Bringing Hank Home

I see it's been a little over two years since I posted here last.
Time sure does fly when you're having fun!
I'm thinking about resurrecting the blog but with a focus on the vision issues associated with Albinism. Not making any promises though! I have a lot of ideas that never make it to the light of day LOL!

You know who you are ;-)


And the sequal..
Hank Dissaproves of Lip Synching

It's getting close to midnight so this might technically be a post-Thanksgiving post, but it's the thought that counts, right?

We have so much to be thankful for, mostly the newest little Thanksgiving guest. I love how he draws people.

Here's a little sneak peek of Hank's debut as a calander boy. He's Mr. July in the Packages of Hope fundrasing calander.

This is an awesome charity - run entirely by volunteers - that sends much needed supplies to orphanages in China and Africa. Suzhou is one of the orphanages they support.

The calanders are available now, just in time for holiday gift giving!!!

This is the video adoption announcement we sent out to our family members. Everyone should have had time to get it in the mail and watch it so I figured it was time to share it with the rest of y'all. The song is Solsbury Hill by Peter Gabriel
Make sure you have your volume on!

First school picture.

And first picture with his glasses!

Doesn't he look so serious???

Today took us to Dorbrook Park and their postively peachy playground. A good time was had by all.

We proceeded to Perkin's for lunch, we wished we had packed a picnic as things were pretty pokey.

After that, on to the Pumpkin Patch. Which only took cash or checks. A predicament. I only had $40 and no checkbook. Pumpkins were priced at .49 per pound. I was predicting pouts when we would only be able to procure around 8 pounds of pumpkins. I wasn't until we had wandered the whole patch and were almost to the cashier with one rather puny pumpkin that I realized my positively dippy math error.

This is why I don't homeschool.

We did find two more pumpkins that passed muster and had change to spare.

Click on Hank to see a few more pictures from this plesant day!

Ok, it was two weeks ago but it's a darn cute picture, isn't it???
Click for a few more recent pictures.

Hank LOVES school. Absolutely loves it. Riding the bus and recess are the two best parts of course. Well, that and the fact the cafeteria sells ice cream. Nothing slips by this boy. The first day they ate in the cafeteria he came flying off the bus "Momma...school...ICE CREAM!!! Tomorrow, money?? Ice Cream?? Peeeeaas??"

What's a momma to do??

He needs the calcium boost anyway.

I'm a few days late here and I'm going to cheat and just throw a little bit of video at you


Part two is here

Hank liked the whole birthday thing. I hope he understands this only happens once a year!
We had a small just us party on his actual birthday (8/10) and a big family party on 8/12. Pictures to come a little later...there's a whole lotta pictures!!!

Have lots of other stuff to talk about, just need to find the time! School evaluations, vision evaluations, Dr. appointments...oh wait...that hasn't happened yet.... Aforementioned twit had our rescheduled appt with the wrong doctor...that could be a whole post in itself but I'll spare you.

I don't have many brain cells left for blogging.

Hank had his first appt with his pediatrician scheduled for Wednesday afternoon. I’m using a developmental ped for him, not the ped we use for Sean. Sean’s ped is fine when you need a script for strep throat or an ear infection, useless for just about anything else. Figured no point even getting Hank started with them.

Anyhoo… someone from the office called the night before to confirm the appt. Fabulous. Yesterday morning, I get a call. It went something like this…

Twit: Is this Mrs. Miller?
Mrs. Miller: Yes

Twit: Henry has a 5pm appt with Dr. X? (name changed to prevent lawsuits)
M.M: Yes

Twit: Does he have any health conditions?
M.M: Uh..well…he has Albinism (something I mentioned when I made the appt)

Twit: He has what?
M.M.: Albinism

Twit: Autism???
M.M: No, Albinism, he’s Albino

Twit: Oh…Al-bi-no…well…does he have any health conditions?
M.M: Not that I’m aware of, but we just adopted him from China (also mentioned when I made the appointment)

Twit: Where???
M.M: China

Twit: Oh…. Please hold

Twit returns

Twit: You just adopted him from China??
M.M: :::sigh:::: Yes, we got home on July 14th.

Twit: And why are you bringing him in?
M.M speaking very slowly Because…we just... adopted him from China?? We thought he should be seen by a doctor…

Twit: Oh…..

Uncomfortable silence

M.M.: Is there a problem???

Twit: Well, the Doctor has to leave the office early today and we are trying to see which patients can be rescheduled
M.M Fine, that's not a problem, we can reschedule.

Twit perking right up Great!! Can you come in Friday at 10???

Is it me???

Wonder how many times that has been used as a blog title??

