My little stud muffin

Most of you who know me know that I hate sports!!!! But I LOVE watching Andrew play football. This is his first year of pee wee football and it is his 'thing' without a doubt. He has played baseball for two years and is usually lifeless on the field. But football is another story. He is really getting into this tackling stuff. I guess I better change my music, I don't think Andrew would appreciated "Dancing Queen" playing while he is at the top of the blog. I'm thinking "We are the Champions" by Queen. I'm open to other suggestions of music to go along with this post.

WOW....

Here's a blog to those of you who think Ted and I are "special people"....this family knocked my socks off: http://findinghiddentreasures.blogspot.com/ Also....I almost fell off of my chair today when I was going through Reece's Other Angel's website (this is the site that we first learned about Rita) and saw two of Rita's friends listed "Hallie" and "Garret"......go check them out, they are both adorable: http://www.reecesrainbow.com/otherangels.htm , then click on 'girl or by angels.' If anyone has an extra 26K laying around let me know and we'll start the paperwork for one of them today!!! I'm so glad that Armenia has lowered their fees for the special needs kids. If you remember Rita's adoption was 35K (and worth every penny).

Soccer Queens

Okay I couldn't resist adding "Dancing Queen" to my blog, but the song fits for these girls. They are having the 'time of their lives.' Natalie and Rita had their first soccer games this week. Natalie is a natural athlete, like her aunt Sandy (we all know that she sure didn't get it from me!!) Rita's age group is hilarious to watch. I was surprised how much she got into chasing the ball down. I think there are 9 or 10 kids on the team. Only one kid knows what the heck is going on and the rest are day dreaming, crying or kicking the ball in any direction...not necessarily the right direction.
Soccer Queen #1
Soccer Queen #2
I can't forget the little ones. They both started preschool this week. Audrey is 4 and will be going 4 half day with the intentions of going to kindergarten next year. Paul is 3 and will be going 2 half days knowing that he'll have another year of preschool. Paul is very speech delayed, so thankfully he qualified for county services in junction with the preschool. It is obvious that he is a smart boy but basically only mom can understand him.

Finally........

So Ted finally got down and dirty with Verizon and those of you who know Ted, knows that it takes alot to get him fired up. He called and insisted that somebody do something about our lack of internet. He explained that he had spent hours on the phone with people from India who got him no where. Apparently there is a secret group of tech support people in Canada that most people don't know about. His call was transferred to Canada and some lady pushed a few buttons on her end, told Ted to push a few buttons on his end and POOF......we now have internet again. Modem #3 never did show up, which doesn't matter now since, there is obviously nothing wrong with modem #1 or #2.

Anyways here's a few pictures to hold you over until I have time to sit down a type a little bit more.

Rita's beloved Anna.........Hello was great!!!!

But......Good-bye was not so great!!Thankfully, we had lots of fun in between "Hello" and "Good-Bye."
Anna's family spoiled all of us with lots of gifts.Rita and Anna fell right into their old friendship. I wished we lived closer to Anna and her family. Introducing our newest family member......Mulan (notice Rita's new hair cute....she wanted it cut because it was too hot for her...it is so much easier to take care of at this length...plus I think Rita looks pretty darn cute).
Mulan is "loved" just a little bit too much around here. This picture reminds me of a scene from Of Mice and Men........."George, the rabbits are so soft, I just want to pet them and love them."

The first day of school. Rita was so excited and is still totally loving school.
I can't forget Andrew's 10th birthday. I swear I was just pregnant with this kid....honestly, where does the time go?

Things that make you go hmmmm?

Who remembers that song from the early 90's....."things that make you go hmmm"? We are nearing the 3 week mark of being in our new house and we still don't have internet. Yes..I'm addicted to the internet. I love following other adoption blogs and keeping up with the yahoo groups that I belong to (all adoption related too). When we moved we decided to do a bundle with Verizon...phone, dish TV and internet. Well the phones and TV's all work great but we having major problems with the internet. The biggest problem is that all technical calls go to India...ughhhh. Yesterday, as I was sitting on my front step in small town Ohio, a Verizon service truck went past our house with an advertisement for high speed internet on his door. I thought.....hmmmm...."If this guy driving past my house is advertising Verizon internet, then why do have to call all of the way to India to get any help. The friendly people from India now think that our 2nd modem is also bad, so we are now waiting for modem #3. I promise I will post pictures the minute I am on the computer at home.

