CIT Complete!

Friday we made it four weeks with the cast on. Lets just say it's a miracle! Twink does well for the most part. It seems that when we place the cast on it turns on every neuron in her brain and it sends this already hypersensitive child into over drive. Hopefully blogging about this will remind me when we do this again in September.

As you can see from the picture above Twink is already fisting or tucking her thumb. :( It looks like we are going to have to use a splint but it seems so bulky. On a good note she is still using her right hand to feed herself with her spoon or fork. Anything and everything else is done with her left. She is also raising both arms when she wants to be lifted up. Her fine motor has improved greatly with this casting.

We are trying something new. Most of you know Twink struggles with her speech. This casting did help with her speech but not nearly as much as the first two. I have heard that Omega's have done wonders in children who have apraxia. We have decided to start Twink on Nordic Naturals Omega 3-6-9 Junior We figure it can't hurt anything to try them. If she gains more speech skills then that is wonderful! She has about three weeks with her ST that she's worked with for the last year and a half before she transitions to her new school. I would love for her to see Twink make some huge gains as they have both worked so hard together. You can count on a post in a couple weeks on an update.

We've Been Busy

Last weekend we hit the ground running! I don't think we stopped all weekend. Saturday we worked outside on the yard and the garage. The Count re-mulched the trees and landscaping, mowed, trimmed around the house, and did our huge ditch out front. In doing the ditch he has to mow and trim the weeds. It is not fun because it is pretty steep.

I cleaned out the garage. Your probably saying to yourself shouldn't it be the other way around. Shouldn't Cheri be re-mulching. I would love to but because of my previous neck surgery that is out of the question. I must say I did a pretty good job cleaning. Next step is our shed! I'm going to leave that one up to The Count! LOL

We were not able to make it to church on Sunday. Just as we were about to leave Spitfire decided she wanted a drink. She took her little chair (TM, you know about those little chairs!) and went into the fridge. Took hold of two gallons of freshly made pink lemonade and realized it was too heavy. Unfortunately she spilled it all over the place. All over in and on the fridge, the floor and herself. Needless to say the fridge and the floor were cleaned on Sunday. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw what happened! I just stood there and Spitfire looks up at me and said "Sorry Momma." I think I then yelled "HELLLPPP!!!" The poor little honey started to cry because we could not go to church. Lets just say I felt like crying too. I wanted to go to church and now had a big mess to clean up. Spitfire went out and played and The Count came down and saved the day! He's awesome people! He took everything out of the fridge and I cleaned it at the sink. Team work.

Monday we had the in-laws over for the day. It was a beautiful day out and we just relaxed. I was able to snap some pictures of the kids hanging out too. I'm trying to gather as many as I can so we can choose from a bunch to send to Bebo when the time comes. Hopefully that won't be long!

**Note to self, check the ISO before shooting outside! You'd think I'd learn!**

CIT 3 Weeks Down!

I can hardly believe it but we are now working towards four weeks with the cast on. This is the longest Twink has had the cast on. I spoke with her teacher today and she told me that she has seen Twink more frustrated with this casting. A couple of times they have had her completely lose it at school and when this child has a melt down it can go on for awhile.

Good news is her teacher and OT have noticed that her fine motor skills are improving! :) See all that hard work is paying off. She is still doing things with her left arm but not like she could before. The cast is actually suppose to include the elbow but for some reason her therapist that does the casting does not cast her arm that way. She might actually benefit more if it was done properly.

These pictures are hard to come by. She is usually full steam ahead and not straight faced. I must say I was in the right place at the right time for this picture. :)

Can you see what hand she is using?!?! I believe I was telling her to use her right hand.

Only appliance that is magnetic (darn stainless steel)! She loves this toy. She was dancing along to the music. Too bad I didn't video it.

