Six Months Ago Today...First Meeting (with pictures and video)

Six Months Ago Today... 
we met our son for the very first time!

Six months ago he joined our family, and our lives will never be the same!

   We are blessed beyond measure to have our little baby boy in our lives.  I can't believe it has been as long as it has.  

   In honor of today, I thought I would post about the day we first met Gambo (I told you I would post travel posts anyway, well... I'm just now getting to it!)

Meeting baby E:

Feb 16th, 2013

I am sitting here writing right now and getting to look at my son's face!  Today we met and brought home with us baby E.  Mark and I couldn't sleep-in this morning, even after getting in late last night.  We woke up and 6:30am, with a few crows of the rooster outside our guest house window.  We spent some time together in the morning to get ready.  While we waited for Kristy (my sister-in-law who came with us to take pictures and document the trip), we mostly finished organizing the room for E.  Then we went to breakfast.  The guest house makes breakfast for us, and we could order a bunch of different foods.  Mark got scrambled eggs and sausage (which turned out to be British-style sausage).  I had a cheese omlette, which was good.  We ate out on a balcony overlooking the beautiful gardens.

We arranged a driver from the guest house to take us to the baby home.  It was a little bit of a drive out there.  We got there at 11:30am.  On the way I felt little butterflies in my stomach thinking about what was to come.  But mostly I was just ready to get there.  

We pulled up to the baby home and there was a big metal gate in front, so we waited for Kristy to go first and video tape us.  

We walked into a court yard.  I looked around and saw a lot of kids, but not E immediately.  

We said hello to all the people there, then we went inside, and the first person I recognized was Carissa (the other adoptive family from our agency who were there at the same time to adopt from the same baby home).  Carissa and Jon were still there to pick up their girl S.  So, actually, I was meeting and saying hi to them and the caregivers when E came into the room.  

Sophie, his caregiver, was carrying him.  

He was wearing a dress, because that is the clothes they had for him.  We said hello tenatively.  Then I asked to pick him up, and when I did, he cried. 

 To be expected.  "Who are these people and why are they white?"  

(Here's the video of us first meeting):

Anyway, I gave him back, but then Mark held him, and he was OK with Mark, but still not happy.  Then we sat with Sophie on the couch while she held him and just talked for a long time.  I pulled out a toy we brought for him, a little rattle/ball, and that seemed to loosen him up.  

Eventually we were able to touch him and hold him.  We were able to change him into some boy clothes that we brought for him. 

I tried giving him a bottle at first but he was fussy.  He preferred Sophie to feed him.  Anyway, we spent about an hour and a half there and I got to ask Sophie lots of questions.  I held E too.  I was nervous and a little scared because I didn't know what I was doing.  

We took lots of pictures.  Sophie cried when she had to say good-bye to him when we left. She loved him almost like her own child, and he really loved her.  

He took a nap right away when we left so he slept the whole way home, about an hour.  

Then we got back to the room and we were trying to get him to calm down since he seemed upset.  He would NOT take any bottle but his bottle from the orphanage.  (Thank goodness they let us take that with us!)  And his bottle had a HUGE hole in the nipple so that the milk flowed really quickly and poured down his throat and neck.  Sadly, he doesn't know how to suck on regular nipples.  We felt like he needed to eat, but he wasn't eating.  We did notice that he had a wet diaper two times, so we changed that.  

We put him in the carrier and walked to a cafe for lunch.  

Kristy and I had hamburgers with a little bit of a spicy sauce on them.  Mark had a chicken pita.  They all came with fries, so I gave some to E.  

He really liked them, yeah!  We tried giving him yogurt bites, and he spit them out.  Then we walked back to the house.  

E really seems to like the carrier.  Then we tried calming him down.  Mark put him to sleep in his arms, so we placed him in the basinet, and I took a nap next to him.  

Then he woke up, and we tried feeding him again.  We finally managed to get him to eat rice cereal mixed with formula.  He ate a good bit of it!  

Then we played with him a little bit more before we were ready to go down to dinner.  We decided to have dinner here at the guest house, since it was easier.  This time I put him in the Moby wrap and he liked that too.  I had chicken and rice and veggies for dinner.  Mark had the boiled potatoes, so we fed him more potatoes, rice, chicken, zucchini, and he ate it all.  It was good to have him eat something.  

