The Attachment Chronicles: a blog

I could not agree more

2012-01-02T22:13:00.000-08:00

If you haven't read this excellent essay by Amy Eldridge of Love Without Boundaries, carve out a few minutes and give it a read.

http://www.informedadoptions.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=89&Itemid=67

A very meaningful day (for 2/3 of us...)

2011-11-01T22:49:00.000-07:00

Today is our third Family Day. I can't believe it's been three years, and yet it seems like we've always been together. We let Quinn take the lead, so we went out for a bagel breakfast, and after preschool we went to the zoo and out for "Chinese noodles."

It was a lovely day, marred only by the grownups' repeated attempts to get a nice family photo. Quinn thought this was a terrible, boring idea that was sucking important fun time out of his day. He did a bit of whining and trotted out the fake cry he has just about retired, but all in all he put up with us pretty well. We didn't get the perfect Christmas card photo we had envisioned, but we did get some photos that made us laugh (especially the one at the bottom of this post, which is the most perfect image ever of his goofy personality). And that's probably better in the long run anyway.

To Quinn's BCWI cousins Malia and Anna, Happy Family Day and lots and lots of love. To everyone waiting for a Family Day of their own, I hope your wait is short and sweet. And to Quinn Jianrong, we love you more than all the love in the world, times 27 million.

Trunk or treat!

2011-10-31T23:23:00.000-07:00

I zipped home from work early today and we carved a couple of pumpkins. Quinn drew on the faces, I did the carving. He tried to convince me to trade jobs, but I didn't fall for that one...

We all went trick-or-treating as the royal family. Tom made us crowns (Quinn chose one from his massive collection, and Nana found one that fit her, too) but Quinn also wore a cape. He is always very serious when he puts on a cape...

Here we go!

Our little dog Baxter is having some severe fainting spells due to a leaky heart value, so we're not supposed to get him too excited. A constantly ringing doorbell seemed like a bad idea, so we handed out candy from the back of one of our cars. It turned out to be a really fun thing to do and we got to talk to the neighbors a lot more than we do just opening the door and tossing out some candy while the dogs go nutty. This (and Quinn, of course) made for a really fun Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-29T16:44:00.000-07:00

Who do you think is scarier?

Preschool dropout

2011-10-26T21:37:00.000-07:00

After a three-week trial, the preschool for kids with speech delays decided not to enroll Quinn. They said that redirecting him ("Quinn, sit down. Quinn, are you listening?") was taking too much of the teacher's time. I can't say I blame them, because I know that is a challenge for him.

Surprisingly, I actually feel some sense of relief because I had been working my tail off trying to hide his challenges since this school doesn't take kids with issues other than speech. We were getting up early to run him around the 'hood and burn some energy, watching his diet very closely, not letting him watch any TV in the morning, etc., etc., etc. All good things, of course, but we were making ourselves a little nutty worrying about them all.

So we're back in the hunt for a school that's a good fit for Quinn. Today we visited a church-affiliated school that employs a PT who specializes in sensory processing disorder. They allow about two kids with SPD in each class. But all the kids get "therapy" -- they bring in an OT every Monday and do lots of sensory play every day. In many ways, this place is the opposite of the last school. While that one was very academically focused, this one doesn't really do academics at all. Its philosophy is that kids (at this private school, in this high-end neighborhood) are getting that sort of stimulation at home; what they need at school is social interaction and play. Since Quinn is doing great academically but is in desperate need of social skills, that sounds good to me. The catch: They might not have a slot for him. The school's SN liason was planning to put him in the 3-year-old class (their ages are developmental, not chronological) but changed her mind after meeting him and seeing his impressive brain at work on a puzzle and a game.

And so we wait. We play. And we enjoy our extra time with this fabulous little guy we're blessed to call our son.

Plan C, D - and working on E

2011-10-08T22:50:00.000-07:00

I haven't been blogging of late because I've been driving. And driving. And driving. Like a long-haul trucker.

As of my last post, I had pretty much decided to skip the speech preschool with the principal who pretty clearly didn't want Quinn. Instead, we decided to give his special-ed preschool another shot, with new goals written into his IEP.

Well.

This year's class has a couple of very challenged kids. And Quinn tends to raise or lower himself to the level of whatever is happening around him. So we were looking at a very bad scene, with increasing behavior issues.

So.

I decided to keep my appointment to visit the speech preschool, and I had the same reaction as the first time I visited. I wanted to hate the place. But I loved it. The teacher is amazing, the assistant is fantastic, the kids are engaged. So I pretty much begged and got Quinn in on a trial basis. We'll find out soon whether he'll be able to stay, and at this point it's anybody's guess.

As the principal feared, he is a challenge to the teachers. He stands up during circle time, walks around during center time, doesn't want to sit and look at a book on his own. But... in three weeks, he has gone from speaking sentences only to himself to having actual conversations with us. He has gone from never, ever participating in his special-ed class group activities to taking part. And he has gone from never, ever singing with us at home to happily singing songs with multiple verses. So I'm working closely with the teacher (who is beyond wonderful), we're practicing school activities at home, we're volunteering at the school and we're praying, praying, praying.

In the meantime, I drive Quinn to "Miss Jocabed's school" for 2 1/2 hours in the morning, then pick him up and drive him across town for 2 hours of "Miss Schreiber's school" in the afternoon. Except on Wednesday afternoons, when we alternate between OT for sensory processing disorder and a therapeutic playgroup for speech and sensory issues. Then it's home to practice "centers."

How much do we practice? In the bath last night, Quinn said, "Mama! This is bath center!"

Plan B

2011-08-20T22:52:00.000-07:00

After much negotiating with the principal of the preschool I've been trying so hard to get Quinn into, she agreed to take him on a one-month trial — provided I came along with him. So I got my schedule all worked out, and then ... she called and said they've decided they want us to come again for a "visit" — and that visit won't be until two weeks into the school year. At that point, he may or may not be invited for another visit. And at the end of all this, he may or may not be accepted.

What it comes down to is, I think, is they just don't want Quinn at their school. It's grant-supported, and in these tough economic times I think they're quite desperate to show that every kid improved with their curriculum. Because the principal fears Quinn has autism, I believe she's scared he'll skew her rankings. I get that, but I also know Quinn a little better than she does, and I honestly do believe he would thrive there.

But ... but. She expects him to fail. So, really, how could he not??

So while I made the appointment for us to visit in a couple of weeks, my gut tells me we won't be keeping that date. Instead, we're going to return to his special-ed preschool and I'm going to ask that the goals in his Individualized Education Plan be updated. Because, honestly, his speech delay isn't that big a deal anymore. He's progressing beautifully. Instead, I want to ask them to work on helping him to listen and follow directions, to make eye contact and to interact with other kids. Those things, I think, are the keys to helping him succeed later in school. As for speech and academics, we'll work on that stuff at home and supplement with some extra-curriculars like the swim and music classes we've been taking this summer.

It's funny, I've been fighting for so long to make this whole speech preschool thing happen. But now that I've pretty much decided against it, I really feel this path is the best one for Quinn right now.

And so ... here comes Plan B.

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday: Day Out With Thomas

2011-08-10T22:15:00.000-07:00

Last week we went to a preschool spectacle called "Day Out With Thomas." The kids get to ride in a train pulled by Thomas and also have access to a boatload of related activities: Thomas face painting, coloring pages, jumping castles, train tables, temporary tattoos - and, of course, an entire airplane hangar packed with Thomas merchandise for sale.

Quinn loved every little thing about this event. Tom snapped this photo after we boarded the open-air train and just before it took off. His expression shows the joy and wonder that was on his sweet face the whole day long.

The big week is now in our rear-view mirror

2011-08-09T22:22:00.000-07:00

When last I wrote (which must have been 10 years ago now - sorry!) I mentioned that Quinn had a big week ahead. So here's how it went:

New play group: Eek! He loved the "play" part, which lasts an hour. The circle time part? Um, not so much. He squirmed, he kicked, he didn't listen, he didn't participate. No big nightmare, but not the biggest success, either.

New music class: Yay! Similar behavior issues, but the class is co-taught by a special ed teacher/ music therapist who is both understanding and full of good ideas. Quinn really enjoys it, although he doesn't exactly do what you would call participate...

New therapist: Yay! LOVE her. Very smart, great with kids. On our first visit she seemed a bit flightly; but on our second visit she showed up armed with a plan of action just for Quinn and a truckload of great strategies. She also served up something I hadn't heard of before: a compression vest, basically two pieces of neoprene that wrap very tightly around him. He is not crazy about the vest, but darned if it doesn't calm him right down.

Entrance evaluation for the speech and language preschool: OH MY GOD! In our first phone conversation, the director told me that Quinn sounded like more than they could handle. She agreed to test him, but made it very clear that if he couldn't finish the test - which can last up to 90 minutes - he wouldn't be admitted. Friends and therapists told me not to worry, that it would be games and fun activities. Wrong!

I swear, it was like the test was created just for Quinn to fail. It was 90 minutes of this poor child sitting at a table answering questions. I could not believe this was being expected of a 4-year-old. At two points I had to sit with him on my lap because he got so squirmy. And once we took a break at my dear mother's absolute insistence. (Also, I put the compression vest on wrong and he immediately tore it off.) But, by God, this child FINISHED that test. Even when the tester came out into the hall afterwards and told us SHE HAD MISSED AN ENTIRE SECTION OF THE TEST AND WE HAD TO COME BACK IN - he did it. I was so proud of him I just hugged him afterwards and tried not to cry. The speech pathologist who administered the test took a quick look at his results and said his receptive language skills are absolutely normal, meaning he understands what he hears - he just doesn't necessarily answer or follow directions based on what he hears.

So is he in? We don't know yet. I phoned the director the next day to ask her what's next, and I could tell she was gearing up to say they weren't going to take Quinn - even though she admitted she hadn't seen his test results yet. So I offered to enroll him on a trial basis, and take him out after a set period if they thought he was too disruptive. She seemed open to that, but we'll have to see.

So why am I so determined to get him into this horrible-sounding school? Because when we visited last spring I was absolutely blown away by the quality of the programming, the love the teachers showed the kids and the results I have heard about from friends who sent their kids there.

We're supposed to hear this week. I swear, I'll post an update before another month has passed!

A big (as in important) week for Quinn

2011-07-18T22:12:00.000-07:00

Please keep Quinn in your thoughts this week.

Tuesday morning he starts a play group with "normal" kids - something I know he needs, and something I have avoided because it's so hard to sit there and listen to the bragging about how Jimmy is already reading Shakespeare and how Susie has mastered long division. My issue, not Quinn's - and it's high time I get over it.

On Tuesday afternoon he meets a new therapist who has been recommended to us by our doctor and Quinn's speech therapist. She is a PT, but works with kids with sensory processing disorder. I'm happy with the help he's been getting for SPD, but I'm sort of starting to feel like I'm not learning anything at therapy that I'm not already doing at home. So even though I'm sad to leave our current place (owned by a fellow adoptive mom) a change feels right.

On Wednesday we go for Quinn's long-awaited evaluation at a local university-affiliated preschool that specializes in kids with speech issues. I took him for a visit last spring and LOVED the place. Such a high level of teaching and such an impressive place. They were less impressed with Quinn's sky-high energy level, however. The director indicated his lack of ability to sit and listen may render him more than the school can handle. However, she agreed to test him at the end of the summer to give him more time to mature. Amazingly, here we are at the end of the summer - school starts here in mid- August.

This is a big week for Quinn - please think of him, especially at 8:45 a.m. west-coast time Wednesday!!

Wordless Wednesday

2011-07-12T23:28:00.000-07:00

Well, at least someone is enjoying this brutal summer...

"Gotta go poo-poo on the potty, get Lightning McQueen!"

2011-07-11T14:04:00.000-07:00

Yes, friends, we have resorted to full-scale bribery to get Quinn to poop on the potty. Why? Because he's 4 years old and fully capable of using the potty. Because his sensory-seeking tendencies make him unusually nonplussed about sitting around in a stinky diaper. And mostly because, well, it works.

