perfect timing since she too will soon have glasses. Often the glasses are on Aidai instead of the bear!

Some pictures from the week

She's in to everything!

She looooooves juice

She woke up before us and put these PJ's on

Hammering with Papa

Tea Party with Papa

Showing off her pajamas