August & September 2010

Well, August was not quite as busy of a month as July. It started off with a road trip to Maryland. John went to high school in Cumberland and his good friend Billy (who now lives in Colorado) was in town visiting his parents. Billy's wife Kerri, his sister Tracey, her husband and 2 daughters were there also. It was a really great day visiting with everybody and we think they really enjoyed meeting Andrew & observing is quite large appetite :)



On August 14, we took Andrew for a follow-up visit to the eye doctor. The doctor felt that there was just a slight improvement from May in his left eye (as a result of our patching efforts). We were hoping he wouldn’t need to dilate Andrew’s eyes but he did, so that he was able to hopefully get a better look at the optic nerves. He was indeed able to get a better look and decided that the nerve in the left eye looks “different”. Since he is not sure if the nerve is just “different” looking or if it’s actually under-developed (meaning it never fully developed before birth), he would like Andrew to have an MRI done. We were hoping this would be able to be done under the same anesthesia as his circumcision but the facility where the circumcision was done doesn’t do sedated MRIs. So, he has an MRI scheduled for October 25 at Childrens Hospital.

Andrew & Laurie started “climbing cubs” which is their mommy & me gymnastics class on August 26. Andrew’s friends Julia, Ty & Reed are in the same class. He is having a good time in the class and becomes a little more comfortable every week.

In August we also had a couple of birthday parties for little girls who turned 2 - Julia and Maeve. And in September we had a birthday party for our neighbor Addie who turned 3 and a family baby shower for our neighbors Kevin & Karah. Andrew had lots of fun playing with all of his new friends.



September 1st brought Andrew's circumcision surgery - a day that we were anxious to be over. We had to be at Childrens North at 7:45am. Once checked in, we were taken back pretty quickly and they took his vitals. There were several people in and out of the room until finally the Anesthesiologist came in - he was the one that we had to get permission from for one of us to go back with Andrew until he was asleep. He just happened to be Russian (sort of ironic) and we had a nice chat with him about St. Petersburg and Moscow. He told us that we should take Andrew out to the play room and see how he does before we decide if anyone will go back with him. We played for a little bit and then a nurse came to get him - before we knew it, they were walking down the hall for surgery and we didn't even get to tell him good luck much less go back with him! We went out to the waiting room where we anxiously waited for the doctor to tell us how it went. She came out about 50 minutes later and said that he was resting in recovery & that everything went very well. Not long after that, a nurse came out and said that Andrew was awake. We were taken back to the recovery room and he was crying as he didn't completely sleep off the anesthesia. Laurie switched places with the nurse who was holding him and Andrew fell asleep on her for about 45 minutes. When he awoke he drank two sippy cups full of apple juice and was able to keep it down. They took out his IV, gave us discharge instructions and we were free to go home! We came home and ate lunch after which he took an hour & 1/2 nap. He then played outside and was perfectly fine the rest of the day! Overall, he did a great job with everything and really was only ever fussy at diaper change time for a few days - - the doctor was right, it really was like it never happened!



Laurie took Andrew to his 18 month well visit with the pediatrician (even though it was at 20 months of age - due to insurance issues from visiting the adoption doctor) on September 8. He weighed in at 25 pounds and measured 32 inches tall - - that means he has gained 5 pounds and grown 1 inch since May 6!! The doctor said she is very impressed with his progress. He got 2 more shots (one being his flu shot) so he is now all up-to-date on shots until he is 4 years old!

On September 11 we took Andrew to his first airshow. Laurie thought that he might be afraid of the Thunderbirds but he seemed fascinated by all of the planes - much to John's delight!



We had our first post adoption visit with our social worker, Rita on September 19. She came to our house and was very excited to meet Andrew. He showed her many of his "tricks" and she said she very much enjoyed playing with him. Her report was great and she gets to come back in April to visit us again :)

We’ve had many people ask us if Andrew is talking a lot. So, we decided to share a list of words he says on a regular basis. He has gotten very good at repeating words back to us but here is a list of commonly spoken words: uh oh (his first word), mama, daddy, ball, bye, dirty, hot, one, two, three, book, yes, bad, wow, turtle, truck, whoops, more, hi, no, love, wet, dry, messy, neat, dust, up, down, juice, milk, grapes, cheese, home, bath, snack and walk. He also says Ty & Reed (our friend's twin boys), Nini (Laurie's grandmother), Mike (his babysitter's husband), Bec (his babysitter's name is Becky), for Grandpa he says "Butt or Bupp" and for Grandma he says "Ma" - we are continuing to work with him on those last ones :)

In addition to these words, he also makes animal sounds for the following animals: cat, dog, cow, duck, lion, tiger and bird. He also knows that Sammy is a cat and Meows when you ask him what Sammy says :)