Yes, indeed. On Wednesday I told him that if he went poo-poo on the potty he could go to Target and pick out a toy. "Blue Star?" he negotiated. That's what he calls Toys R Us, whose logo is, yup, a blue star. In other words, the kid won't poop for a trip to Target, but if we up the ante to Toys R Us, he's in. And he was. On Friday, bingo. He was VERY proud of himself and we got off fairly easy with a $16.99 Lightning McQueen car. Of course, now each time he heads to the bathroom, we hear a very excited boy tell himself, "Gotta go poo-poo on the potty, get Lightning McQueen!"

One stupid study

2011-07-09T21:37:00.000-07:00

Well, here's a headline sure to give adoptive parents a little panic attack:

"Study: Adopted kids more susceptible to mental, physical woes," http://azstarnet.com/news/science/health-med-fit/article_7d188a39-87ac-56e0-b2ad-a3e87e4fed83.html

The researchers determined that adopted kids are three times more likely to have physical and mental-health disabilities than kids raised by their biological parents. BUT... all the kids in the study were adopted from foster care, so likely suffered some abuse and/or neglect in their early months or years, plus the likely trauma of moving from one foster home to another. As I know so well from Quinn, early neglect - even in the fairly benign form of a lack of stimulation - leaves a lasting impact. So are those kids likely to have problems down the line? Absolutely. Would they have those problems whether they were with biological parents, adoptive parents, foster parents or in a group home? Absolutely.

I'm no researcher, but it seems to me that this study measured the long-term impact of a rough beginning, but attributed that impact not to the rough beginning, but to adoption.

A (fleeting) wish for a sis

2011-07-05T22:09:00.000-07:00

We have pretty much decided that Quinn will be an only child. So of course, when I told him this morning that his friend Nate was going to have a baby sister soon, he said, "We gotta go get a baby sister! Quinn want a baby sister." Just how deep is his desire? This afternoon, I was looking at a blog by the mom of a boy from Quinn's orphanage - they're in China now and welcomed a beautiful, smiling baby girl just yesterday. "Look!" I showed Quinn when he came to see what I was doing. "Matthew got a baby sister!" He leaned in close, squinted at the screen and proclaimed, "All done baby sister!" Then he went to play with his toy garbage truck. And that - at least for today... - was that.

The boy and the arm

2011-07-03T21:05:00.000-07:00

This month has been so busy - and so blisteringly hot - that I totally neglected to post a report from the doctor who operated on Quinn's brachial plexus injury last year.

The good news is that Dr. Waters is very happy with Quinn's progress. He has almost complete "passive" use of his right arm - if someone moves it around for him - which is a good indication he'll have good "active" use as he gets stronger and stronger. We have to have him checked every year (a good excuse for an annual trip to Boston!) and there is always a chance he'll have problems when he has a growth spurt. The biggest challenge is that he continues to favor the right arm quite strongly, so we need to work on that. We worked with Dr. Waters' physical therapist to tweak his twice-daily exercises, and we learned that he'll probably never be able to reach behind his back with his right arm because the tendon that does that is one of the tendons they transferred to give him the ability to lift and rotate his arm. A good trade-off, I think.

So the news was good. But the visit itself? Not so much. We had a longish wait, during which Quinn was quite angelic, playing games happily in the waiting room. But the minute we went into the examination room - the same one he was in that horribly traumatic day last year that his cast was sawed off - he pretty much freaked out. The physical therapist came in right away, and he cried every time she looked at him. He wouldn't let her touch him, he wouldn't do anything she asked and he kept either hiding behind the curtain separating the room into half or hurling himself on the floor. Then he started spinning uncontrollably. Not a good scene. Eventually, the PT gave up and left the room. It wasn't until then that it hit me: Pull out the puzzles. Thankfully, that worked as well as it always does and Quinn sat on the floor happily doing his puzzles, even after Dr. Waters came in. In fact, when he wanted Quinn to lift his arm or reach in a particular direction, he just held up a puzzle piece. Worked like a charm. Surprisingly, Dr. Waters knew a ton about sensory processing disorder and we talked a lot about how to integrate his treatment and his arm exercises. My goodness, how grateful I am for that man.

In short, the visit got better, we learned what we wanted to learn, and we left and had a good rest of the day. But the next morning as were eating breakfast, I noticed that Quinn - who is NEVER cold - was shivering. And he was not eating, which is equally odd for him. I thought maybe he was sick, and then it hit me what was wrong. I bent down, looked right in his eyes and told him he didn't have any doctor's visits that day. Boom. New kid. He started chattering away, ate his breakfast, put on his shoes and announced he was ready to get on with the day. I just felt horrible. I knew that we were finished, but it didn't even dawn on me that he didn't know that. Poor little guy was just plain terrified. Definitely not one of my best moments in parenting...

Quinn is 4!

2011-06-08T19:41:00.000-07:00

Today is Quinn's "Happy Birthday," as he calls it. We're still in Boston, so we had a fun and relaxing day with no medical appointments and lots of stuff Quinn likes to do.

We brought him a couple little presents and Nana sent a recordable story book that he loved (but he kept looking at it when he heard her voice and asking, "Nana? NANA?") We also took him to a local toy store we've been to on previous visits and let him pick out a toy. He picked a small dump truck - no shock for the Things That Go kid - but the surprise is that this kid who has never liked stuff animals and is not what you would call the nurturing type took to this new friend like it was a doll.

First came the greeting - "Hi, Rocky!" - and then came the hugs. Then he started showing Rocky the ropes - when the waitress delivered our food and removed the number from our table, Quinn shared his concern with his new charge. "Oh no, Rocky, she took our sign!"

Best of all came after dinner, when he held up Rocky and asked me, "Go change diaper?" I took him into the bathroom, where he pulled down the changing table, put Rocky on it and asked for a paper towel. We wiped the truck down good, and then Quinn directed me to lay the truck on its back and put on a new diaper (made from paper towels). Quinn gave Rocky a once-over and proclaimed, "Okay, he's all clean!"

Tonight Quinn let Rocky watch us do a puzzle and brush our teeth, and now the two are now sleeping side by side. Many a therapist has tried to get this child to engage in pretend play with dolls and action figures. Turns out that all he needed was a yellow dump truck!

Catching up with Cousin Anna

2011-06-07T05:50:00.000-07:00

While in Boston to see Quinn's surgeon, our wonderful friends and China travel companions Susan and Russ drove in with their three kids, including Quinn's Cousin Anna, who joined her family approximately five seconds before Quinn joined ours. (Cousin Malia was the other child adopted in our trio, and we were lucky enough to catch up with her and her sister Cousin Ari at a reunion of kids from the Beijing CWI last year.)

It was so incredibly wonderful to see the kids together again. Anna, nine months older than Quinn, tried her darndest to get him to interact with her. Quinn, being nine months younger and a boy and generally unwilling to make eye contact unless forced, was less interactive but enjoyed himself in his own way. He also dug the "big boys," Cousin Spencer (during a visit to the aquarium he kept hollering, "Cousin Speeeeeeeeen-sur!") and Cousin Kent.

It's amazing how far these kids have come. They went through so much we'll never know about before they came to us, and they've been through so much since. But here they are, growing, smiling, thriving. Anna charmingly sang us a Justin Beiber song during dinner Saturday with the sweetest smile on her beautiful face, and Quinn ran joyfully around every square inch of the New England Aquarium, exhausting him and all of us.

It was a beautiful reunion, and a fabulous weekend. And it made me realize how incredibly blessed we were to be thrown together with two really wonderful families in China who we immediately liked and quickly grew to love. Sometimes you end up with your family, sometimes you get to choose. We chose to bring Quinn into our family, and now - for his sake but also because we just plain want to - we choose the families we traveled with to be part of our own patchworked, embroidered, crazy quilt of a forever family.

We are peeing on the potty! (but not pooping...)

2011-05-30T22:39:00.000-07:00

It was no small feat for a kid who is quite content to spend the day in a dirty or wet diaper (thank you, sensory processing disorder...), but we are doing it! Quinn is peeing on the potty! No poop yet, and honestly, no real reason to hope that's going to change any time soon.

Me: "Quinn, where do we go poo-poo?"
Quinn: "On. The. Potty!" (You wouldn't believe the enthusiasm!)
Me: "That's right! And where did you just go poo-poo?"
Quinn: "In. The. Underpants!" (Equal enthusiasm.)

No remorse from this kid. I guess this is the downside to taking the potty training thing nice and easy...

Still, we'll take our successes where we can find them. After all, QUINN IS PEEING ON THE POTTY! After an appalling lack of success with regular reminders, and after discovering the impracticalities of letting him run around naked (it worked, but ONLY when he was naked) we jumped on the prize bandwagon. Oh, my. We had a little basket with some cheap stickers and freebie toys, plus a few toy cars. Within hours the kid had the system licked, and was fishing about for the toy cars. That eventually morphed into demands for toy cars upon peeing, and eventually into determined but not very convincing fake tears when one was not produced. Oops.

So we have moved on to the "prize chart," which was greeted with wailing and desperate cries of "Basket? Toy car?" But finally, a week in, he is on board. He gets a sticker for each time he goes, and works toward prizes - a trip to the "car washer" or the little train ride at the zoo or "Old McDonald's" playland - that was his first choice.

So we're progressing, and we're wearing big boy underpants right out in public. Which is darned inconvenient. It means having to pull over when he says he has to go, spending way too much time in dirty public restrooms and trying to remember to take him to the potty at regular intervals. He's shockingly good about it, and sometimes funny to boot. Yesterday he was trying to pull down his underpants at lunch and was stymied by the drawstring. "Mama," he finally said, quite exasperated. "These pants are locked!"

One year (!) post surgery

2011-05-28T22:35:00.000-07:00

Incredibly, it's been an entire year since Quinn's tendon transfer surgery to repair his brachial plexus injury - the "SN" that brought us together. He has almost complete use of his right arm - before the surgery he had almost no use of it - but he still has to be reminded, constantly, to use it.

His one remaining challenge is reaching behind his back, which makes dressing himself quite a challenge. In fact, one reason we decided to go ahead with surgery was meeting an 8-year-old girl with brachial plexus injury who was begging her parents for surgery because she couldn't dress herself, put on her backpack or hang on the monkey bars at school. Anyway, his PT suggested some exercises that didn't really work and I've tried some other things that didn't really work. So not much progress, until about a month ago when I ran into his former feeding therapist, who is the easily most brilliant person I've ever met when it comes to children. "Hmmm," she said, "What could we do?" And on the spot she plopped down on the floor and came up about three exercises THAT ARE WORKING. Incredible. Quinn had no strength to sustain them when we started, but I already see that changing. Score (another) one for the feeding therapist!

We head back to Boston in a couple of weeks for his one-year check up with Dr. Waters. I'll be eager to hear his report, and eager for our strange little family vacation that has become our medical trips to Boston!

Just another way Quinn has changed me for the better

2011-05-04T21:33:00.000-07:00

A few years back a woman came to our neighborhood picnic with her son, who has severe autism. He sat down to eat, but quickly got perturbed by something and soon was screaming and flailing. She apologized, explained his autism and they left. I remember feeling so sorry for her but having NO IDEA what to say or do. Sort of a social paralysis.

Flash forward to last Sunday. Same picnic, same woman, same son - but this year she left him home with a caregiver. I joined her in the food line to ask about her son and whether she had watched the "Autism Now" series on PBS a couple weeks back. We started chatting about Sensory Processing Disorder and schools and she offered to share her volumes of knowledge - and house full of SPD gadgets - with me. Cool.

It didn't strike me until later how I couldn't have had that conversation before Quinn came into my life. I didn't have the knowledge, obviously, but I also didn't have any level of comfortable with the subject or, really, any understanding of the challenges and joys of her life.

Once again, I find myself immeasurably grateful to Quinn for opening my eyes to new parts of the world and teaching me about things I didn't know existed. My life is better because of him, and I am a better person for having met him.

To me, that's one of the surprises of parenting a child with special needs. You learn. You grow. Your world expands. And how awesome is that?

The best day ever

2011-04-25T21:44:00.000-07:00

If we search the world over for the rest of our lives we probably will never find anything Quinn loves more than the "Keep On Truckin'" show held each year at a local synagogue. All kinds of working vehicles gather in the huge parking lot and kids get to climb aboard.

Operating the lever to lift a garbage can was a BIG hit - and this guy was so nice.

