First Day of School - Round 1!

Elias and Yasmin started 1st and 3rd grades at Bamber Valley Elementary on September 2.

There's an interesting tradition continuing again this year at the bus stop across the street from our house. The kids wait in the driveway of the neighbor's house for the bus (#14 Dolphin) and while they wait, they line up their backpacks to save their place in line to board the bus. Its always a funny sight to see the kids milling around and the backpacks all in an orderly queue for the bus!

The whistle has been passed this year from Elias to Kia to continue the other tradition that when the bus is in sight of the Hubert driveway, Kia is now the one to blow the whistle to send all the kids scurrying back to their lined-up backpacks.

Elias came home from school the first day with his pencil box filled with all the wonderful rocks collected from school that day. And he hasn't let many days go by since without leaves, rocks, bottlecaps or some other treasure coming home in the backpack.

A Child of God!

Let your light so shine before others that they may see your good works and give glory to God!

Ahn-Bao was baptized on July 26 along with his cousin, Olivia Divers (Sherry's sister, Suzanne and Tony's 1-year old). Pastor Jason Bryan-Wegner applied the Water and the Word in the outdoor worship area of People of Hope (http://www.peopleofhope.com/).

Ahn-Bao's baptismal sponsors (the ones responsible for making sure his parents raise him to know his Lord and Savior) are his Aunt Lisa and Uncle Scott who attended with his cousins, Bailey, Caden and Connor all the way from Nebraska. Ahn-Bao's Grandma L from Hooper and his Mommy's cousins, Abby and Maggie from Scribner also made the long drive just for the occasion. Both Ahn-Bao and Olivia seemed to be fascinated with the water and its application and then enjoyed a picnic on the deck back at home.

It was a tremendous weekend and with 17 people sharing lots of love and a wonderful time together in Minnesota. Suzanne, Tony and Olivia came all the way from California and spent the week allowing us to get to know Olivia. What a tremendous blessing!

Surgery Redo!

While the cast removal was great news, the bad news that came along with this step in the process is that the closure of his palate and the muscles which we thought were fully repaired by the surgery, have since popped open. The surgeon confirmed at his post-op recheck on Monday that we will have to redo much of the surgery. We were told prior to the surgery (as part of that pesky informed consent) that there is a 12 percent risk of this happening, but it is so disappointing to have to put him through the pain yet again.

The surgeon said we'll have to wait 3-6 months to redo it and that it gets tougher the second time due to the scarring from the first surgery -- his exact words were, "piffle" (I think it's a polite cuss word) when he looked in Ahn-Bao's mouth.

We are in the process of scheduling Ahn-Bao's first assessment with the school district for speech sometime in the next month. We were thinking this would be about the right time after healing from his surgery. Now that we have to redo the surgical correction, I guess the assessment will have to be done again after he has surgery again.

Ahn-Bao tries to talk all the time. He says a lot of things but almost nothing is understandable to anyone but the immediate family. We only really have the m and n consonants and they sound the same and sometimes a variation on "L". He seems to really watch us when we talk and I can see he is trying to copy what we do with our mouths. We have some signs and some words that we can get pretty good at from context (and sometimes from the number of syllables, e.g., "helicopter" and "motorcycle" but "mail truck" and "school bus" sound the same so we have to look around!) so that his wants and needs are usually able to be made known. But it is just so frustrating to him (and maybe more so to us) when he can't communicate more complicated thoughts and feelings -- especially when I see him trying but I can't make it out.

Does he still have arms under those casts?

Ahn-Bao very quickly learned to maneuver just about anything he needed to with the double arm casts (in case it wasn't clear, the casts were to keep his hands out of his mouth post-surgery) -- a clinical solution that seems only slightly more humane than one of those lampshades that go on a dog's head. If he had a big enough sippy cup, he could hold the very bottom and could get it to his mouth with great efficiency. He could also itch his nose or wipe tears away by rubbing the cast against his face. It all seemed very cruel, and produced quite a number of looks from strangers ("what did they do to that poor child, break both his arms?").

The downsides were more parental than child-related: no water play and washing requires a whole plastic-bag-rubberband-apparatus. The needing to be fed by Mom or Dad was probably a positive for bonding and certainly created much less mess than a two-year old with a spoon and mostly liquid food.