We will do a word count at the end of next week and see how many more words Twink can do. See before the cast went on we did a word count. Every time the cast is placed on Twink becomes more vocal. This time we decided we'd actually track it. So her ST and I sat down and made a list. I think we came up with 35-40 words. Not very good for an almost 3 1/2 year old but for some one who had a stroke it's great. For a little girl who's stinky (old) neurosurgeon said she'd never talk, I hope we see him one day so we can show him how wrong he was. :)

Keep up all the hard work baby girl we are so proud of you!

Art Show

First off let me thank Rebecca for updating the header with some recent pictures of the children. We felt like we were looking at baby pictures! LOL OK well maybe they were not that old but almost a year and a half.

Last week Jewel had some art work entered into the art show at school. Here are two of the three piece her art teacher selected to enter into the show. Unfortunately she could not find her third piece when we were looking for it that night. it is a big event. I know that at least 4-12 grade is involved in it and I want to say that the younger grades are too but I can not be certain.

Dash did not have any art work selected but he did find a piece of his hanging on the hall walls leading to the room that held the art show. So I snapped a picture of his also! :) I think it's pretty darn good.

Yesterday I decided our lamp post needed a little TLC. You see the first year we lived here I planted a clematis and in it never really did very well. Three years ago I planted some different things and it looked cute. It came in last year looking great but that stinking clematis started growing like crazy climbing the poll, covering the lights (even though I had tore it out) it was out of control. Well it killed my flowers. At the end of last year I killed everything at the lamp post. Weeds, flowers and the clematis! It worked and I've had no real growth this year. Just in case, I sprayed all the little green things again before I applied 240lbs of top soil a huge bag of mulch. Looks so much better.

There was a huge rock with our house number on it where you see the brown paper and the hole.
A little to close but I am a bit paranoid and did not want you to see my rock with our house number on it! ;)

Adoption Delays

Would it be an adoption if there were no delays some where in the process? With Twink we waited 17 month before we received our referral. With wait times what they are now that seems like cake. As soon as we received our referral things went into high gear. We were leaving for China two months to the day of receiving our referral.

Bebo process is a bit different. Although I do not believe we will wait 17 months to bring him home it will be longer than we thought it will be. Some paper work was not filed and we will now have to wait for it to come back before we can more forward. :(

We are trusting in the Lords timing but I must admit it is not always easy. I can share with you that if we were to get approval before Dec 15th that I would be traveling alone with our two older children to bring him home. The Count will be finishing up his last class for his MBA so he would be unable to travel. He would like to travel as I would like him to travel but if we receive travel before hand then we were OK with the three of us going.

I also learned of another family with our agency who is adopting an older boy who is from the same orphanage. They have just started their paper chase. Funny thing is their daughter is from the same province in China our youngest daughter is from!

Those of you who have wondered were Bebos blog went to, I changed the name and it is still password protected.

I'm heading out to plant some flowers at our lamp post. My husband mowed yesterday and that's my meditation so now I have to find some thing else to do. I'll take some before and after pictures for all of you.

Adoption Update

We had our final home study visit this past weekend. All went well and we even thought we had all of our clearances for a brief moment. We only have ONE states. For some reason we are missing two and when I asked fellow adoptive families they all received them from those states in two to three weeks. We are now on six plus weeks! :( Our social worker is going to look into it for us today. The first clearance reports were sent to the wrong place and the gentleman took three weeks to send them to our SW. I pray that is what happened with the other two state clearance reports.

Tomorrow we go to the School of Deaf to meet with school officials and tour the school Bebo will attend. We will actually get to sit in on a class of children his age. :) We are looking forward to that. We are still not having any luck finding a sign language class so we are just learning via DVD.

Could you all pray that we get these clearances figured out and we can wrap up this home study. Hopefully we'll have some good news soon.

Compare Video's

Twink is finishing up week two of contraint therapy (CIT). She is doing very well except for when we do this her emotions are through the roof. She is ten times more sensitive with the cast on then when it is off. Now if you know anything about Twink you know she is already sensitive. I must say she makes me a bit crazy when she has the cast on. LOL

Here are the video's of her feeding herself like I promised. Look how far she has come! :)

Bow Giveaway!