This tour bus driver about had a heart attack when Quinn grabbed his expensive microphone and started talking into it.

Start this baby up!

Guess who came out of here with a black bottom?

Fire truck!

Oh. My. Lord. Quinn was in true nirvana from the moment we arrived until the moment we left. While he loved it all, we quickly established a pattern: garbage truck, skid steer, fire truck, skid steer, police car, skid steer, front-end loader, skid steer. Luckily, he and the skid steer guy bonded so he patiently lifted him into the cab and lowered the safety bar around him time after time and after after time after...

The biggest smiles were reserved for the skid steer.

More skid steer smiles.

We're done wif no?

2011-04-22T22:16:00.000-07:00

Quinn has developed a clever little pair of techniques for getting out of trouble as soon as he gets into it: distraction and charm.

When he first started speaking sentences, any time he was corrected - and I mean the tiniest little redirection, like, "Here, Sweetheart, try it this way" or "Let's do that after we put our shoes on" - he would immediately ask, "Go outside?" We kept remarking on how much he loves being outdoors, until - slow parents that we are - we finally noticed that he was trying to distract us so we'd forget the correction. Crafty little kid, this one. In the last week or so, with his language skills expanding, he added an even more effective technique. When corrected, he gets a very sad look on his face, lowers his high-pitched voice and asks very sweetly, "All done wif no?" As predicted, the answer is pretty much always yes.

Are you the little king?

2011-04-08T12:42:00.000-07:00

Quinn has become quite obsessed with Old King Cole, which he discovered on TWO different Barney videos. First, he started using my company-issued blue fleece blanket as a cape. Then, one Friday - boy's day - he and Tom (actually, just Tom) spent most of the day making crowns out of manilla envelopes and aluminum foil.

Quinn still mixes up his pronouns, calling himself "you" and everyone else "me," which kinda makes sense since that's how he hears everyone referred to. Anyway, most mornings I get up to find him in his cape and crown in the living room, and when he sees me he looks up and asks, "Are you the little king?" I tell him he's the king of my heart, and he nods, very seriously. Mind you, the picture at the top of this post is an anomaly. When he is in his regal regalia he is VERY serious.

The good, the bad and the honest truth

2011-03-23T22:20:00.000-07:00

I subscribe to a bunch of China adoption message boards, and enjoy them all. But with all the challenges we have faced with Quinn, and with all the challenges most all adoptive parents I know have faced, it worries me just a little to see so many people jumping into international adoption without an apparent understanding of what MIGHT not go according to plan.

Before Quinn came home, I read time and time and time again that kids may be behind when you meet them but they'll catch up practically instantly, like when you're still in China. Um, not in our case. I stupidly expected that because I had read it so often, and I really panicked when it didn't happen.

So the other day a prospective parent posted a message to one of the boards asking for advice. One of her concerns was which SNs might work best for her family because they already have a special-needs child. In our case, the SN is not the issue, it's Quinn's 16 months of institutionalization that left him so challenged in so many ways.

I truly don't want to scare anybody waiting to adopt, but I think it's vitally important that we're all aware of the negatives along with the positives. So here's what I wrote to the prospective mom, and here's what I believe more every day:

Let me preface this by saying that adopting my son was the smartest thing I ever did, and my life is changed immeasurably for the better from having him in it. I would not change a thing and I love, love, love being a mom to this incredible child.

Next I will say that now more than ever, I think it's vital in international adoption to prepare the worst and pray for the best. When I say now more than ever, what I mean is that from what I've read, China's orphanages increasingly are filled with special needs kids, many with visible differences. Many people in China still consider people who look differently to be "unlucky," and sadly, some of those people work in orphanages and are caring for kids. That means it's possible that some of the kids in orphanages today are not getting the care that kids in orphanages even a few years ago got. I don't mean medical care - I mean someone to hold them and coo at them and make faces and sounds at them. All the stuff that fosters healthy development.

For us, dealing with our son's special need has been a breeze. It truly is one of those minor, correctable things so many of us seek. He had one surgery and we do some follow-up exercises. Honestly, that is the least of his issues. He came to us at 16 months seriously developmentally delayed. He could sit up only with assistance, would/could not eat solid foods and did not make a sound. I had read time and time again on these boards that kids arrive delayed and catch up almost immediately, but that is not what happened in our case - and the same is true for many, many, many parents who have contacted me not on these boards but privately after reading my blog. After 2 1/2 years Quinn is still seriously delayed in pretty much every area. He gets speech therapy, occupational therapy, is in a therapeutic play group and attends special-ed preschool. He displays several symptoms of autism - he does not like to make eye contact, often won't acknowledge spoken directions, does a lot of self soothing behaviors like swinging his head around. But every therapist we've seen says he does not have autism, but simply missed out on learning the basics of normal human interaction. They think that with some pretty intensive therapy while he's young he can catch up to his peers. So when he's not in formal therapy we're working with him on in-home therapy. It's fun and seriously rewarding, but it takes a lot of time. So much so that both my husband and I cut back to part-time hours.

We went into adoption fully expecting to have two kids, but have decided that it's in Quinn's best interest that we focus on him utterly and give him the very best possible chance in life. Honestly, right now I think that if we had another child, they would both suffer for it. I know many families have many special needs children and juggle it all very successfully, but for us this feels right.

I think you need to go into international adoption assuming you may deal with serious developmental delays as well as disorders associated with a lack of stimulation in the early months (Quinn has sensory integration disorder, which is common among institutional kids.) You also need to research reactive attachment disorder and realize that this could be your reality. These kinds of things do not show up in reports from the orphanages. If your family situation requires a child who needs very little intervention or extra attention, honestly I would rethink whether international adoption is for you. You may get lucky and end up with a child who has no issues at all - I hope so! But you need to be prepared that might not be the case.

I truly do not mean to scare you off. Had I known three years ago all that I know now, I still would have traveled with very same road with joy and enthusiasm. But I wish I had gone into it knowing more, which is why I share my story - the good and the bad.

Yay, Barney!

2011-03-21T09:56:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know the world is full of Barney haters. But our family will not throw a single dart at the giant purple dinosaur. Music-loving Quinn gets bored with most DVDS, but Barney - with song after song after song - he LOVES. And you gotta admit, some of the songs are pretty catchy.

It's no surprise that Barney has good, positive messages - I've read criticism that he shouldn't teach children the world is such a good place. But we didn't expect to find a positive adoption message tucked into the final moments of "Let's Go to the Zoo," which Quinn dug out of the cabinet this weekend. Baby Bop, the baby dinosaur, asks Barney to help her leave her beloved stuffed baby elephant in the elephant enclosure so it will be with its family. Barney tells her he thinks the baby elephant should stay with her because she is its family now - she loves it and cares for it and "that's the very best part of being a family."

No, there was no acknowledgment that the baby elephant might be missing its birth family, but none of the characters in this video was adopted - they were talking about someone else who was adopted. And of course, Barney is for very young kids.

I'm trying to build a library of books and videos with positive messages about adoption, and I must admit that a lot of the books I've collected so far I don't really love. Most are about girls, of course, and some I just don't care for. Here are my fave books so far:

A Mother for Choco
Motherbridge of Love
Letter of Love from China

Help me build my library! What are your favorite books, music or DVDs with positive adoption messages?

Life, narrated

2011-03-05T21:00:00.000-08:00

Now that Quinn is attempting full sentences, we're having a blast hearing what's going on in that head of his. Mostly what we hear is narration. The moment he wakes up in the morning, he starts talking to himself, narrating each and every move he, the dogs or either of us make. "Go see Rosie? Eat? Go for walk? Look! Mama getting out of bed. Mama is putting coat on. Baba is walking up the hill."

Just this week, after MUCH work, he is starting to answer our questions about things that have already happened. What did you do in school today? What game did you and Nana play? What did you do while you were outside?

And just today, he started expanding on those answers, turning them into actual conversations. At dinner tonight he told me that he and Baba watched the sun go down. Now it is dark, he said, but he wanted the sun to go back up in the sky. I told him that the sun would go up, but not until he woke up in the morning. "Sun go up now," he said. Not yet, I told him. Just like you need sleep, the sun is sleeping. We went round and round about that and you could really see him trying to wrap his head around the concept. After dinner, while he was playing with my cell phone, he hit some feature that activated the voice control and the phone invited him to "Say a command." "Tell it to do something," I told him. He looked at the phone and commanded, "Wake up the sun!"

Pee pee on the potty!

2011-02-28T21:56:00.000-08:00

Every day since last July when I bought this "Cars" potty seat, I have dutifully sat Quinn on top of it. And every time he has dutifully sat there, looked at toy catalogs or played with an envelope of potpourri, and then smiled sweetly at me and announced, "All done potty." Never has he deposited anything in there, mind you. Until now! One night I noticed a drip or two and made a BIG deal out of it. A couple nights later we got a tiny little squirt - bigger deal - and the third night an actual, bonafide pee pee. "Look!" he announced, pointing. "Pee pee come out the penis!" BIG PARTY. All the excitement prompted him to put the potty on his head and christen it a "potty hat." This kid is immature in many ways, but his sense of humor is crazy sophisticated.

Since then he has been doing his thing almost daily -- If I get him to the potty at the right time, he'll go; if not, he'll just use his Pullup (now known as "underpants."). One day he even added a bonus feature: "Poo poo come out the bootie!"

So we're getting there. Finally.

Oh, Thomas, I love you so...

2011-02-09T19:45:00.000-08:00

When bad news hits home

2011-01-17T20:36:00.000-08:00

As a journalist, I've covered lots of terrible stories. But none has been quite so personal as the shootings last week at a grocery store in Tucson. The grocery store where my mom shops. The grocery store where Quinn and I take her regularly since she stopped driving.

Tragically, the little girl killed in the shootings was the daughter of a high school friend. One of the men who was shot but survived is a friend's father-in-law.

When I got the call about the shootings I had just left Quinn's monthly "Barnyard Fun" occupational therapy session. It was the first time EVER that he participated in a group session - he did the hand motions during the songs, played the name gave with the other kids, threw styrofoam "snowballs" into a bucket on command - and we were just thrilled.

We had plans for the rest of the day, but instead I rushed to work and stayed until the next day's paper was on the presses. When I came home I went into Quinn's room and just sat and watched him sleep for a while. Someone's child had died that day. One minute here, the next minute gone. It could have been anyone's child. It could have been Quinn.

I remember once, years ago, a friend telling me that her sister had decided to have a second child because she didn't think she could survive if her only child died. At the time, just married and not even contemplating parenthood, that seemed so bizarre to me. Now I get it.

The next day, again at work, I mentioned to a colleague who has a son a bit younger than Quinn that I had sat by his bedside when I got home. "I did that, too," he said. "Me, too," piped in a colleague with a 5-year-old girl. Turns out every parent in our newsroom had done the same.

The shootings here are such a terrible tragedy. They're a terrifying reminder that life as we know it is so fragile, so fleeting. But also a reminder to hold fast to what we have, and appreciate every single second - no matter how many we are given, or how few.

My little "helper"

2011-01-06T17:56:00.000-08:00

Christmas with Quinn was a true joy. He loved lights and Santa and Frosty and "Ru-fall" (Rudolph). And after watching "Barney's Christmas Star" he came to believe that every tree should have a star on top.

We had a really nice visit with Tom's parents, and while there we took Quinn to see the lights at his beloved Candy Cane Lane TWO times. Tom set up a string of lights in our room and hung the star that was too heavy for the tree but looked very nice on top of the curtain rod. (Every day when Quinn would see his grandparents' tree he'd suggest to them, "Star on top tree? Angel down?")

This picture has nothing to do with Christmas, but it's my fave of the season. A few days after Christmas we went shopping to spend our Macy's gift cards from Obaachan (Japanese for grandmother). I was shopping for a coat and Tom was corralling Quinn. Suddenly he called me to come quick, and I happened to have my camera in hand. Here is what I saw:

Is 3 1/2 the perfect age for Christmas?

2010-12-19T21:45:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted for a while because we've been having too darn much fun! Quinn is LOVING Christmas, and seeing him enjoy it is a total joy. He loves the lights and Christmas trees most of all, and gets quite perturbed if he sees a tree without a star on top (all pine trees should have stars, he believes). He also digs Santa - the big guy came to visit his school, and Quinn was one of the first to jump right up in his lap - as well as "Frosty Snowman" and "Ru-fall" (the red-nosed guy you might know as Rudolph.

