Home 6 months from China- Oct 2nd!

            A new routine has started in the McNutt home as school has started for the boys and I (Michelle) have gone back to work.  Joyah is now attending daycare twice per week and loves every minute of it.  She receives therapy on the days we are at home either from a therapist or from mommy so going to daycare, I believe, are her “break” days.  She already knows the routines at daycare well and puts herself to sleep for nap.  We are thankful that she is enjoying it and adjusting well.

            At home, Joyah continues to receive speech and occupational therapies.  She is making progress all the time and has been able to say many new words and sounds.  Occupational therapy is still a challenge as she strengthens her mouth muscles and hand control.  Her right hand is difficult for her to use and it takes a lot of thought process to work it.  As part of her therapy, we have to wrap her left hand with an ace bandage so that she is forced to use her right hand.  At first, she hated it, but now, she is even capable of using a fork to feed herself with her right hand!  She loves singing the alphabet song and can say many phonetic sounds.  We are diligently working with her to get her to string the individual sounds together to make complete words.  She’s learning more and more words every day. Right now her favorite word to say is “that” as she points at anything and everything.  Now we just need to get her to put the “What’s” in front of it.

            Recently, it has been very noticeable that Joyah has vision issues as well as some instability when trying to walk and remain balanced.  She will be receiving a full examination by the Children’s Center for Visually Impaired in October in which we should be able to determine what kind of vision she does or doesn’t have.  We were told months ago that she would need glasses but we still don’t know the extent of the help she needs.  It will continue to take quite some time to figure out all the needs that Joyah has and how to help her but God is faithful and continues to be with us every step of the way.  It’s often not an easy task, but we are thankful God chose us to love and help our precious little girl along her way!