My very sweet friend Jeanette is having a bow giveaway! She has three different sets that she is giving away. Jeanette has made bows for my girls and I love them! So go check out her site and enter to win her giveaway! I promise you'll love the work she does.

Jeanette makes bows to help with their adoption of Sara Beth. If you enter from this blog please be sure to tell her that you came from my site.

OHGWQ

Friends, we are in need of fabric squares and well wishes. We would love it if you were part of Bebos quilt. Twinks will be done soon and then we can show you how hers turned out. Please read below and then e-mail us if you'd like to participate.

1. Choose any 100% cotton fabric that you like. It just needs to have a design and color that you like. **Please remember this quilt will be for our son who will be seven in Jan.**

2. We ask that the fabric is pre-washed (to prevent shrinkage).

3. Cut one 8" x 8” square from the fabric.

4. On an acid-free piece of paper (so it will last a long time), attach a small piece of the fabric on the note (so he will know what piece of fabric goes to each wish) and include your good wish note (this can be any type of good wish for Mr. Charmer) your name. The fabric will be used to make a quilt, and the notes will be placed in a a special book that we will give to Mr. Charmer when he is older.

Ideas for Selecting the Quilt Squares
Select a fabric that is meaningful to you. 100% cotton fabric is best, as it washes and wears better. We would like neutral or BOY colors (themed). If there are several members in your family, please feel free to send more than one good wish note and pieces of fabric. In China, these quilts were originally made from the garments of family and friends surrounding the child with luck and good wishes.

Ideas for the Good Wishes Notes
What would you wish for a person to have in his life? Some ideas are good health, perseverance, compassion, love, and a sense of humor. We also like bible verses and prayers. Use that as a guide for your good wish note. Keep in mind that our son will not see your note until he is older. Please take a few minutes from your busy schedules to help us create this very special keepsake. The miracle of this adoption has been helped and nurtured by so many of you and this will be so incredibly meaningful for us as well as our new arrival. If you would like to participate, please email me at mrschawk2000@yahoo.com and I will send you our address.

Looking Back

Part of our reason for blogging is so that we can journal about what is going on in each of our childrens lives. It's a bit different when we blog about Twink. We are actually able to look back and see how far she has come. During the last year Twink has had many therapies and doctors appointments. There are times when we feel like she has made very little progress. Thankfully for this blog we are able to go back and actually see, it is amazing.


As I was reading your comments about Twinks casting, Jeanette's reminded me of something. Twink HAS made some huge improvements with the use of her right hand. I looked back at some of the video we had taken when she had her very first cast placed. We are amazed by this child. With the first cast she could barely grasp and pick things up. Add to the fact she could not raise her arm up very far. Her therapies have brought her a long way.


We now look at her with her third cast on and can compare the difference. In less than a week of having her cast on she was able to finish all of her oatmeal using her right arm on her own this morning! I did have to place the spoon in her hand but after that she was determined to do it on her own. One year ago she could not even attempt this.

If she is as good as she was yesterday, I'll try to get video of her eating her breakfast. Then you can see for yourself.

CIT Week 1

How sad is this face? From the look on her face I swear she is asking me "Why are you taking my picture and WHY won't you help me?" The thing is, this child is stubborn! She can feed her self but will not try. This is her third casting and I see huge improvements from her first. The first casting she could hardly lift her arm up to her mouth and would constantly bring her head down to her bowl. She does this still but not nearly like she used to.

Look how high her elbow is. This is HUGE for Twink. She is able to "dig" her spoon into her oatmeal unlike before. Now if only we can improve the strength in the hand. One step at time I suppose.

Look at how open her hand is! Yippee. Twink usually fists her hand and tucks her thumb between her pointer finger and her middle finger. When she has the cast on it makes her open her hand and use it more. We have found that she is a bit more off balance this time around with the cast. Not good because she does not catch herself when she falls.