The awesome part is, he has no understanding yet that presents are part of the equation. I'm sure that will change by next year, so I'm enjoying it while I can!

Raindrops keep falling on my tongue

2010-12-04T20:53:00.000-08:00

It doesn't rain much in Tucson, which is maybe why Quinn got so darn excited last time it happened. He ran outside, screamed with glee and opened his mouth wide.

But the pictures say it better than I can:

Compare and contrast

2010-11-24T22:50:00.000-08:00

I have accepted that Quinn is on his own time table, and I'm almost always okay with that. So why is it so hard not to compare him to other kids? If I hear a kid chatting in a full conversation or see one who can hardly walk, I take every opportunity to find out how old that kid is and compare him or her to Quinn.

This weekend we went to a 3-year-old's birthday party. Most of the kids are in daycare together, and most are quite verbal. Quinn did really well and definitely kept us with them. The girls talked circles around the boys, but he didn't seem that behind the boys to me. Today Quinn had his first group speech/occupational therapy session - it will be with three 3-year-olds, but today it was just Quinn and one other boy. He had a far more sophisticated vocabulary than Quinn does, but a host of other issues.

I've tended to stay away from a lot of events with other kids, because I was a bit afraid of being confronted with how far behind Quinn is. I've had a couple instances with neighbors bragging about how their 1-year-olds are doing things Quinn isn't doing yet, and it's hard not to feel bad when that happens.

But I got through both of these events this week. I can get through more. It's clear that interaction with other kids is good for him, and that he needs more of it. And I'm ready for that.

Quinn is behind in some ways. On track in others. Ahead in some. I know that's the same of all kids. But I wonder if all parents obsessively compare the way I do, and the way I've seen other parents of SN kids do.

Actually, probably so.

Crying in the night

2010-11-19T22:08:00.000-08:00

As I write this, Quinn is crying. Not because he's mad or hurt or hungry - something I can identify, something I can fix if it needs to be fixed. He's crying in his sleep.

He did this when he first came to us, and it was heart-wrenching. His second night with us, after he realized these strangers weren't going away and it didn't seem he was going back to his home, he mourned, moaning through the night. Once we got home, he would go down easy at bedtime, and then start crying once he was asleep. Thankfully, it went away within a couple of weeks.

The shut-down kid became goofy and happy-go-lucky and a joy to be around. He wakes up happy, goes to sleep happy, and smiles through most of this day. And yet, two years after coming home, the crying has returned.

It's a horrible thing to hear your child cry and not be able to do anything about it. It's nothing short of heart-breaking to know there are hurts we cannot fix, and sadness we cannot erase.

And it's so hard to know what to do about it. The advice on night terrors is to let kids sleep, the thinking being that if you wake them in the middle of a terror you'll it into their conscience and make a bad thing so much worse. But how do you let a 3-year-old lay on his belly and cry alone? We watch the monitor and wait, in case he becomes conscious enough to call us, as he did tonight.

Now he's in our bed, sleeping peacefully next to his Baba and holding a tin airplane he picked up as I carried him from his room to ours.

There's so much I wonder. Is crying in the night the same as a night terror? Do kids tend to outgrow them? Have any of you whose older kids used to have night terrors talked to them about it? Do they remember?

Really interesting insights

2010-11-14T20:54:00.000-08:00

This was posted a while back, but I keep thinking about it. If you haven't read it, take a moment and do. It's Adoption Talk's coverage of Amy Eldridge's talk at a summer heritage camp. Her topic is changes in adoption in China, and why today's adoptees likely had a much tougher beginning than their peers of even a few years ago.

http://chinaadoptiontalk.blogspot.com/2010/07/amy-eldridge-of-lwb-speaks.html

A stranger in town

2010-11-13T21:20:00.000-08:00

Recently we were in San Francisco and spent an afternoon in Chinatown. We took Quinn to a park to play, and we loved how much it felt like China. Grandparents were sitting on benches chatting as kids played. We were the only parents hovering over our kid, and it was obvious the old folks thought we were pretty ridiculous.

Eventually a father arrived with a remote-controlled helicopter. That's right up Mr. Things That Go's alley, so he bopped over with the other kids to have a look. What happened next was so interesting. Quinn looked at the helicopter, and the kids - all Chinese-speaking - looked at Quinn. It was like they knew he was like them, but different.

I happened to have my camera ready and captured the moment.

BOOK REVIEW: China Ghosts by Jeff Gammage

2010-11-09T21:45:00.000-08:00

Oh, how I loved this book. I started it Sunday, finished it today (Tuesday). The author (like me) is a journalist, so maybe that's partly why I'm drawn to it. He balances his personal adoption story with history of China and Chinese adoption and insights into Chinese culture.

Our stories are remarkably similar. His daughter Jin Yu was completely non-responsive when he and his wife first met her. His description of Jin Yu in those first days sounded so much like Quinn, who just stared at the ceiling, the lights, the fan - anything but at us. His daughter, a 2000 NSN adoption, came with an unexpected and unexplained oozing head injury, which heightened their concern. My concern was more inward, and took the form of me rising at 4 a.m. to Google signs of autism.

Jin Yu popped out of her shell upon rising one morning. Quinn came out of his during a visit to the Olympic Stadium in Beijing, when he was surrounded by tourists with cameras and became an instant celebrity with his blonde mother. Jin Yu, adopted at 2, advanced by leaps and bounds, talking and walking while still in China. Quinn, adopted at 16 months, did not outgrow his delays as I naively expected he would. I went from panic to dull fear to the mostly comfortable realization that he is on his time table, not mine.

What really fascinated me about the book was author Jeff Gammage's constant feelings of guilt for taking his daughters from their homeland (he and his wife adopted a second girl two years after Jin Yu, who is the focus of the book) and his constant awareness of their missing birth mothers - his family even puts an extra candle on the girls' cakes each year to honor their birth mothers. Reading his story, I felt guilty, too - but the source of my guilt is that I DON'T feel guilty. I am forever, deeply indebted to China for bringing Quinn and me together, and I suspect his birth parents must think of him every day. But I hate to admit, I don't think of them every day. Gammage asks his daughter regularly about her birth mother; I talk to Quinn about China and about adoption, but not about his birth mother. Not yet, anyway.

The book really made me wonder - again - about what is right and what is wrong -- and if there even IS a right or wrong when it comes to adoptive parenting. I definitely will think more about Quinn's birth parents after reading "China Ghosts," and I think that's a good thing. What I do with the product of that thinking, I'm not sure yet.

I highly, highly recommend this book. I found the writing to be smooth and compelling, and the author's voice to be honest and open and not at all sanctimonious, as has been the case in some adoption memoirs I have read.

Of every book I've read so far with an adoption theme, this is the one I enjoyed the most, and the one that made me think.

Pumpkin patch!

2010-11-07T15:30:00.001-08:00

On a small lot on a very busy city street, a couple that runs an annual Christmas tree lot expanded into an October and November pumpkin patch. Brilliant idea. We took Quinn when Auntie Bonny was visiting, and you'd think we had taken the boy to Disneyland. He LOVED this place. He found a little red wagon to haul around - it may have been intended strictly as a decoration; I was scared to ask - and he filled it up with the pumpkins that caught his fancy. He also loved the little, fenced-off pond, as well as the goat and pot-bellied pig pens.

What an awesome, cheap form of entertainment this was. We spent about $10 on the pumpkins, which are now happily decorating our house. And every day since, when we drive down that busy street, Quinn says, hopefully, "Pumpkin patch?" I suspect we'll be going back soon...

With Auntie Bonny

Happy Fall, from our family to yours!!!!!!!

Happy (eventually) Halloween

2010-11-02T23:39:00.000-07:00

Granted, poor Quinn has a sinus infection and does not feel great. He sobbed when I pulled out his Halloween outfit, one of many outfits we brought back from China.

I offered him several choices of other outfits, and he didn't like those either, so I started trolling around for alternate costume ideas. I pulled out his hospital gown and tried to sell him on the idea of being a patient, but he wasn't digging that either.

Baba said let's either pick and outfit and rush out the door or bag it. So we quickly got him dressed and out we all went. He cried for as long as it took us to walk a few yard to "the Halloween house," which is draped in lights and scary scenes that may one day terrify him but for now just enchant him. We go there every night and usually just get to look from the street. Tonight we got to go ALL THE WAY UP TO THE DOOR. And wouldn't you know, suddenly Halloween went from bust to boom. Quinn started running down the street asking to "Go door?" at each house, and quickly mastered both "Trick or treat" and "Thank you."

We only went to a few houses, but Quinn came home with a quality haul (which Mama and Baba enjoyed after he went to bed... Yes, yes, stealing candy from a baby, blah, blah, blah...)

Family Day No. 2!

2010-11-01T22:59:00.000-07:00

Today marks two years since we became a family. I echo the words of a mom in our travel group: In some ways it seems like we've been together forever, in others it feels like it's been about two weeks since Beijing.

When I think about the changes in Quinn, it's really nothing short of astonishing. Two years ago, at 16 months, he could sit up with assistance but couldn't stand or walk. He had little interest in toys or games, other than stacking cups. He avoided eye contact so thoroughly that one night in China I got up at 4 a.m. and Googled for signs of autism.

A year ago, he was walking and running, but hardly talking at all. He had a few single words here and there, but that was it.

Today, just try and stop the kid. In the past few months his single words became two-word phrases, then three words, and now sentences. He is fun-loving and affectionate and has a sense of humor that never ceases to floor me.

I can't imagine a more perfect fit for our family. And I cannot believe how much I love this kid, and how that love just seems to keep growing every day.

Happy family day, Quinny! Wo Ai Ni!

Off the charts

2010-10-23T23:07:00.000-07:00

I saw some Chinese growth charts on one of my Yahoo! groups, and after recently pulling them out to send to the mom of a little girl adopted the same day as Quinn, I decided to chart my little cherub. Before he came to us he was at about the 30th percentile by Chinese standards. Now he is at the 97th percentile for height and is OFF THE CHARTS for weight.

It's amazing what love and chocolate chip cookies can do for a boy...

I'm trying to figure out how to upload the PDFs - does anyone know how to do it??

Sentences!!

2010-10-18T15:44:00.001-07:00

Quinn is getting pretty good at two- and three-word statements without adjectives, adverbs or pronouns. And then all of a sudden today he has uttered THREE full sentences.

While driving: "Mama, yellow car on top wall." Sure enough, we were passing a car dealership with a yellow car on the roof.

While walking past the bookstore with the beloved spinning ball fountain near the front door: "Go see ball in wa (water)?

After lunch, when Baba and Mama were getting into separate cars: "Baba, get in Mama car."

Fluke or breakthrough? Time will tell. But boy am I a proud mama today!

My kid is the smartest kid

2010-10-16T22:27:00.000-07:00

Oh my goodness, is he smart. Just 3 years old and already he can ... Oh wait ... Never mind.

Potty training and the sensory-seeking kid

2010-10-13T15:46:00.000-07:00

I've read over and over that when a child shows interest in the potty or discomfort at having a wet or dirty diaper, it's time to potty-train. As Quinn hasn't been in daycare where he needed to be potty trained, I really haven't worried about, figuring I'd wait for his cue.

But now that I'm learning about Sensory Processing Disorder, I'm realizing that cue may never come. He is PERFECTLY happy to spend the entire day in a wet diaper if I let him. He never complains about the feel, smell, whatever - in fact, he doesn't even seem to notice.

I got a little bench potty a few months ago, and while he loves to drag it all over the house and use it to step up to things he's not supposed to reach, he dislikes sitting on it. So I got him a potty seat that goes on top of the regular toilet seat. That he likes. He drags his potty bench over to it, steps up to sit on the potty and has a lovely time opening the little cubby door next to the toilet, unrolling the toilet paper, asking me to identify the fall foilage on the potpourri envelope. After a while he puts the potpourri back, closes the cubby door and says very cheerfully, "All done potty!" Then he hops down. NOT ONCE has he done anything in the toilet - and it's the same story at school, where he's taken to the potty each morning.