Enough complaining. The kids went back to school yesterday....yip, yip, yipee!!!!! I just have to share a defining moment in my life. You all know those moments...the ones that get you right in the heart (sometimes good and sometimes bad). Yesterday was Rita's first day of school. She was so excited. She had went to the open house last week to meet her new teacher. Thankfully she has the same teacher that Natalie had last year, Mrs. Eilerman. Rita was pretty hyper that night. I had sent an email to Mrs. E telling her that I was very happy that Rita was going to have her but I also felt like I should give her a heads-up on some of Rita's behaviors. My best advice to Mrs. E. was to not cut her any slack and when she gets out of line to look her right in the eye and say "Rita you NEED to listen." Last, I told Mrs. E that she would enjoy watching Rita grow over this school year. I look back at the last 3 months with her and can't believe how far she has come in such a short time.

Well, Andrew, Natalie and Rita all woke up excited for school. Everyone was ready plenty early so of course I wanted to get those first day of school pictures. Rita was so happy and then had a sad moment. She was missing her friends from Armenia. I took her aside and told her that I knew that G-mama (her favorite caretaker) would be so proud of her today. She agreed "Yes, G-mama would be so happy for Rita to go to school." We loaded up in the van. I had told her the night before that mom would just drop her off at the sidewalk at school and Natalie would take her to her classroom. I didn't want to take her inside to avoid any separation issues. She hopped out of the van with a "good-bye mom......how many hours until mama picks Rita up?" She always wants to know how many hours when I leave her anywhere, anytime. Audrey, Paul and I drove away, off to enjoy our peaceful day. I thought about Rita all day long wondering how her day was going. Every time the phone rang, I ran to it thinking that it was the school and Rita was having a crisis of some sort. Nope.....I went back to the school just before they let out. I decided to park the car and walk up to the courtyard area. One of the aides was already out waiting for the kids, she said that it looked like Rita was having a good day any of the times that she had saw her. Natalie had been asked to pick Rita up at her room (their rooms are right beside of each other). Both girls came out together but as soon as Rita saw me she started running full speed. She was squealing in total delight "mama, mama, mama, I love you, I love school." Everyone was staring but hey, who cares. I bent down and scooped her up with a HUGE lump in my throat and my heart about to burst. It is an amazing feeling for me to know that this little person from such humble beginnings loves me so much. It is really hard for me to put in words this joyful moment. Once we were done hugging she said "Mom, Rita good girl." Natalie had caught up with us by then and she said "yes, Mrs. E. said to tell mom that Rita was good and had a good day." When we got home she had to get her "home" folder out right away and she told me that she HAD to take it back to school tomorrow (to me this meant that she had been paying attention to the teacher's instructions). There was a note from Mrs. E saying what a great day Rita had. She said that Rita seemed a little confused when she was instructing the entire class but once she told her what to do individually she seemed to understand what Mrs. E. was saying. I can't wait to share pictures from her first day of school...plus our visit with her best friend from the orphanage. I still need to share pictures from Andrew's 10th birthday too. This whole moving thing has thrown me for a loop.