Then we came up for bed.  He was pretty calm, so we got him ready for bed.  I slathered on the mint body butter, and he really liked that.  It calmed him down, and I loved giving him soft touch.  Then we put him in a sleep n' play and rubbed his head and sang for him.  He was really sleepy, so we put him in the basinet.  Mark prayed with him and I, and we put the sound machine on.  Thankfully Sophie told us that he sleeps on his stomach, because as soon as we switched him to his stomach, he fell asleep.  Now he is sleeping soundly, so is Mark, and I am journaling.

What we've seen today: E loves his daddy, and will cling to him.  He also likes to hear singing, and I learned some songs from his caregiver today.  He can babble and even give high five's.  He is super tiny in his diaper size, and each pair of shoes we brought are too big.  He has gorgeous brown eyes.  

The day has been a long and educational one.  He is still scared of us and misses his caregivers, but we are showing him love in the best way that we can.  

Tonight I was holding him before bedtime, and he was resting his head on my chest.  He was being really snuggly.  I rested my chin on his head, and had my arms wrapped around him, and just felt a moment of joy.  I thought "This is my son forever.  This is the two of us together.  I feel really at one with him right now, and this moment is so special.  I will treasure this forever"

    The first night proved to be an eventful one, but that is for another post...  Now you have a glimpse into our first day together as a family of three.

    So much change has occurred since that day!  We are so in love with our little boy now, and he is much more attached to us and in love with us as well! 

Six Months Ago:

Skinny, sullen, inactive

Today:

Smiling, chubby cheeks, active

All praise and glory can go to our Heavenly Father who put this family together!

Most of the photos taken by Kristy Struska

Four Months Home! Pictures and Video

       Hello!  It seems like time has flown by.  (I am a few days late on posting this, but that's OK).  I feel like I have been with my son forever.  It's crazy to think it was only four months ago that we arrived home from Uganda!

Thankfully July has been a pretty down month for us.  We stayed at home and didn't stress about going out too much.  It has been really hot here (so excuse photos of my baby dressed only in a diaper.  I would normally dress him, but we are all sweating over here).  

So, if I could pick three themes for this last month it would be:

Walking, Plums, and Music!

       Gambo really started taking off on his walking.  He is so confident in walking now that he does it most of the time.  He is even starting to run a bit.

Here he's happy to be walking:

       So if June was the Grape Harvest (by the way we picked 37 POUNDS of grapes from our backyard)... then July is the Plum Harvest!

Our plum tree out back has been loaded down with plums that we were just waiting to ripen.  It's a good thing we started picking, because the tree was starting to sag

and was growing over our wall into the neighbor's yard.

First picking yielded 15 POUNDS of plums!

We probably have about 85 more pounds left on the tree.  Yikes!

Gambo's helping to wash the plums

I was never a plum fan before, but it turns out that these are pretty sweet!  And it makes a huge difference in the taste that they are homegrown.  

Gambo's version of "helping":

If you have any good plum recipes, send them my way!

      Lastly, Gambo really increased his music time and his proficiency.  He LOVES to play the guitar (and asks for it every day).  He LOVES to play the piano.

And he LOVES to drum.

We love watching him dance (and clap) along to music too.

Time for FIRSTS...

-This month Gambo got his first haircut, done by Mark!  He had a section of his hair that was not coming in well (or could have had a lot of breakage do to rubbing his head on the highchair or something), so he ended up with like a weird stripe around the back.  You can kind of see it in the plum washing picture:

So Mark decided to trim the bottom section that had grown, to match the middle, but he left the hair on top untouched.

-I worked on doing his first style with the little hair on top.  Not much of anything but a little twists up top.  (it doesn't hold very well though)

-He got 3 more teeth in the last month!  So, I guess this would be the first time to have four teeth? (had to fit it in with the theme!)

We are so thankful for how much he has grown.  He fits right in with our family, laughs with us, is silly like us, and loves us so much.  He has started sleeping through the night, so we are finally catching up on some sleep.  He's a great eater and has enjoyed pretty much everything we give him.  