I'd love to hear any ideas, or things that worked for you!!

Future fashionista (fashionisto?)

2010-10-09T22:29:00.000-07:00

Funny how I'm seeing everything through the Sensory Processing lens these days. About a month ago Quinn went from not liking the feel of anything soft to loving the feel of coats and blankets draped over him. He often pulls my coats out the closet to try on, and also likes to pull blankets off the bed and drapes off the wall, both of which make fine capes (and stangulation risks, I know!).

It's a little bit funny, a little bit odd, and very Quinn. The upside, beyond the amusing live performance: If he ends up becoming a fashion designer and/or auditioning for Project Runway, I have the perfect photos for his audition tape/book jacket/press kit. All he'll have to do is add a heartfelt, "I've loved fabrics since I was a toddler," and he's good to go!

Sensory processing disorder

2010-09-25T22:33:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm a believer. A couple weeks ago I'd never heard of this and now I'm amazed at how much it explains about Quinn's sometimes odd reactions and behaviors. How he runs around on gravel without seeming to notice how sharp it is, how well he tolerates the cold, how he can spin forever and not get dizzy - all those things are related to his sensory processing.

What I've learned is that he is a "sensory seeker," meaning he needs extra sensory input for certain internal senses to kick in. Oddly, when he gets really cranked up if we give him deep or sudden pressure - anything from a long, hard squeeze on his shoulder to literally throwing him onto a huge, cushy dog bed that has been renamed his "crash pad," he calms right down. It's pretty amazing.

The occupational therapist at his school has started working with him - apparently the first session consisted mostly of her putting on a weighted vest (the constant deep pressure helps sensory-seeking kids to concentrate in school) and him commanding, "Take off! Take off!" We're also working with his private OT (the one we see for his post-surgical shoulder therapy) on coming up with a "sensory diet" of exercises we can do for him.

I read "The Out of Sync Child" - which many of you recommended - and was blown away at how perfectly the sensory-seeking examples described Quinn. Now reading "The Out of Sync Child has Fun," which is where we got the idea for the much-loved crash pad.

Still learning, and still kicking myself that we didn't figure this out sooner. I was told that Quinn had been tested for sensory integration issues and showed no sign of it, so anytime a therapist would bring it up I'd tell them he'd already been tested. Now I know he was only tested for being over-sensitive, which he most definitely is not.

Another day, another disorder

2010-09-01T17:15:00.001-07:00

In chatting with Quinn's post-surgery physical therapist yesterday, she mentioned something called proprioception and said he may have some challenges feeling where his body fits into the space around him, as in how to climb a ladder, how hard to push with a pencil, how rough to play with the dog (a current BIG issue in our house, as our poor new dog Rosie will tell you...).

I went home and Googled it and found a textbook description of my son as a sensory-seeking kid who is under-responsive to touch and movement. A few of the characteristics are off, but if you read the list below you'll pretty much know Quinn - it's astonishingly, eerily accurate.

I'm encouraged to know there might be a cause for his behavior besides cruelty to animals - which really didn't seem right to me because he LOVES Rosie but can't seem to help himself from being too rough with her. Still, it makes me nervous that I've never heard of this before. Is it real? Quackery? Something in between? If anyone knows about this or has any insights, I'd really appreciate hearing from you, either here or at jspitz@azstarnet.com

And if you haven't heard of this, either, here's what I learned in a quick Google search. First a general definition and then a definition of Quinn's apparent end of the beach along with those checklists that seem to be written just about him:

Proprioceptive dysfunction refers to a body’s inability to properly process sensory input related to proprioception. The sense of proprioception differs from the other senses of sight, smell, sound, taste, and touch by involving more internal sensory perception by which we receive the pain and movement of the internal organs⁽¹⁾.

Sensory Seeking children have nervous systems that do not always process that sensory input is "coming in" to the brain. They are under-responsive to sensation. As a result, they seek out more intense or longer duration sensory experiences. Some behaviors that can be observed are: Hyper-activity as they seek more and more movement input; Unawareness of touch or pain, or touching others too often or too hard (may seem aggressive); Engaging in unsafe behaviors, such as climbing too high; Enjoying sounds that are too loud, such as TV or radio volume.

If they are under responsive to proprioceptive input (i.e. sensory seeking) they will...

walk to hard, push too hard, bang too hard write too hard, play with objects too hard, etc.

be the loud ones, rough ones, crashers, movers, shakers, runners, jumpers, and bouncers (i.e. an insatiable bundle of energy!)

shake his legs or constantly bang the back of his foot on the floor/chair while sitting in class

play too rough (often hurting himself or others), jump off of or crash into ANYTHING he can

crack his knuckles, chew on his fingers, bite his nails until they bleed, chew on pens, gum, pencils, clothing collars, sleeves, or strings, or inedible objects (i.e. paper clips, pieces of toys etc.)

enjoys TIGHT clothes (i.e. turtlenecks, tight belts, hoods, hats, jackets zipped ALL the way up, tight pajamas etc.) (This is the ONLY item on this list that doesn't describe Quinn!)

Hyposensitivity To Touch (Under-Responsive):

__ may crave touch, needs to touch everything and everyone

__ is not aware of being touched/bumped unless done with extreme force or intensity

__ is not bothered by injuries, like cuts and bruises, and shows no distress with shots (may even say they love getting shots!)

__ may not be aware that hands or face are dirty or feel his/her nose running

__ may be self-abusive; pinching, biting, or banging his own head

__ mouths objects excessively

__ frequently hurts other children or pets while playing

__ repeatedly touches surfaces or objects that are soothing (i.e., blanket)

__ seeks out surfaces and textures that provide strong tactile feedback

__ thoroughly enjoys and seeks out messy play

__ craves vibrating or strong sensory input

__ has a preference and craving for excessively spicy, sweet, sour, or salty foods

Hyposensitivity To Movement (Under-Responsive):

__ in constant motion, can't seem to sit still

__ craves fast, spinning, and/or intense movement experiences

__ loves being tossed in the air

__ could spin for hours and never appear to be dizzy

__ loves the fast, intense, and/or scary rides at amusement parks

__ always jumping on furniture, trampolines, spinning in a swivel chair, or getting into upside down positions

__ loves to swing as high as possible and for long periods of time

__ is a "thrill-seeker"; dangerous at times

__ always running, jumping, hopping etc. instead of walking

__ rocks body, shakes leg, or head while sitting

__ likes sudden or quick movements, such as, going over a big bump in the car or on a bike

The surgery was a success!

2010-08-28T09:11:00.001-07:00

Before his surgery, Quinn could barely reach his mouth, and that was only if he used his left hand to push up his right hand. Check him out now. Thank you, Dr. Waters!!

b

First day of school

2010-08-23T21:58:00.000-07:00

Quinn headed off for his first day at pre-school today. Let's just say any tears shed were not shed by the little student...

I'd taken him for a couple of visits to the school so when we pulled up this morning he said, "School!" We took some pictures, took him in and disappeared pretty quickly. Two hours later, BaBa and NaNa picked him up and he was as happy as when we dropped him off. Play Dough, playground, snack time and story time today - what's not to love?

And now Quinn is officially a Wheeler Wildcat.

Boy in motion

2010-08-22T16:01:00.000-07:00

Multiply these few seconds by seven full hours and you'll get a sense of our day at the Boston Children's Museum. This was the day after Quinn got his giant cast off and he was ready to RUN!

All that money wasn't wasted after all....

2010-08-20T22:32:00.000-07:00

Suddenly Quinn can't get enough of all those outfits I snapped up in China. Until now he pretty much hated them. Now, we have daily fashion shows!

BOOK REVIEW: Lucky Girl

2010-07-30T17:17:00.000-07:00

I've been reading pretty much any adoption-related book I can get my hands on in the past few years, and I thought it might be useful to other readers out there to share some that I liked - and maybe some I didn't.

First up is my favorite so far: "Lucky Girl" by Mei-Ling Hopgood. This is a memoir by one of the first Chinese adoptees. She was raised in Michigan and had a happy, healthy childhood. She didn't have a strong interest in her birth family, and in fact for much of her growing-up years avoided things that seemed "too Chinese." Then the nun who had arranged her adoption casually mentioned she could probably find her birth parents. After some soul-searching Hopgood decided to make contact, and the book is largely a story of her budding, complex relationship with her large, loud, dysfunctional birth family.

As a journalist, Hopgood knows how to tell a story. She is succinct, and includes just those details that move the story along. I found this to be an honest, revealing portrait of an adoptee, her new relationship with the family that did not raise her, and how that new relationship affects the family that did raise her. It's sometimes funny, sometimes sad and always insightful. I loved it.

One awesome Nana

2010-07-13T17:59:00.001-07:00

Just have to say that I'm so proud of Quinn's Nana (formerly known as my mom), who is handling her macular degeneration with such grace that she was invited to speak today to a class of the newly vision-impaired at a local non-profit for the visually impaired.

Here she is getting off the bus after her first ride on the handi-van. Freedom is hers once again!

Asian adoptees everywhere

2010-06-26T21:03:00.000-07:00

We've back from Boston, where it seemed like every other family had an Asian daughter. By noon our last day I counted 10 families!

It was so awesome to see, and really got me thinking about where are the greatest concentration of kids from China. Hubby said he read Texas had the greatest number, but considering that those kids are scattered all over an enormous state, the concentration might not be that high.

Does anyone know which city has the most Chinese adoptees per capita?

The cast is OFF!

2010-06-22T07:10:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe it's been 4 1/2 weeks since Quinn's surgery, but I guess it has, because here we are back at the hospital. Our first stop was the cast tech lab, where Quinn climbed up on one of many beds and screamed in terror as a guy sawed at him with a little, but LOUD, round saw. I was pretty terrified, too, honestly.

Next up we saw Dr. Waters, who declared the surgery a great success. He said the transferred muscles are "firing" already, meaning they're attached and working.

Final stop on our Children's Hospital tour was physical therapist Megan, who took us through the exercises Quinn needs to do 2-3 times a day for the next six months. We took video so we can make sure we got it right and so we can show his new physcial therapist once we get home. She also showed us lots of things to do in day-to-day life to get him using that right arm, which he has spent three years learning not to use.

Already, we can see that he can do things he couldn't do before, like reach up higher and twist his wrist. But he is more reluctant than ever to use it - it probably feels weird to have the cast gone - so I can see that PT will be very, very important.

The cutest little fireman

2010-06-19T22:25:00.000-07:00

A local fire station had an open house today, and we had to take our little fire-truck-loving boy. He had a grand time getting in and out of the fire trucks and running around them in big, excited circles. He even wore a fire hat - and he almost never will wear a hat!

His own worst enemy

2010-06-01T16:49:00.001-07:00

The good news is that despite the eight-pound cast Quinn is lugging around, he is feeling great. The bad news... despite the eight-pound cast Quinn is lugging around, he is feeling great. So great, in fact, that he thinks nothing of running across the porch and leaping off into the lawn, or standing up on the sofa or trying to climb up the side of a big rock. If he succeeds -- not surprisingly, considering how off-kilter his balance is -- he often falls. And hits his head. And cries.

It's like having a brand-new walker again. We have to watch this child like a hawk.

Seriously, I can't help but marvel at how amazingly well this kid is doing. And it hit me the other day that he doesn't know this thing is coming off in a month. To him, it's gotta be something like, "Well, I guess this is my new life." I'm a pretty optimistic person, and I truly believe I would be a basket case in his shoes. That cast is heavy. It's hot. It severely constricts him. It prevents him any use of his right arm. Good Lord, that's a lot to take in.

But Quinn has no time or inclination to worry about any of that. He's too busy looking for the next thing he can climb up on and hurl himself off of.

The car seat challenge

2010-05-27T08:37:00.000-07:00

A tip for those having trouble fitting their kiddos into car seats:

Quinn's giant cast does not begin to fit in our car seat. The car seat expert at Children's Hospital told us we needed to find a local expert to help figure out what to do, and she told us we could find a list of experts on the website of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. I searched by entering my zip code, and noticed that one name on the list was our county health department, which I figured would know the best person in town.

When I called and said I needed someone to help me with a mighty car-seat challenge, they immediately gave me the name of someone who does training sessions on fitting SN kids into car seats. I dialed him up and he turned out to be a police officer. It was 5 p.m. "I'll be at your house by 6," he said. And he was. Wow!