Now I know these pictures I've posted make her look very frustrated and sad. The first day or two is always the hardest but she rebounds very quickly.The only time this usually happens is when it is time for her to eat. I swear her world revolves around food. The cast is not slowing her down and she is happy as can be. We can't thank you enough for your prayers.

Did I mention Twink told Jewel and I "I want ice cream"? Yes, this happens once and awhile where she blurts out very clear sentences. We are praying that with this round of casting this will be a new norm. :)

Soccer, Baseball, Oh My!

We are full swing into soccer and baseball season. This usually means our weekends are very busy with games. I can say thank heavens Jewel is not playing softball this year or we'd live at the field. This is the first year (in I don't know how long) that shes not played. You see she is now old enough to play softball for school so she can not play for little league or what ever they call it for girls. Either way we are now busy shuttling children to and from practice/games three to four nights a week and trying to find time to eat as a family! Is that ever challenging.

Spitfire had her first soccer game this past weekend. She LOVES soccer. She is still learning but I think she's pretty good for a 4yr old. Twink does not like to sit and watch the games so it makes things a bit challenging. Either The Count or I have to "entertain" her or beg Jewel to babysit for us! ;)

Dash also had his first baseball game this past weekend. He was very excited that he would be catching for a portion of the game. This is Dash first year catching and he did pretty darn good his first game. Neither team scored a run so they tied 0-0. They have a game mid-week and then one on Saturday. Unfortunately Dash will not be able to make his game on Saturday as we will be out of town doing our home study. There will be plenty of games for him to play in this season.

Constraint Induced Therapy

Some of you followed along with our last two castings. Twink is now doing round three of CIT. As you can see from above she is not very happy. She is more aware this time of what is going on and she is not pleased. In fact when they were done placing the cast she held her arm up to show me what they did. When I didn't say anything she stood really close and put her cast two inches from my nose. She started mumbling and I could tell she was confused as to why we put it back on.

Every time we place the cast on we notice a huge difference in her speech. In fact we actually took "inventory" of what sounds she makes and what words she says/has said to see what happens during and after casting. The thing is just this last week she has done a wonderful job with her ST.

We are praying that her right hand becomes stronger with each casting. She had her second round of botox to relax the muscles in her arm and in her thumb. It usually takes a couple of weeks for it to fully kick in.

Below explains what CIT is and how it works. We have tried a few different techniques but Twink was either way too smart and able to work the constraint off or way too strong. This has worked great so far.

What is Constraint-Induced Therapy (CIT)?

Constraint-Induced Therapy, or CIT, is a family of treatments that teach the brain to “rewire” itself following a major injury such as stroke or head injury. Patients can “learn” to improve the ability to move the weaker parts of their bodies and therefore not rely primarily on the stronger extremities. These therapies have significantly improved quality of movement and substantially increased the amount of use of the more-affected extremities in the activities of daily living for a large majority of children who have received the treatment. It is the only rehabilitation technique shown to produce a marked change in brain organization and function.

What does Constraint- Induced Therapy consist of?

Occupational therapists and our family will be conducting CIT treatments with Twink. Therapy consists of 3 major factors: (1) the stronger arm must be completely restrained for up to 3 weeks using a lightweight fiberglass cast extending from the upper arm to the fingertips, (2) the weaker arm must be trained using shaping techniques in a play situation that is appropriate to the child’s stage of development, (3) the therapy will be administered for 3-4 hours per weekday for 2 or 3 weeks, totaling 10 or15 days of treatment (depending on the severity of the symptoms). Home practice is an integral part of CI therapy. Caretakers will be given home practice activities to carry out with each child both during and after the program in order to assure optimum skill retention.

Please keep us in your prayers as the frustration level seems to be much higher than with the last two.

**If anyone can tell me how to make paragraphs again that would make my day. For whatever reason I can not put spaces between my paragraphs and it is making me crazy!