Cleft Palate Clinic Experience

As we tried to corral Ruby into the pew at St. Joseph's church during Mommom's full funeral mass, I realized that being at these big family milestones was something that would tie her into our family. I think that is coming along, but it is a process for the extended family too. 

The social workers like to hear about family rituals as signs of a stable family, and we completed another fall ritual this week by going to a nearby orchard that hosts a fall fun day for kids.  Here are all three little gems riding the tractor-pulled train, wearing their matching hoodies.  Ruby really liked the goats and chickens. I think she is getting used to animals at last.

In the realm of homeschooling, I found some inspiring blogs that reminded me of what is possible.  So the big girls and I headed into the woods for a nature walk, motivated by a scavenger hunt list we found. We tracked down everything but an animal's footprint.

Here Pearl shows the variation in leaf colors we found out there, plus one mammoth oak leaf. The girls seemed to enjoy it, though after a guy working on the road warned us he'd seen tons of snakes, they stuck to the middle of the road and did a lot of fearful squawking.

Yesterday the big girls went to the cop-op with their daddy, and Ruby and I made our way to Lancaster to the Cleft Palate Clinic. On clinic days specialist in cleft issues meet with families. So instead of the family driving from speech therapist to dentist to orthodontist, to hearing specialist, to plastic surgeon, the child just hops into a dentist chair and the specialists come to her. I like the convenience, though we had a very long wait--1h 45 m--to be seen. We're fortunate that we live so close. Some families traveled for hours to be there.

We learned some of what the future holds for her medically. She'll start the first round of braces at 8-10, then a second round a little later, around 12ish. She'll have an outpatient bone graft from her hip to her palate sometime when she's around 10, and she might need tubes in her ears (though I'd like to avoid that). She could choose to have other plastic surgery, though they like to wait until the child is about 17 and the face is done growing to do that.  Just knowing that schedule really helps. We'll go back every six months, so they'll tell us when things need to happen. The specialists were all very impressed with the repairs she had had done in Beijing. It's the type of place where everyone gushes with encouragement, and I wonder if they ever have to share bad news.

Ruby bopped around the waiting room and bumped into kids at all stages of cleft-repair. There was a three week old baby, a nine month old who had just had his lip repair, a nine year old from China, and several other kids. Everyone was very gracious and kind, and they certainly loved Ruby's personality! She nearly emptied the hearing specialist's hand sanitizer bottle as we distracted her from getting earphones put in her ears for a test. The plastic surgeon's two observing interns didn't want to leave without getting high fives from her too.

Self-Regulating Scholar

After a less than pleasant school time Monday, I decided to try a chart, something I had been avoiding. But it seems to work out ok. Pearl is able to see all the subjects we need to get through during the day, and if she can complete them she will earn a half hour or an hour of movie watching. If she fails to check out each box, then she misses out on tv time entirely. The two oldest girls are highly motivated by television, alas. The thought of Sapphire watching anything without her gets Pearl moving, which is exactly what I needed to have happen. After all, one of the reason's I'm homeschooling is to instill a self-motivated love of learning in my children.

Here she broke away from her reward to join us for a walk. The girls are wearing their new t-shirts Nana brought home from NYC.  Photographing three wiggling girls is quite a task!

And here Pearl is enjoying some quiet time and her new collection of felt dolly clothes. Thanks so much Mike and Teri for the welcome-home-Ruby gifts! They have kept her busy during the late afternoon again, as her doll talks to her sister's doll about what to wear. I think sorting them is the most fun.

Pearl and I have also been working on Ruby's lifebook.  This is the book that tells Ruby's story from her perspective (as well as we can), and it helps to explain terms like birthparents and adoption in kid-friendly ways. Adoptive families are encouraged to start sharing these terms with their little ones right away, and reading the words in picture books and the lifebook helps build a foundation for conversations whenever the child needs them.

I found ideas for the content online, and I'm just gluing photos and copy in a red 8 x 8" scrapbook my husband's oldest sister kindly found for the purpose.  The page above explains how much Ruby is loved at her group foster home, and how they will keep her photo (in the bottom left corner) on their wall forever. 

Our family will be gathering tomorrow to celebrate my grandmother's life. If you had met her, she would have instructed you to call her Mom-mom. Her she is at my brother's wedding last year, where I didn't realize that another cousin was also bringing her drinks unbidden, and between us we were sort of overdoing it! Ruby got to meet this great-grandmother only briefly before she died after a brief illness on Saturday.  She was 91. Her obituary is here.