Even he had trouble. He said Quinn would definitely fit in a SN car seat, but said that one for a child his size would cost thousands of dollars. There are rental seats available locally for smaller kids, but not for kids his size. Yikes.

After much tinkering, adjusting and thinking, Officer Reeve figured out how to make it work. It takes some doing to get him into the seat arm first - good exercise for MaMa! - but he fits in snugly, safely and comfortably. We are SO grateful!

Home again

2010-05-25T21:31:00.000-07:00

Quinn did astonishingly well on the plane trip home. That was the part of this whole ordeal I was most dreading, and it really was no big deal.

To be honest, I think codeine may have been a factor. At my mom's wise suggestion, we gave him a dose of his pain meds shortly before each flight. The first takeoff was really tough - he could not get comfortable in the seat and was squirming, pulling off his seat belt and crying pretty hard. After takeoff I managed to get him to lay down with his feet in my lap and he went almost immediately to sleep. Miraculously, he stayed that way for the entire four-hour flight. I even got to read a book and drink a hot tea.

In Dallas he had a nice dinner of his beloved vegetable lo mein, and on the flight home he laid with his head in my lap and watched Baby Beethoven (known to Quinn as "teh bear vi" after the violin-playing teddy bear that makes a couple of appearances near the beginning of the video.

He's pooped and we're pooped, but we're all glad to be home.

Already walking!

2010-05-23T20:52:00.001-07:00

Amazingly, Quinn is walking on his own. None of us can figure out how he's doing it, but he's doing it. He gets tired really fast, not surprisingly, and wants to be carried, which is a mighty challenge.

He falls quite a bit, which is scary - tonight in the room he went straight backwards and bonked his head on the floor. Ouch. It's also very difficult for him to sit up straight because his cast goes down to his hips. That makes high chairs, booster seats, regular chairs and sofas all very tricky.

We're a bit nervous about the plane ride home tomorrow. But if the past few days are any indication, he'll find a way to get through it.

Choo-choo!

2010-05-23T20:50:00.000-07:00

Quinn is a train fanatic, and loves nothing more than going to the small train station near the hospital and watching the choo-choo's come and go.

Today we went for an actual ride on a train, to Faneuil Hall. He LOVED it.

Share my pain

2010-05-23T14:48:00.000-07:00

This is the Wiggles song and video Quinn requested at least 100 times, all night long, in the hospital. Every time they woke him up for some procedure or another, he'd point at the TV and ask, "More more quack quack?"

I was horrified the next morning to learn Quinn's roommate Zack and his dad heard it every single time - I thought hospital speakers could only be heard from one bed at a time. I guess not...

I challenge you: Watch it and see if you can get it out of your head!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4dmelafrvk

Out of the hospital

2010-05-22T12:54:00.000-07:00

Quinn has been discharged and we're back at the Yawkey Family House. We were told he'd be weepy and cranky for 2-3 days, and then realize the cast isn't going away and start to adapt to it. Instead, he started trying to walk while still in the hospital, which is extremely difficult because the cast is very heavy - I'd estimate about 10 pounds - and holds his right arm straight up and straight out. He's both top heavy and side heavy.

In the hospital he had a really tough time putting one foot in front of the other and couldn't hold up his upper body at all. Back here, though, he is doing much better. He immediately wanted to go to the awesome play room ("Play toys? Play toys?"). And there he moved from his stroller to a chair, with assistance. After a while he wanted an "eh-bayter" ride so Tom helped him down the hall by duck-waddling behind him with his arms around Quinn's waist and cast. By the time they emerged Quinn was walking with Tom holding his hand. He's not walking unassisted yet, but I don't think it will be long. He can even sit in a restaurant high chair and eat with us, which is terrific.

We had been told to bring button-down shirts two sizes two big to fit over the cast, but they're WAY too small. Turns out that when Dr. Waters got a view of Quinn in action pre-surgery, he decided a little redesign was in order. He built a double-thick cast and attached not one but two bars to hold Quinn's arm up in the right-turn position. The thing is HUGE. Quinn wears a 3T and we brought size 5s. Nana and I went to The Gap today and picked up four size 8s at a great price - buy one, get the second for $5. So Q now has a styling summer wardrobe.

I wonder how much of Quinn's amazing adaptability is due to his personality and how much is due to his special need and his time in the orphanage. In China, he learned to make due with what he was given. and because of his bracial plexus injury, sustained at birth, he invented ways to compensate for an only partially useful right arm. I know all kids are highly adaptable, but this kid is pretty remarkable. I am in awe of him.

Bad night, better day (updated with photos)

2010-05-21T12:03:00.000-07:00

Quinn had a tough night. He repeatedly stopped breathing when he cried ("I will hold my breath until this cast is OFF!") and then the heart monitor indicated an irregularity. That meant an EKG - challenging with only a small chest hole for monitoring stickers. Then blood work - even more challenging because of his very deep veins. It took two teams of nurses and two needle sticks to get it right. So neither of us got much sleep.

The only thing that kept Quinn calm was back to back to back playing of the very annoying, "Quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, cock-a-doodle-doo" by The Wiggles. Quinn found it at the beginning of a fairly ancient Barney VHS tape from the hospital library and it was love at first listen. So listen we did, and did, and did, and did.

Today things are a little better. A cardiologist said Quinn likely has a very common early heartbeat in the upper chamber that 9 out of 10 kids grow out of. He's being fitted with a monitor today and will wear it for the next 24 hours. We also had visits from a car seat specialist, and a physical therapist who helped us figure out how to lift Quinn and get him in and out of his stroller. A cast tech cut some off the bottom of his cast because he couldn't sit up straight, and cut some out of the arm pit because it was sticking into him. And that was all before lunch!

We went down to the cafeteria for lunch and Quinn watched the giant ball maze for a long time, and the fish tank for a long time, both of which he loves.

After lunch he played in the activity room with BaBa and NaNa while I filled prescriptions, got travel letters, got release instructions and filled out release paperwork.

He's back to saying he wants to go on a train ride and directing which Barney songs he wants to hear, so he's definitely getting back to normal.

Out of surgery and mad as hell (updated with photos)

2010-05-20T18:31:00.000-07:00

Quinn's surgery wasn't until 2:45 p.m., which really worried us because this kid does not like to skip meals. Our strategy was to keep him busy, busy, busy and filled up with apple juice, which was allowed until two hours before surgery.

At 12:30, a bit nervous, we left the Yawkey Family House Here it is - a former frat house that was completely renovated and reopened about 9 months ago in its current form.)

At the hospital, he walked happily into the OR. He had a great time operating the mechanical bed with directions from the awesomely cool anesthesiologist, and played a fun game blowing into a mask, which he didn't realize was the fumes that would knock him out. The nurses were very patient and took their time with him, but when he tried to convince them to put the mask on his toe ("On toe! On toe!"), the anesthesiologist popped the mask on his mouth and off to dreamland he went.

While he was in surgery, we waited in this very nice family area. The surgery lasted 1 hour and 15 minutes, followed by an hour to put on the cast and an hour in the recovery room before we were ushered in. The poor kid woke up immobile, with his arm in a horribly awkward position.

Understandably, he is MAD! Between tears and begging to put his arm down, he did ask for some apple juice (his new passion, discovered this morning when he was on a clear-liquids diet until our noon arrival at the hospital).

He is doing well, all things considered. A nurse was able to scare up a master key to the locked video room, so Barney is making things better, as Barney always does for Quinn. After two doses of morphine, he is finally sleeping and I'm in the fold-out bed beside him.

Dr. Waters said kids who wake up with a "spike" cast are typically mad, mad, mad for a day or two and then adjust quite well once they realize it's not going away. Let's hope that's the case for Quinn!

Surgery tomorrow (updated with pictures)

2010-05-19T16:03:00.000-07:00

We've made it to Boston for Quinn's long-awaited shoulder surgery. The trip went well despite my fears, and Quinn loved pulling his new big-boy back pack.

This morning, thought, he woke up at 4:30 a.m. and refused to go back to sleep. We were even treated to a very nice call from the front desk telling us other guests were complaining about the racket.

Today was pre-op madness. We visited the orthopedic clinic and pre-op clinics. Jess, Dr. Waters' nurse practitioner, explained the procedure and how everything will happen.

She also showed us, and Quinn, a doll wearing the cast Quinn will get. Yikes, it's much worse than I had pictured. Full upper body, and it can't get wet. That's going to be a challenge. He's an active sweaty boy who gets hot on the coolest of days.

In pre-op, Quinn was examined to make sure he was healthy for surgery. Then we met with the anesthesiologist and went through the hospital admissions process.

His favorite part of the day was watching the ball maze in the lobby, which he just can't get enough of.

He had so many appointments, and no nap, that he was just pooped. He slept right through his last two appointments.

Tonight we enjoyed a great dinner with other families staying here at the fabulous Yawkey Family Inn, which is affiliated with Boston Children's. Volunteers come and cook several nights a week, which is so nice. It's great to meet with other families, and we even met a little girl who got double arm casts off today, and got some survival tips from her mom. It's a beautiful old house that's all updated and gorgeous - and rooms cost $30 a night. Amazing.

Surgery tomorrow, so early bath and bed tonight. Please send your prayers, thoughts or good vibes at 2:15 p.m. eastern on May 20 - that's when Quinn's surgery begins.

Winning by failing

2010-05-14T16:28:00.001-07:00

Quinn's tests for public special-ed preschool were a classic example of trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.

The way these tests work, if a child fails three consecutive challenges in a given area, that test is over. Quinn typically hit that threshold very early, indicating very serious delays. He is missing many of the basic, basic building blocks - not surprising for a child who spent his first 16 months in an orphanage with little stimulation. BUT, if you skip over the baby stuff, Quinn has many skills of a child his age or older. He knows his letters and numbers, can figure out how most anything works, knows which key goes into which lock and has memorized countless books and songs.

So how to score him? If the test results take into account his more advanced skills, he would not qualify. If they focus on his lack of basic skills, he would certainly qualify.

His therapists all agree that he will benefit from this program, and want him in it. So after much discussion we decided to follow the rules to the letter: When he failed three consecutive challenges, test over. They all agree this is fully ethical, and best for Quinn.

So that's what we did. And he qualified. He will attend preschool for two hours four days a week, and will get 30 minutes of speech therapy every week and 30 minutes of occupational therapy every other week.

We visited his assigned school yesterday, still unsure if this is the route we wanted to go. We were convinced in about two seconds. The atmosphere was fabulous. We arrived during "free choice" time. A little girl in a smock was painting a picture. An occupational therapist was playing a game with a few kids. The teacher was filling the kids' backpacks with goodies while chatting with each one. One aide was helping kids build a tower while another aide played "snack time," helping kids cut and serve a plastic pizza cooked in a toy microwave. Quinn headed straight for the train table and stayed there - sometimes playing on his own, sometimes with other kids - until it was time for clean up and circle time. He knew just what to do when the Barney "clean up" song came on - and when it was over he headed over the CD player and started it up again (Mrs. Schreiber is going to have to move that CD player!). Much to our amazement, he plopped down in a chair for circle time and participated in the song and hand movements.

We are SO excited about this school and the opportunities it holds for Quinn. Aug. 23 can't come soon enough!

Impish cuteness

2010-05-14T15:53:00.000-07:00

Grandma Day

2010-05-14T15:51:00.000-07:00

This is how Quinn and Nana spend their Mondays. Quinn tells Nana what to do, and Nana does it. Is that a perfect way for a toddler to spend a day, or what?

Mother's Day

2010-05-14T15:00:00.000-07:00

We had a really wonderful Mother's Day despite that fact that I have pneumonia! We started the day with a spectacular brunch with my parents, brothers and sister-in-law at a spectacular resort. Everyone else paid $52 per person (!!) but we ate for free because Tom wisely shot an ad for them last year and took trade-out instead of money. Smart man.

Quinn loves to do "cheers," so we started brunch with a mimosa toast. This was Quinn's first taste of orange juice, and he loved it!

After brunch Quinn took a long nap and MaMa read a book (ahhhhhh). Then we played in the back yard and BaBa pulled out the professional camera.

