Five months since coming home...

...and Joy is doing so good!  I am so impressed with how much she is understanding and communicating with us!  Joy said her first word, "mama" on August 15th!  So far that is her only audible word, but she is trying so hard to say something else.  She is starting to babble and move her mouth and tongue around experiencing with different sounds.  She is saying many words using signs.  She is so close to picking up "water" and "thank you" in signs.  She is pointing to communicate!  Up until now when we didn't go or do what she wanted she would arch her back and through her head back.  She has conked her head on the wall more than once!  Now she points and she gets a kick out of it when we are able to accomodate and she knows she just communicated with us! 

 Joy is walking!!  What a huge world has opened up to her now that she can go on her own!  Her personality seems to have changed just since she started walking.  She is much more content and happy and she wanders off to explore and play by herself now, giving mom a few minutes to do things here and there!  I was just noticing that she seems to find more pleasure in the little things now.  I often find her smiling and laughing at the little things.  When we first brought Joy home, she would laugh if we tickled her and then her facial expression would immediatly go back to serious.  Now, is something makes her laugh, she wants to do it again and again! 

Her constant drooling has slowed way down.  When we brought Joy home, she was drinking from a bottle with a hole cut into the nipple so that the formula and cereal could flow out without her sucking on it at all.  She never learned to suck, so we have been trying to teach her how to suck since her surgery.  For the first four months since coming home, Joy would soak through about five bibs and five shirts daily.  We also would always have a towel in hand drying drool off her chin and drying the floor and toys she was playing with.  Over the past four weeks, with the help of our speech therapist, Joy has become aware of the need to suck and swallow.  When she is drooling, we tell her to wipe her chin and she does!  We tell her to suck the spit back in and swallow and she wipes her chin!  She is now drinking from a bottle with no alterations to the nipple!!!  A miracle! 

This sweet baby is working so hard and learning so much.   



For a couple of months since Joy's surgery, she would cry and cry when Greg tried to put her to bed.  She is finally bonding with Greg and feeling more comfortable with her daddy putting her to bed!



Beautiful!

Brian and Noah have started school!

They were excited the first day!  Now the homework is overwelming and tiring!  We were all thankful for Labor Day break!

Brian and Noah are both playing football at school.  This is Noah at practice.

Brian and Joy taking turns rolling each other up in my excercise mat!  Fun!!  She adores her brothers and they adore her!  They can make her laugh like no one else!