Three weeks post-surgery, on July 14, Ahn-Bao had his post-surgical check-up with the surgeon and the designated day to remove the casts. The saw used to cut off the casts was pretty scary (for both Ahn-Bao and his mother holding him) but didn't hurt him. When they were off, he seemed very surprised and happy to see that his elbows were still there and they worked! Kia offered spontaneously that she was surprised and happy that his arms were still there when the casts came off. Yasmin and Elias were glad to get to see the casts that we brought home as souvenirs, although Yasmin's first comment was that they were kind of stinky!

Meeting an old friend in a new country . . .

Ahn-Bao and his family had the tremendous opportunity to meet up in person with one of Ahn-Bao's "cribmates" from the orphanage in China, his "old" friend, Lu. Lu is a little younger than Ahn-Bao (by about 4 months) and as we understand, was literally in the crib next to Ahn-Bao for most of his time on the 4th Floor of the orphanage.

Lu was adopted by the Chaput's, Mel and Pete and big sister, Clara and came home in early June. Lu and his family live in Minneapolis and Sherry met his mom on a Yahoo group of adoptive parents, friends and family of children adopted from Xi'an. What a small world it really is! You can learn more about Jameson Lian Lu Chaput, affectionately known in China and now in his new home with his own forever family as Lulu, at his blog at http://luchaput.blogspot.com/.

On July 13, the Hubert family traveled to the Twin Cities for a 6-month post-placement visit with their social worker, Cindy Foster at Children's Home Society and Family Services. The Chaput's were so kind to host all of the Hubert's for a kind of playdate and great lunch just before the appointment.

It was so joyous to see these two boys really seem to recognize each other! There wasn't nearly enough time for the Mom's to compare notes and seek out advice but I am sure there will be more visits to keep these two boys acquainted as they grow up!

Surgery

Ahn-Bao had his palate repair surgery early in the morning of Friday, June 20. Everything went as planned according to his surgeon, Dr. Clay. One nurse held him while another two nurses wheeled her in a wheelchair to his room in the pediatric ICU where we met him.

The first 24 hours were pretty tough to see him in pain and know that in some ways we agreed to do this to him. As soon as he was eating and drinking, lots of applejuice, yogurt and applesauce, he was allowed to move out of the ICU and to the regular pediatric area of the Children's hospital at Saint Marys Hospital. By Saturday afternoon, he was playing and walking around and even maneuvering the casts on both arms with great flexibility.

Meanwhile, Aunt Cindy and cousin Abby had turned our home into "Camp Stollberg" for Yasmin, Elias and Kia. They all came for a visit to the hospital on Saturday evening (right after going to "Kung Fu Panda" at the theater, with popcorn, unheard of!) Sunday morning, Ahn-Bao was ready to go home and everyone, especially Mom and Dad were glad to have all sleeping in their own beds.

We ran into a nurse working in the pediatric ICU who we had met back in 2004 when we attended the pre-adoption counseling class at our adoption agency. In the intervening 4 years, they had adopted twice from Korea and it was great fun hearing how their family (and ours) had changed over the years.

Casts for 3 weeks and soft diet for 6 weeks. Antibiotics for a week and pain meds for a few days and hope for the best.

Appropriate Level of Parental Concern and Attentiveness?

So, on the day before Ahn-Bao's palate surgery, Bob noticed that at the "Cafe Presto" restaurant across the street from Saint Marys Hospital, they had a breakfast special for $3.99. Bob had a theory that while Ahn-Bao was in surgery, when we were just waiting, that we could just go across the street and have breakfast.

When he posed this plan to Sherry, she offered that he was welcome to go have breakfast, but that it seemed inappropriate not to be waiting very close by in case his parents were needed. Bob's retort was something to the effect of, "what, are the surgeon or the anesthesiologist going to come running out of the operating room demanding that his parents come in and sew something up?" After 22+ years of marriage, Sherry's response was to merely ignore his protests.

When Bob later posed his suggestion to test its appropriateness on Aunt Cindy, and Abby and even Yasmin, they of course all sided with Sherry's appropriate level of parental attentiveness and suggested that the parents should stay nearby in case they were needed.

After Sherry had attended Ahn-Bao back to the operating room and had stood by while he closed his eyes, the nurse, Mary in the Pre-op area suggested, without prompting (although, Bob was alone with her for a short amount of time) that we should take this opportunity while the surgery was going on, to get some breakfast. Her rational theory was that when he came out of surgery, he would need us at full speed and well-nourished as we may not have much opportunity to eat again for awhile.

This of course prompted quite a reaction from Bob.

I had the $3.99 special with bacon and toast and Bob had ham and an english muffin. We were back to the waiting area in plenty of time to wait for another 2 hours.