"I LOVE bible school!!"......quote from Rita

First of all, I have to send out a HUGE thanks to my internet friend Cynthia for spicing up my blog. Cynthia and her husband are just waiting to bring home their cute, cute son Nathan home from China. Much like us they are doing their 3rd adoption over a fairly short period of time. They also have big hearts for special needs kiddos. Nathan has a limb difference.....did I mention that he is cute!! I had been telling Cynthia that he was the second cutest boy from China ( 2nd only to Paul) but I finally realized there is most definitely a tie in cuteness between Paul and Nathan. Anyways, Cynthia is doing online raffles to fund raise for Nathan's adoption. I've been there....done that....with adoption fundraising and don't envy her one bit!!! Since I am for the most part done selling lia sophia jewelry I offered to donate some of my extra jewelry for her raffles. In return she spiced up my very boring blog.....isn't just awesome. To read more about their family and what Cynthia is doing for fundraising run right over to her blog.....http://www.underthemistymountain.blogspot.com/ (p.s. check back at a later date to check out the jewlery, she has other cool stuff listed right now). Even if Rita is our last child, I know that I will continue to support other adoptive families in anyway possible. Just this morning I read a great "editor's letter" from Parents magazine. The editor herself has a daughter adopted from China. Here's a blurb from her letter "According to a national poll nearly 81.5 million people have considered adoption and 63% of all Americans think positively about it. Yet very few families actually do it. Some are afraid they won't love "someone else's child." Others feel that it's unpredictable.........Some parents worry that adoption is expensive (yes, it can be, but it costs less than a new car-and almost 8 million of those were bought in '07)..........So if your dealing with fertility issues, or if you plan on having another child, or if you're the type that of parent who gets choked up about all the injustice in the world (that would be me!!!!), then I'd urge you to take another look at the adoption option. Just believe in the transformative power of your love. I promise, it's enough." Sally Lee Editor-in-chief. All right, I'll get off of my adoption soap box (for now anyways ;o) Last week was our church's vacation bible school. Once again, Rita had a blast. Here she is opening the VBS closing program with an Armenian prayer. She was so excited to be behind the microphone and so proud of her Armenian prayer. I had asked her what it means in English and she said "I don't know....mmmm.....no sick, be happy" Sounds like a good prayer to me!!
Audrey and Paul's class did a demonstration with water and food coloring on how Jesus can forgive us of our sins.
Paul was just thrilled to be able to go this VBS (remember early in the summer the girls went to one that he was too young for). He went to VBS in underwear every night and never had an accident!!! YEAH!!!!!
What can you say about Natalie.....love just oozes from her at all times.
Andrew invited his friend Trey to the VBS closing program. Then Trey was roped into helping with Andrew's class skit. He was a good sport about the whole thing.

What's new with the Homan's???? Paint, paint and more paint. I'll be so glad to done painting the new house. I think we're shooting for moving in next weekend. Then I go back to work the following week 2 days and Rita has her eye surgery scheduled for the same week. So we'll be just a little busy. I cleaned every body's teeth on Saturday. We found that Rita has a mouth full of cavities but thankfully Dr. Ben just recommended filling 2 of them. The other ones are fairly small and we'll just keep an eye on them. Today she had the fillings done. She did fantastic!!! She had to have shots in 2 different areas of the mouth. I thought for sure she would scream and carry on but she just squirmed a little during the injections. She hated the taste of everything but loved that Dr. Ben made her "brown ouch tooth white." She also hated that numb feeling on her lip and made everybody in the office touch her lip to see if anyone else thought it felt as fat as she thought it did. I even stopped in the other doctor's room to see one of my regular hygiene patients and Rita made her feel her upper lip. Too funny. Okay, now that you're done reading my blog it's time to head over to Cynthia's!!!

Our trip to Children's

The beautiful "little arm." We believe that Rita did receive very negative comments (from an evil adult) while she was still in the orphanage. She likes for me to reassure her that I love her "little arm"...I do and I kiss it and act very silly acting like I'm talking to arm dramatically saying "I love you little arm!!! These are pictures that we received when we were considering Rita's file. Now that Rita is home you would never she her two little fingers that have nails without nail polish. Also when Rita is counting to Ten she can still count to five on this hand. One is her wrist bone, two is her 'thumb-nubbin' and then her 3 fingers 3-4-5. Just yesterday we learned that Rita could move her wrist (she can't move her fingers but she does use them all of the time for 'hooks'. One of Andrew's friends met Rita for the first time and said to Andrew "Hey dude, can your sister move that little hand." Rita smiled real big and started moving her wrist....it kind of looked liked she was 'flapping' her little hand. It was so cute and we all made a big fuss over her and she just beamed!!!

