2 Months Update
It’s hard to
believe but we have now been home from China with Joyah for 2 months. So much has changed in the last two
months. Joyah is becoming a “toddler”
with her accomplishments whereas before she was very much in the “baby”
stage. She used to hate trying to walk,
being put on a floor or playing with toys by herself. Joyah is now walking around, climbing stairs,
opening cabinets and doors, and prefers to play by herself much of the
time. She certainly doesn’t want one of
her brothers playing with “her” toys.
Her sleep
patterns have improved greatly and she is able to sleep through the night most
of the time. We still have random nights
of crying at 2am or waking for the day at 4 or 5am but for the most part we
aren’t as fearful of having a bad night’s sleep. Sleep is so wonderful!!
In May,
Joyah visited the eye doctor at Children’s Mercy Hospital. It was determined that she is very
“near-sighted” and will need glasses. At
this time, they did not want to worry about glasses with her and will
re-evaluate in November. If her eyesight has not improved, they will fit her
for glasses at that time.
Over the
course of the past month, Joyah was also evaluated by Missouri First Steps
Early Intervention. It is a program run
by the Missouri Dept of Education that provides therapy services to children
under the age of 3 who are in need of these services due to greatly delayed
areas of development. Joyah is delayed
in many areas but they are concentrating on communication, self-help skills
(feeding) and cognitive developmental abilities at this time. We are so thankful for the help and support
that this program will provide her and for us as her parents. She had her first visit last week in which
they were working on getting her to make certain sounds with her mouth. They reward her work with being able to play
music on a toy or play with a toy in a non-specific way. Oh boy!
The therapist had a very stubborn and unhappy Joyah to work with. It ended up being a long hour. When something is hard for her to do or she
doesn’t want to cooperate, she isn’t a happy camper. Again, I’m so thankful for their help and
encouragement! It’s nice to know that I
have support in working through the tantrums and that they are not giving in
until she accomplishes her task. So, for
1 hour per week, I’m not the only bad guy J
The past two
months have also been filled with a lot of “firsts” for Joyah. First trip to the zoo, first grass to feel,
first pool day, first flowers, animals, baseball games, boat rides, amusement
parks, nature walks, etc. We have
discovered that she loves the wind in her face in the car or boat and seems to
enjoy water quite a bit now. However, we
have also discovered that she has a huge fear of animals, taxidermy, and statue
like characters. I have a feeling she
won’t like the Chic-Fil-A cow either whenever she sees it. Her first trip to the zoo we discovered that
penguins scared her as well as any animal that she was close enough to
see. In China, we discovered she hated
bronze lion statues and monkeys. At
Cabela’s and Bass Pro, she hated the taxidermy animals. Most recently she was scared to death a big
plastic chipmunk inside the Burr Oak Nature Center! There was no convincing her that the cute
chipmunk holding a nut wasn’t going to eat her up. We have no idea how this crazy fear of
animals started but it is certainly something we will have to work
through. We are an animal and nature
loving family so there is no avoiding it.
We are so
thankful to see all the things that Joyah accomplished over the past two
months. Given her medical history, we
weren’t sure we would ever see many of these accomplishments, such as walking. Our God is so faithful though, and He
continues to prove it to us even when life isn’t always going easy.
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| Scary Penguins! |
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| Big Brother Jonas Reading with Joyah |
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| Carousel Ride at Silver Dollar City |
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| Ready for her First Boat Ride-Memorial Weekend 3 Month Update- The New Normal |
Life is
beginning to settle in the McNutt household.
Joyah has been home with us for 3 months now and we are beginning to
feel like a family of 5. For a while it
felt like there was a temporary new child living in our home but after time and
routines have been established, we are beginning to gel as a family.
Joyah continues to make improvements
and accomplish new things. She is
walking much more steadily and is now trying to make new sounds and say words. Her therapy sessions, that help her with
speech and feeding skills, have improved and she has been much more
cooperative. Her tantrums have lessened
but she is still quite opinionated at times with us and her brothers. Joyah also used to scream a lot in the night
and now if she does; it is short-lived and usually doesn’t require us to get
out of bed. Praise God!
Summer time has allowed us to experience several more new
things as a family. Joyah had her first
ice cream cone and she has been swimming, which was scary for her the first few
times but has gotten better. We also took Joyah on her first camping trip over
the July 4th holiday. She
loved the rocks (or rahh-rahhs as she calls them), water, and looking at the
camp fire. Sleeping was a bit rough the
first night as she decided to “play” in bed for three hours in the middle of
the night, shaking the pop–up camper as she jumped up and down. We didn’t dare let her know we were on the
other side of the curtain, however, so we had to bite our tongues and try to
sleep. We are convinced that she must do
this a lot at home too, given the way she looks and acts in the mornings
sometimes. Her sleep patterns are still
quite puzzling.
Even though we still have our many
challenges, we are so thankful to God for the progress that Joyah has made and
for helping us persevere through the journey of family adjustment. God is so faithful!
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| Learning to like animals |
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| Loves the 4-wheeler! |
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| Silly faces with brothers at the zoo |
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| First Ice Cream Cone |
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| Playing on the Camping Trip |
