On the home front

I've had the incredible luxury over the last week and a half to have hours at a time with not much to do, freeing me up to sit by Mira's side with my computer while she sleeps. After we go home tomorrow, I do not anticipate my updates and reflections will be quite as frequent, but I will try to keep some sort of regular routine, even if it's just an occasional photo!

Right now, though, seemed like a good time to share a little bit about what's happening at home.

Three times during our hospital stay Matt and I decided to leave Tsvetomira in the care of her (incredible, attentive, caring) nurses for a few hours so we could both be home for supper and bedtime (the first night we tried it was Owen's birthday, and it was so good to both be there for his special day!) This photo was taken Saturday night, which is why Grandma isn't here (she goes to her other son's house for supper every Saturday to give them a regular chance to be with her, and to give our family a regular chance to be just our family.)

 Everyone was laughing to see Mom standing up on the chair to get the whole table in the photo!

Even though its really hard leaving Tsvetomira, we knew it was important for the others to have a bit of normalcy, too.

I have enjoyed evenings with Bogomila. She loves to spend most of her time in her bedroom listening to her music, but is always ready to welcome anyone in (except for the cats!) Over the last two days she has also, on her own initiative begun spending more and more time out with the rest of us at times during the day. But in the evenings when it's a little less busy with the younger children, she and I have had a number of good times together. We're still working primarily through google translate, which I'm guessing may serve to slow down her English acquisition overall, but we're letting it go for now, partly because we're still in survival mode with Mira in the hospital, and partly because she's wanting to engage in conversations complex enough that we don't stand a chance without google translate! Two nights ago she asked me why we decided to adopt her. (That's a big one to do through a less-than-perfect translator! But I did the best I could, and told her we could talk about it more when her English was better. She seemed to follow appropriately, so I think we had a good start.) I love it that she's not afraid to ask some of these questions.

I've had the chance, too, during some of these times, to let her know that it does not make us feel bad at all to know that she's missing people from her past - that she can enjoy her new life and miss parts of her old at the same time, and that it's a good thing. We talked about how for Tsvetomira, coming here is only good, but for Bogomila, there were good things she had to give up in order to have the greater good of a family. I think she gets that, and I'm glad she feels able to express some of those feelings instead of thinking she has to pretend things are the way she thinks we would want them to be.

But mostly we just have a lot of fun building little connections, and laughing over the bungles the translator makes! Names are always the worst, and now one of the easiest ways for me to make her laugh is to call her "Mogo Mila" which is one of the ways voice recognition tried to render her name. Another great way to make her laugh is when I try to repeat back something she's said to me in Bulgarian. ;) Let's just say I'm not a natural when it comes to language acquisition!

It's been neat to see how there are Bulgarian words and phrases that are already becoming part of the general conversation in our home, even when Bogomila is not around! Even the girls' neighbor friend is bringing Bulgarian words home. ;)

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Gloria is doing more and more standing (completely on her own) and walking (holding onto something still, at this point.)

 

Her first words include not only "yes" (whoever heard of a baby whose first word was yes???) but also "da" (which is, of course, yes in Bulgarian!) Other than being extremely needy, she apparently wasn't too badly damaged by mommy's long absence.

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The boys still do not have a bedroom. Matt was cranking on it the week I was gone, well, really, since we got our court date and home coming dates! But everything on all fronts ground to a complete stop after our return to the States. Absolutely nothing has happened. And since the room wasn't done, but Bogomila was moved into her room, that means the boys' stuff is all laying in the new basement, and they are sleeping in the living room. Krassimir is contained between the couch and the wall, and Owen is on the couch.

Good night, Krassimir!

It's not great, but it's working for the time being. We're hoping to get Krassi's bed set up in the new basement so we can have our living room back in the evenings!

We also just learned today that someone from my parents' church is going to come and spend a few days with us not next week, but the week after. She apparently likes to paint! And clean! Having her help for a few days might be just the boost we need to get these guys a lot closer to being settled into their new space.

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Gillette's parent education procedure for g-tubes includes a great demonstration baby doll.

Leah, Rinnah, and Hope (their friend) saw the photo I took, and now are all wishing they had their own g-tube fed baby doll! As you might imagine, the baby dolls around our house have a wide range of interesting stories, depending on the day. Some are begin their "lives" tucked inside the girls' shirts, some are adopted, some have physical disabilities (including, but not limited to the ones that we have in our household), and the appeal of a baby with a g-tube fits right in. I love it that my girls are so eager to incorporate this into their normal everyday play. As time goes on and Mira needs her mic-key replaced, I have a feeling I'll be the surgeon presiding over a few g-tube surgeries around here.

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And, with that, I'm going to publish and head home! I just spend the last 45 minutes talking with one of the doctors who is going to oversee Mira's care moving forward, and had a great time. One of the things I love about every doctor and every nurse I've interfaced with here at Gillette is that not a single one of them thinks they've got this all figured out. Every single one is very open to the uniqueness of each child's case, and the mystery of what the human body is capable of. There are no boxes here, and plenty of room to marvel at the incredible nature of God's design in the creation of the human body.