This shot is my favorite Mother's Day present. Love it, love it, love it.

We ended the day with what has become my Mother's Day tradition: a mound of fried food from my favorite local greasy-spoon, followed by a big slice of lemon diner cake. Yum! From start to finish, it was a pretty perfect day.

Surgery postponed

2010-04-28T17:19:00.000-07:00

What was supposed to be our travel day to Boston instead started with a 5 a.m. phone call from Boston saying Quinn's doctor had a family emergency and had to leave town, so he needed to reschedule our surgery. Great sadness for the doctor, of course, but honestly we were relieved for the delay. My bronchitis has ramped up to a pretty nasty level and Quinn continues to cough in his sleep, making us fear he's getting it, too. Now even Tom is feeling sick.

Traveling the way I felt would have been nightmarish and I seriously doubt I would have been allowed in the hospital with this cough. I am on antibiotics, but still...

So we have a new date of May 20, and a new set of plane tickets with less convenient times, including a 2:15 a.m. arrival back home after surgery. But at least we didn't have to travel sick.

Surgery and the sniffles

2010-04-24T22:29:00.000-07:00

Quinn's shoulder surgery is scheduled for Thursday, April 29 at Boston Children's Hospital. We've been planning it for so long and now it's just about here. Seeing as how it took us months to schedule the surgery, and how we have to travel across the country for it, and how they can't operate on a sick child, we've been doing all we can to keep Quinn healthy. No play areas. Lots of hand-washing. No physical therapy at the regular, grimy place.

So, of course, I started getting sick on Thursday. I've been taking Zicam every four hours - yes, I actually would rather lose my sense of smell than be sick - and drinking tea with Airborne pretty much constantly. I have managed to keep the sore throat and cold at bay, but when I woke up this morning it was pretty clear bronchitis (which I get a lot and can identify immediately upon arrival) was moving it. It's Saturday and my doc is out of town, so I zipped over to the CVS Minute Clinic - turns out, contrary to their advertising, the nurse practitioners are pretty much not allowed to prescribe antibiotics except in very rare, very serious situations. So off to urgent care I went - and luckily managed to find the one location in town that had almost no wait.

Now I'm waiting for the Zithromax to work and trying my best not to touch Quinn. Very confusing to the poor boy, I'm sure. Our fingers are crossed that he stays healthy!

Third time's a charm!

2010-04-22T14:30:00.000-07:00

At last, we have a successful hearing test!

After two nightmarish failures, I got a good recommendation of an audiologist who deals with a lot of kids and is very patient. I called for an appointment and was told the first one was in June, but as I was booking it someone canceled and we were invited in immediately! As advertised, the woman -- an adoptive mom from way back, by the way -- was awesome. She let Quinn play with puzzles in the sound booth, did the test without closing the doors (which freaked him out last time) and really, really took her time.

He cried a little and was clearly scared during the test, but didn't lose it. He sat on my lap and would look one way if the bunny in one corner of the booth made a noise, and look the other way if the kitty in the other corner made a noise. He responded appropriately when she asked over the microphone (veeerrrrry softly), "Quinn, where is your nose?" etc.

So he passed!

Next up is the entrance exam for public pre-school for kids with developmental delays and disabilities. I'm not entirely sure I want him to go (a topic for another post), but at least we'll have the option.

Hooray for brave little Quinn!

Ballooooooon boy

2010-04-18T15:27:00.001-07:00

Can you guess what word Quinn is saying??

Well, that didn't work either

2010-04-16T22:52:00.000-07:00

Today Tom took Quinn to the sound-proof booth for his hearing test. He was fine for the first beep, then buried his face in the crook of his arm and wailed in terror until the audiologist finally pulled the plug on the test session.

This must be bringing up some bad memory or fear in him, and we're really stumped about what to do. He is being honestly traumatized by this, and and the worst part is that NO ONE BELIEVES HE HAS A HEARING PROBLEM! It's just that the school district will not proceed with testing him for pre-school until he has a successful hearing test.

Any thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions? We sure could use them!

NOW you tell me...

2010-04-14T17:03:00.000-07:00

Quinn is being tested to see if he qualifies for a public pre-school program for kids with developmental delays and disabilities. First he has to get his hearing tested so today we traipsed down to see an audiologist at our local school district. The minute I saw the probe she wanted to stick in Quinn's ear I knew this was going to be a bad scene. And it was. He started crying the second she touched it to his ear and grew increasingly upset until he hit a state of full-on hysteria. I tried distracting him, holding him during the test, taking a break, and nothing helped.

When the sweetest-keeled kid I've ever met looked over from his happy play break and let out a blood-curdling scream when he spotted the probe in the waiting audiologist's hand, she sighed and said she was just going to have to refer him to a local hospital. I asked why - did they intend to sedate him? "No," she said. "They have a fun sound booth over there where kids can hear sounds bounce off the walls rather than have to hear them inside their ear." Whaaaaaat? Why did no one even mention that was an option? We could have saved the poor child a truly traumatic experience.

I'm new to the public school thing, but this sure taught me a lesson. I need to ask questions before submitting Quinn to these mandatory tests. What are our options? Is there a gentler version of this test available? I know almost nothing about his early months but I do know something in his makeup or something in his past makes him easy to scare in instances like this. It's up to me to sniff those out in advance and try to prevent them. Lesson learned.

Suddenly afraid of the dark

2010-04-10T16:16:00.000-07:00

Since coming home in November 2008, Quinn has insisted on total darkness to sleep. His two worst nights were at the White Swan, until we realized that a little lamp under the bedside table was keeping him awake, and out first night in Tucson, until we turned off the night light in his room.

But suddenly, inexplicably, he's scared of the dark. He was crying after I put him down the other night, which is HIGHLY unusual for him, and when I went into his room he was pointing at the tiny light on his baby monitor camera. After a few minutes I plugged in the old, abandoned night light and he laid right down and went to sleep. Every night since, if I turn on the night light he goes right to sleep; if I forget he cries.

Has anyone else seen anything like this? Any ideas on what might cause such a sudden switch?

Renaming the 'rents

2010-04-03T23:30:00.001-07:00

First Quinn renamed the dogs, then he moved on to all four grandparents. Now it's our turn. At least for this phase, the grown-ups formerly known as Mama and Baba are called Mimi and Bobby.

Surgery is scheduled

2010-03-13T20:45:00.002-08:00

It's time.

Dr. Waters wanted us to wait to do the surgery until Quinn's mobility and range of motion stopped improving. He still is showing some very gradual improvement, but in the meantime he's developing a series of work-arounds that result in him using his right arm less and less.

We shared the latest range measurements and these details with Dr. Waters' staff, and they decided it's time to go ahead. April 29 is the first opening, and of course we couldn't get tickets with our frequent flier miles that week. We didn' want to push it much later and subject Quinn to a summer of hell in a cast and brace. So I called American Airlines hoping to get a mom I could appeal to, and lucked out! She agreed to appeal on our behalf, and her supervisor agreed, and that guy's supervisor agreed, so we got the tickets.

I'm relieved, but nervous.

Ice cream - yum!

2010-03-13T20:45:00.001-08:00

I ordered some ice cream the other day because it's something I can eat despite my broken jaw. Quinn has shown very little interest in hard-packed ice cream (he does like soft-serve) so I didn't think he'd take too much. Ha! He took a bite, then slid the whole parfait glass in front of him and wouldn't give it back.

I thought he'd give up when he ate through the vanilla and got to the green tea ice cream. Ha! He loved that, too. He did finally stop when he hit the cut-up roll cake at the very, very bottom of the glass. Finally I got some!

One stupid move after another

2010-02-05T14:43:00.001-08:00

Sometimes, we really are our own worst enemy. I took an overnight biz trip to Phoenix last week, and my stomach started feeling weird by mid-afternoon. I picked at a small salad for dinner, watched some TV, started shivering and went to bed. When it was pretty clear I was going to throw up, I got up, went into the bathroom, and, bam, passed out cold. I woke up in a puddle of blood, and THEN threw up.

A smart girl would have called 911. Or at least called her husband. Not me. I did think about calling 911, but I decided there was no way I could get to my cell phone WAY across the big room - and even if I could, there was no way I could then get back to the door, which I had bolted, to let in the paramedics. So, bleeding, hurting and with a potential head injury, what did I do? Crawled to bed with a pile of towels to sop up the blood coming from my mouth, ear, nose and a huge gash on my chin, and WENT TO SLEEP. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I bled the night away, then got up, took a shower and decided it really was time to get some help. Did I go to the closest emergency room? Of course not. I wasn't sure what my insurance would cover and I didn't want to be stuck in Phoenix for another night away from Tom and Quinn, so I DROVE TWO HOURS home and called my regular doctor - who saw me and sent me straight to the emergency room. Again, stupid, stupid, stupid.

The diagnosis? I fractured my jaw in one place and broke it badly in another - and the bone from that break ruptured my ear canal. Got a CT scan and stitches in my chin, followed up by surgery yesterday to reset my jaw. Thankfully, I'm only wired shut at night, as the doc wants me moving my jaw during the day in hopes of working the jaw joint back into place.

Of course, this happened during Tom's busiest work week of the year. So my sainted mother - God, how I love that woman! - has come over every day, all day, to help. Tom was out of town the day of the surgery, so she came over and stayed. Her job was to play with and care for Quinn and my job was to rest - and avoid doing anything else stupid!

I seriously could not have made it through this week without her. Thank you, Mom!!!! I love you!

A little man of letters

2010-01-20T21:50:00.000-08:00

Giving Quinn a bath a few nights ago, Tom pulled out the foam letters and numbers Grandma Marj gave him for Christmas. Much to Tom's astonishment, the child who just scored a full year behind on his speech assessment started picking up letters, saying what they were and sticking them to the wall. He got through maybe 10 letters and 3-4 numbers before he got bored and went on to something else.

Neither of us has tried to teach him his ABCs, thinking he's not nearly ready for that. I guess all those ABC books are sinking in!

Speaking of speech

2010-01-15T22:07:00.000-08:00

Quinn has exactly six months left until he turns 3 and ages out of his state developmental services, so upon the retirement of his first speech therapist we started right up with a new one.

Wow!

We talked about our goals for Quinn: to get his drooling -- which gets going when he's concentrating on something -- under control, to increase his ability to string words together and to encourage him to follow directions.

Her ideas were really surprising. After an initial assessment, Maureen said she thinks Quinn's speech delays and drooling may be physical. She spotted two possible problems: His drooling, she said, may be caused by a lack of muscle tone in his mouth stemming from a lack of sucking, babbling and mouth movement in his first months. Second, she said the fact that he isn't stringing words together may be due to a lack of muscle tone in his diaphram and other muscles in his stomach. Evidence of that, she said, is that Quinn rarely sits on his own. Playing, he usually squats, stands of lays on his stomach. Both, of course, stem from his time in the orphanage.

As for following directions, she said it's not that he doesn't understand us, but that he's a "free-range chicken" who is so busy checking out every little thing around him that he simply isn't listening - in fact, he doesn't even hear us. She suggested I get down to his level and say,
"Quinn, listen to MaMa" and point to my ear. I tried it and lo and behold, it works!

The whole session was very, very interesting. Of course I can't help but think that had I met Maureen six months ago, maybe Quinn would be chatting away by now. But enough of that. I feel so good about this therapist and I'm really excited to work with her!

Toddler at sea

2010-01-14T20:35:00.001-08:00

We went on a cruise to the Mexican Rivera to celebrate Tom's parents 50th anniversary. It was actually their 51st anniversary since we were in China on the actual 50th, but no one was counting.

Quinn had a fantastic time. He loved the looooooong halls and would "unnnn" down one after another. He may be the first person ever to lose weight on a cruise.

In between "unnnns" and meals, Quinn got to know his California grandparents, Tom's mom and dad. It was great for all of them to have a nice, long block of time together.

The highlight of the trip was Quinn's discovery of classical music. We walked by a lounge after dinner the first night and I noticed he was really interested in the string quartet playing. So we grabbed an empty seat in the back of the room. The music stopped and Quinn hollered, "More? More?" After that, we went to hear the "moo-azoo" every afternoon and every night. One night they played late, so i took Quinn down in his jammies. The musicians loved him, and said he was the first groupie they ever had. Valentina, the cellist, let Quinn play with her cello on breaks, teaching him to bow and pluck the strings.