Well we are home, safe and sound. Got in a few hours later than expected due to a delay in Hong Kong which caused us to miss our connecting flight and the re-booked connecting flight. The fine folks at United re-re-booked us on a pretty late flight but also put us on stand-by for an earlier full flight. I told the gate guy our very tired story (I figured out between leaving the hotel and arriving home, we spent about 30 hours in airports or airplanes) and he so very kindly got us on the stand-by flight. Not only that, but in first class!!! Yay United!

We were met at the airport by Mom, Sean and 3 very special ladies, Wendy, Shelley and Jalan. It was so good to see friendly faces! By the time we actually got home and unwound enough to sleep it was after 2am :::zzzzzzzzz::::

Sean is being an incredible big brother. Hank adores him even though he's (Hank) is a little rough on him. Sean is so patient and kind, really warms a mom's heart!

The last few days have been good. Hank is getting more comfortable and while still *incredibly* busy, is starting to slow down slightly. He'll watch something on TV for 5-10 min at a time instead of 1. He'll play with a toy for a few minutes rather than picking it up and flinging it back down again. Much less hitting, much less pouting and yelling. He's picking up all kinds of English too. He can count to ten in English. Yesterday it was 9 and I realized it was kind of silly to stop there so I was able to get him to add 10. He knows about 6 colors in English, including "ba-looo"

Maggie, our elderly Golden is still pretty scary. It's ok if she isn't moving (a pretty common state for her) but should she walk around or even worse...bark! he shrieks and climbs the nearest adult. Sometimes he'll forget she is there (or forget he's supposed to be afraid) and accidentally find himself standing right next to her. That results in him launching himself in the air shrieking "EWWWWewwwEWWWW" as if she was a large spider or something. I think it will be a little while before busy Boomer comes home.

There are a few more "home" pics if you click back to the main album.

Gotta run, it's too quiet out there...

Not much, but you can see our little guy in motion
http://tinyurl.com/zcfpj

That was on Monday (it's Wednesday now, right???) It was a fairly quick once over. Hank didn't mind. He's 104 cm tall and 18.5 kg in weight (both with shoes on) which I think roughly translates to 40" tall and 40 lbs.

Monday afternoon the girls went out shopping leaving the men to fend for themselves with the children. Everyone survived.
Monday we decided ordering in would be a good idea. Jeff called Danny's Bagels and asked for a pizza and a hamburger. The person taking the order kept repeating "A hamburger??" Yes, a hamburger, what's the big deal?? He told me the total was 318 yuan which seemed kind of expensive but it was the first time we had ordered from them. Well, when our food came we got a pizza and *8* hamburgers lol! It actually worked out pretty well. We decided we'd all eat hamburgers and put the pizza in the fridge since pizza is better cold than hamburgers are. Hank ate two whole burgers himself.

Tuesday we did a little walking around. We've been trying to keep things low key which seems to be helping his moods...some...
In the afternoon we had to go over to the White Swan hotel to meetour guide and handle some paperwork. Got the obligatory red couch pictures (it's traditional to take pictures of the kids on these red couches they have in the lobby). We then went to dinner at Lucy's with the Thompsons. Hank was a pistol :::ahem::: there, throwing a 'tude even with the waitresses who were talking to him in Mandarin. After that we walked back to the WS and visited the playroom. Excellent time burning off some energy!!

On the way out we were wrangled into a store by some of the shop girls who were making a fuss over Hank. Picked up a few things and finally got smart enough to borrow a stroller. Made the walk "home" much nicer. Of course no walk home is complete without a stop at the convienience store to stock up on food for the bottomless pit lol!

Go to the main photo section for more pictures of the last few days!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bringinghankhome/

It's been a while, I know.
Hank is still doing really well, but really well is a relative term. Really well includes some tough times too. He's 5, he's a boy and he's been taken from everything and everyone he knows and plopped with these two people who don't understand 90% of what he's saying. All the new stuff is really cool and fun, but it's also overwhelming and overstimulating.

We've had some whopper tantrums over the last few days. Sunday was the worst as far as frequency (about 2-3 an hour) and intensity (wow..he can get MAD) . The good news is yesterday was a lot better. Still lots of tantrums, but less frequently, less intense and he recovered from them faster. I'm hoping Sunday was a corner that was turned and we will be able to slowly walk down the street away from it. I'm sure there will be other corners along the way, but knowing there really is another side once you get around it is a big help.

Even though it's exhausting, it's entirely worth it. Between the tantrums is this funny, smart, silly, charming little person. We really are thrilled at how well he's attached to us and how relaxed he is (most of the time). I'm so grateful for all the online support and yahoo groups I've been involved in over the last few months. Being able to hear other people's stories and experiences was so important in being prepared for this. Understanding what he's going through and knowing that all this is normal goes a long way towards being able to handle it and be patient with him.

We're still alive, I promise. Last 2 days have been nuts. Everythingis fine, just very busy, lots of going from here to there. Boy isincredibly busy and wearing us out!A real update later, I promise!!!