We are approaching having had Gambo with us for 6 months (this is counting the time we spent with him in Uganda).   It's so exciting!  I'll post more when the big date is here.

We are looking forward to what is in store for us next month!

First Milestone... Three Months Home!

I would have liked to post more often, but I am thankful I have been able to at least put up an update every month. (Warning: lots of pictures in this post!)

So, we have now marked THREE MONTHS HOME! 

This is the first milestone to reach as we see how he changes after 3, 6, and 12+ months home.

So much has happened in the last month, and growth has been abundant!  Mark and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary in June!  We are so thankful that after 9 wonderful years of marriage as a family a two, we have now celebrated it as a family of THREE!  We went cherry picking at a local orchard.

We found out that Gambo REALLY loves cherries!

He wanted to pick EVERY one.

Mark celebrated his first Father's Day too.

These two love each other so much!

We took our first out of state trip to Colorado to visit lots of family and friends.  He met his granny and grandpa.

He also met lots of aunts, uncles and cousins.

I attended a baby shower for my sister-in-law because she and my brother are having TWINS!

Back at home, we tried to endure the 108 degree weather by swimming with friends.

"I Heard It Through The Grape Vine"...  A nice blessing is that we bought a house with two grape vines out back.  (Just wanted to get that song stuck in your head!)

So after watching the vines grow and the bunches of grapes ripen,

We picked our first grape harvest of the year.

Holding back how much we cut, we still managed to get over nine pounds of grapes.

I just made a batch of homemade grape freezer jelly today.

And we still have at least that much still on the vines.

(We found out that Gambo really likes grapes too!)

Time For FIRSTS.....


This month Gambo got his FIRST tooth, debuting on top. (Yeah, our son is cool like that!)

(Okay, so it was two days before month 3, but close enough.)  He has since grown one on the bottom, and has the 2nd top one coming any day now.

He took his FIRST steps!  And now today was cruising for long stretches in the house (so much more control now!)

He also celebrated his FIRST Independence Day!

It is pretty sweet to see our little Ugandan in the United States now.

Fourth of July included barbecuing, swimming,

and swinging on the hammock.

We also kept him out WAY past his bedtime, so that he could see his FIRST fireworks.

Sleepy baby!

1st Fourth of July!

Cuteness...

In addition to the grapes, we are getting closer to harvesting a HUGE tree of plums!  A few were ripe, and we found out that Gambo LOVES plums too!

He couldn't keep his mouth off of them.

He loved to try out his (two) new teeth on them.

Gambo thought it would be a great idea to play with ALL of his toys tonight.

Then he started pulling even the bins down.

Ooops... he got caught!

(Sorry for the naked baby, he had just been outside playing with the hose and got all wet.)

And I have to post this pic of my cute little Ugandan drummer boy.

He loves to drum!

Oh, and he has also started a recent OBSESSION with the guitar.  He loves to hear us play and try to play himself.  He points at it every morning when we walk by it.  We have literally spent 2 hours with him just playing guitar, piano, and drums.  And that was just the morning jam session.  He wants to play again in the afternoon.  Ha!  I think we have a musician in our family!  (As a side note, I am getting a lot more practice at playing, since he wants to hear it everyday)


Home Study....

We just had our 3-month Post-Placement home study visit.  Our Home Study agency will write a report on how we are doing, and how Gambo is developing.  It was good to have the social worker over to show off our son, plus to be reminded of how far he has come.

We love the progress he has made, but we are still very careful to keep building that trust and bonding with him.  It has really been paying off, because now we receive some of the most sweet hugs ever!  I mean, he squeezes tightly... it's so adorable!  He is settling into a schedule, and it has helped him relax more.

He also has increased his understanding amazingly!  He knows so many more words we say, and he is even communicating very well using baby sign language.  We've tried to teach him a few words here and there, and I can tell it has made our day, especially meal times, much easier and calmer.

Blessed...

If any of you are waiting for your little one to come home... please let me say what I always valued from others...  THE WAIT IS SO WORTH IT!  Our son is one of the most amazing gifts we can ever receive.  He melts our hearts and makes us smile every day!  He is such a wonderful fit for our family, and we can't imagine life without him!