Today was a big day for Rita. She saw 2 doctors, 2 residents, 8-10 nurses/radio-techs, had 5 X-rays, an ultra-sound and had her eyes dilated....all in just under 3 hours. We were so busy running around Children's that we didn't even have time to go the bathroom until Rita HAD to go pee half of the way through the ultra-sound at the request of the radiologist tech. We loved her orthopedic doctor, Dr. Albert. When we told him that Rita was from Armenia he thought for a minute and then shared a story. He said "About 20 years ago when I was doing my residency in Philadelphia I took a helicopter with other orthopedic doctors to Washington D.C. We worked on many Armenians who had been in a terrible earthquake who needed major orthopedic help. The patients I saw were in very rough conditions...it was quite tragic. But I'll never forget this one older women who was so cold and I gave her my gloves. She was so grateful for my small gift that she gave me a tomato out of her bag." I told him that sounded like a true Armenian bearing tomatoes. It reminded me of Rita's friend on our flight from Yerevan to London who packed his own tomatoes and cucumbers because the airplane food was so bad. Rita was thrilled when he shared his food because she was also grossed out by the airplane food. I told Dr. Albert that Rita was from Gyumri, right where the earthquake happened 20 years ago. I told him that all over the city you can still see the devastation of the earthquake to this very day. After this conversation I knew that Dr. Albert was "our kind of guy." Anyways I'm not sure if he gave me a final diagnoses or not. He used lots of big words...I think I only caught about half of them. She has her chest muscle so I think that rules out Polland syndrome (what I suspected but I didn't ask). What I did catch was "radial club hand, with missing thumb and finger, fused shoulder something or other and webbed armpit...all of this with minor scoliosis. I told him that Rita was still very concerned that he was going to cut her arm off and sew a new one on ( a fear that developed from well meaning but nosey adults in Armenia) now that she is in America. He told her right to her face that he was NOT going to cut her arm off and she was very happy!!!! At this point his main concern is the scoliosis. He said that she is not a candidate for any limb lengthening procedures. He thought the pain in her lower left ribs was coming from the bones being deformed in that area and just irritating the surrounding tissues. He said that when she is older and she so chooses she may want to consider a type of "slip on prosthesis." But she would still have limited success with that because of having no shoulder rotation. He was also concerned about her bladder and kidneys stating that the limbs and kidneys for during the same time in utero. That many kids with deformed limbs have missing or deformed kidneys. He said that if she hasn't had any problems by now she was probably okay but it would still be a good idea to know what those organs looked like. The radiology tech confirmed two kidneys but could say much else. It did seems like she had a hard time getting a view of the left kidney but she said that was because of Rita's deformities. On a side note Rita told the tech "Hey you, knock it off..you make me pee"...when she was trying to get a view of Rita's bladder. I remember having ultra sounds when I was pregnant thinking for sure that I would pee right on that table because they had to push so hard!! Dr. Albert didn't have the results of the ultra-sound today so he will be in touch. He said that if everything was okay with the ultra-sound that he would just want to see her again in 6 months to monitor the scoliosis. When I looked at her x-rays I thought her spine looked bad but what do I know???

Then we were off to see Dr. Bloom. We literally ran through the halls to make our scheduled appointment time. Our family optometrist was 99% sure that Rita would need eye surgery. Once again Rita passed her vision exam with flying colors. Her English is so amazing that the nurse could use numbers verses just four weeks ago Dr. Dickman had to use the E's (E's arm's pointing this way or that way okay now that way or this way). She then had to have her eyes dilated which stinks for an adult so I can only imagine how annoying it is for a kid. The doctor came in and then put more dilating drops in so that poor girl was still dilated when she went to bed at 10:00 tonight!! Dr. Bloom confirmed that surgery was the only option for her strabismis. Because so many have asked us why not glasses or patches or vision therapy I asked the doctor if Rita would have been treated at a younger age could we have avoided surgery. He explained that even if he would have seen her as a baby her strabismis is such that surgery is her only option. He said that his part of the surgery would only take 15 minutes and that is was out patient. He said the main thing to keep in mind is that because of her age she is at higher risk for the first surgery not "taking" and her needing a second surgery. So his surgery office is supposed to call and schedule the surgery tomorrow. I have to admit Rita was quite a trooper today. I was very proud of her.