A good time was had by all, and we all really enjoyed the time together.

Isn't this supposed to be a treasured memory?

2010-01-06T23:16:00.001-08:00

Quinn has gone from bald to shaggy, so we trucked him down to see George, who does our hair, and who said that, sure, he can do kids' hair.

Well.

Quinn started crying the minute the water bottle came out.

Eventually he got so hysterical that poor George gave up after doing half of Quinn's head. I'm not sure which of them was more upset.

We took Quinn out for his favorite grilled cheese sandwich after the dreaded event, and within about 30 seconds he was beaming like it was Christmas morning.

Hopefully next time will go better...

Surprising medical news: a doctor who DOESN'T want to cut

2010-01-04T22:44:00.000-08:00

Quinn's SN is brachial plexus injury, a birth injury to the nerves in his neck that affects the use of his right arm. After much research, we chose Dr. Peter Waters at Boston Children's Hospital to do his surgery and Quinn, Tom and I made a trip to meet Quinn's new doc.

Here we go:

Here's Quinn and me on the plane, checking our e-mails:

Quinn had an MRI on Wednesday. We chose to do it in Boston because an ultrasound he had in grown-up hospital in Tucson was a thoroughly traumatic experience I didn't care to repeat. It was a good decision: The staff was SO nice to him, giving him a kid-themed gown to wear, explaining everything, taking it very slowly and letting him play with things that interested him along the way, like the stethoscope:

It was a little terrifying seeing him unconscious and rolled into the giant white machine but he did just fine. He was SO groggy afterwards, poor little guy.

They told us he wouldn't want to eat dinner, so of course he ate a HUGE plate of pasta within an hour.

Thursday morning we met with Susan, Dr. Waters' physical therapist. Then we met with Dr. Waters. To our surprise, his recommendation was to WAIT to have the surgery. He said Quinn's MRI showed a totally normal shoulder, very unusual for his injury, and that he is still improving on his own. He wants us to step up the physical therapy and have our PT consult with his PT. When they decide he has progressed as much as possible on his own, THEN it's time for surgery. Wow, not what we expected - and so different than another doctor who said we were already late to the surgery party and we absolutely had to do it ASAP.

The hospital is amazing, with stuff for kids to look at and play with everywhere.

Volunteers hand out stickers in the hallways, and we saw a doctor and nurse dressed like clowns. There are several playgrounds around, including this one, where we spent the better part of two days:

Outside the hospital one day, Tom was taking a picture of Quinn and me and a woman walked up and asked if she could take a picture of all of us. She snapped four and walked off. They were ALL really good - and I take terrible pictures. We loved this one so much we put it on our Christmas cards:

Since we had flown all the way to Boston, we took a little time to enjoy the city. Boston Common was gorgeous, and Quinn loved stomping in the fallen leaves - something he doesn't get to do much of in the desert!

We walked and took the subway all over the place. One of our favorite stops was Boston's small but friendly little Chinatown. We found an awesome dumpling restaurant and had a great lunch.

After that we took Quinn to Harvard to get a taste of the Ivy League. We bought him some books at the Harvard bookstore and walked so much that he fell asleep before dinner. Luckily, our table had bench seating so he just laid down and snoozed the meal away. I believe this is the first and only time since he started eating that this kid has missed a meal!

New year, new resolution

2010-01-04T09:04:00.001-08:00

Okay, I'm writing it down and making it official. In 2010 I will post at least once a week. Really, I will.

I have missed so much. Moon Festival, Halloween (he was the little emperor), Christmas festivities. Looking at those photos now they just seem too old to post. But I do want to share an update on Quinn's condition and tell you about our recent cruise.

So I'm getting back up to date. In just a little bit...

Just some more random cuteness

2009-11-21T19:57:00.000-08:00

Before I move on to new pictures, I have to post a few leftovers.

The day after his birthday, Quinn was still so pooped he fell asleep on the hard floor while playing with the leftover streamers.

A fun toy, a glass of cold milk and a nice warm day. You'd be smiling, too!

Quinn's first meal with his super-cool, three-section, big-boy plate. The days of chopping up everything and mixing it all together officially ended this day.

One year ago today

2009-11-01T14:09:00.000-08:00

A year ago this morning, Tom and I were excitedly meeting the families in our travel group and getting ready to head to the Beijing Children's Welfare Institute. A year ago this morning, Quinn was going about his business, with probably no idea that his entire world was about to change. And then we met. Overwhelming joy on our end. Total shutdown on his end.

This is our first family photo:

This is what Quinn looked like then:

And this is what he looks like now:

It's astonishing to consider how far Quinn has come 365 days. We've seen him learn to sit up, to eat solid foods, to use a sippy cup and then a straw, to pull himself to a stand, to cruise around holding onto furniture, to walk, to babble, to run, to talk.

More importantly, we've seen his fun-loving, hilarious, sweet personality peek out from behind his protective armor and then leave it behind all together. The kid who wouldn't look us in the eye for nearly a week now jumps across the room into our arm, squeals with delight when he sees one of us after a separation and barks "MaMa" or "BaBa" when he wants something because he knows we'll come running.

I can't even put into words how much we love this child. We were blessed beyond imagination the day we became a family one year ago, and we can't wait to see what the next year will bring.

Snuggle buddies

2009-10-26T21:41:00.001-07:00

Quinn really loves human contact, and we love to oblige. One of his favorite activities is to lie on the floor and play "snuggle buddies" with BaBa.

Language explosion

2009-10-24T21:40:00.000-07:00

Quinn's speech therapist long ago told us that multi-tone, multi-syllabic babble immediately proceeds a language explosion. Well, here we go. For the last three weeks or so Quinn has been picking up roughly a new word a day. He'll repeat anything we ask him to, but we only count words he says unprompted and then only if he gets the context right. He's up to 31, but he only says them individually rather than stringing them together.

For the past few days he has added only one word total. But he is babbling up a storm. All sorts of sounds, all sounds of pitches, all of it chatty and motor-mouthy.

So before the language explosion begins, I'd like to pause to memorialize my favorite Quinny words so far:

Moo-azoo (music - his very favorite thing)
Buh-weh (bread, said with a vocal upturn on the highly emphasized second syllable)
Teee (a very high-pitched 'please')
Chi-chi (cookie, usually said hopefully at the end of every meal, including breakfast)
Uhnnnnnn (run, BaBa, run!)

Paging Doctor Quinn Jianrong, stat!

2009-10-22T10:10:00.000-07:00

Quinn shows a strong preference for toys that involve putting stuff together. This Dora the Explorer playset from Obaachan (Grandma Tokie) is the perfect blend of scientific and imaginative for him. He uses the stethescope to check baby cougar's pulse, he puts the cast on and off of baby cougar and when he's done playing he puts all the pieces inside the backpack. We love this toy!

Imitation nation

2009-10-17T22:30:00.001-07:00

Quinn is suddenly all about imitating MaMa and BaBa. He loves to hold the phone to his ear, use the keys to open the door, and on and on. Tonight at dinner he was pushing a lime half into his straw and we finally figured out he was making like Uncle Bruce squeezing a lime into his Corona. After rubbing the lime all over the straw opening he tipped his bottle back, took a sip and made the most hilarious grimace!

Quinn created the little scene above while "helping" me cook dinner the other night. He watches me make a salad just about every night. So this night he very carefully took all the big bowls out of his cupboard and lined them up, then took the salad servers out of the utensil drawer and tossed his imaginary salads, all in a row. He'd toss one, move on to the next, then the next, then the next, and then back again.

It's so cool to see their little minds at work!

My grandma, my servant

2009-10-10T23:17:00.000-07:00

Quinn and Grandma Marj have quite the bond. They each think the other is pretty perfect and they can't seem to get enough of each other's company.

But if there were a competition for who gets the most out of the relationship, I give the edge to Quinn. He may be only 2, but he can get his grandma to do pretty much anything he wants her to do on Mondays, Grandma Day. During meals, he'll shove a bare foot at her for some "This Little Piggy" action, which is what's happening in the upper photo. In the photo just above, he convinced her to pull him around the house in his wagon for a full 30 minutes. That's nothing compared to the hour-plus of Peekaboo, with Grandma expected to repeatedly hide wherever Quinn directs her to hide and jump out - again and again and again - to "scare" him.

All this and unconditional love, too.

It's good to be the first grandchild!

Group classes and orphanage kids

2009-10-07T14:11:00.000-07:00

I could use some advice on something odd I'm seeing with Quinn, adopted 11 months ago and now almost 28 months old.

At home and even out and about, he engages with us, plays interactive games, laughs, listens and is a joy to be around. Same goes for when family or friends visit the house. He loves his Gymboree exercise class and interacts well with the kids there, although there isn't a ton of interaction built into the class.

However, he seems to hate group classes. Tom takes him to music class one a week (Quinn LOVES music and wants it on all the time). But in class he is not a bit interested in anything except shaking maracas when it's time and staring at the CD player.

I've taken him to library story time about five times and that seems to be even worse. Today the only things he wanted to do were grab the necklace of the little girl next to him and, like in music class, check out the CD player (he is quite taken with ours at home, too). He didn't want to sit in my lap to listen to the story (although he'll happily let me read to him for 30 minutes or more at home). He wants no part of the craft projects except to throw the crayons. They always sing a beanbag song during story time, so I taught it to him at home and he has it down cold. We haven't gone to story time in about a month and today I was excited to see if he'd do the beanbag song with the other kids. Nothing. He showed no recognition of the song and did none of the movements he knows so well. If I hold him in my lap during the stories, he squirms and is miserable. If I let him go, he either runs to the CD player or tries to kiss a kid, which typically gets a bad reaction from either the kid or the parent. He was doing so many odd things today that a little girl asked her mom, "What's wrong with that boy?" and other parents were encouraging their kids not to stare at him.

Quinn spent his first 16 months in a BIG orphanage (500 kids) and I wonder if he just had enough of big groups of kids or, worse, if he fears he's back in the orphanage. I'm stumped about how to help: Should I just accept that he isn't ready for group classes and stop going or should I make him keep going in order to get him used to being around other kids?

He doesn't go to pre-school or daycare, so these classes are his only interaction with kids his age.

Thanks for any help or observations you may have!

Why it's cool having a kid (according to the dog)

2009-10-06T22:03:00.001-07:00

Baxter, our insecure and needy pickapoo, was the family member we thought would have the hardest time with Quinn's arrival. Wrong. He thinks the kid is the coolest thing ever. And this seals it: On hot mornings, when Baxter gets tired on our walks, he gets to ride on the foot rest of Quinn's stroller. Now that's a dog's life!

Help!

2009-10-05T22:25:00.001-07:00

How do you teach a 2-year-old not to throw toys at the window, at the dog, at you?

Advice, now, please!!

Decision made

2009-10-03T20:27:00.000-07:00

After much Internet research, many phone calls to doctor's offices and many conversations with parents, we have decided that Quinn's surgery will be done by Dr. Peter Waters at Boston Children's Hospital. When I initially e-mailed asking if he did the kind of surgery Quinn needs, he personally e-mailed me back the same day. That impressed me. I've also talked with many families whose children were treated by him and heard many positive stories.

Quinn has an MRI and initial visit with Dr. Waters in early November, with surgery in early December.

So Boston, here we come!

Bubbles, bubbles, bubbles

2009-09-24T22:26:00.000-07:00

We brought home some bubbles from Quinn's Gymboree class. My goodness, they are the best. After a couple minutes, Quinn and his god brother Jack were in a bubble cave.

Easy, cheap and fun entertainment!

Denied!

2009-09-17T22:16:00.000-07:00

We had hoped to have Quinn's brachial plexus surgery done by Dr. Nath in Houston. But our insurance company has denied that request. They did, however, quite generously offer us four good alternatives. If anyone knows anything about any of these BPI programs or the docs there I sure would appreciate it.

Dr. Peter Waters, Boston Children's Hospital
Dr. Scott Kozin, Shriners, Philadelphia
BPI team, Mayo Clinic, Rochester
BPI team, Cincinnati Children's Hospital

Thanks for any info you may have!