Haircuts

The very word brings groans and drama from the boys. We have cut our boys' hair about 90% of the time. Last summer when cousin Kevin got married, we took the boys to a barber shop to have it done and have gone back a few times, too.

Dave still waits until we visit Los Angeles to have his dad cut his hair. Usually one of the nights that we are staying at my in-laws' home, Dave and his dad will whip out a folding chair and put down a drop cloth in the kitchen, and take turns cutting each other's hair. If I am in the next room, I hear the clippers humming, the sounds of the shears snipping, all the while with their conversation in the background. While the cutting is happening, they catch up and fellowship. Dave has never paid for a haircut for all the time that we have been married. He now knows how to do it himself (he had to learn since we are farther away from his parents), but I know he prefers to have his dad do it.

I also remember that a college friend of mine told me that his mother was a professional hairdresser. He also balked at the thought of going elsewhere for a haircut. He said simply that he wanted his mother to do it because "I get a haircut, and I get love from my mom."

Nice, right?

So despite the boys' protestations and the mess it makes, I think that Dave and I are persisting with this home cutting thing. Well, at least until one by one they become teenagers and probably won't want us to do it anymore. We'll see.

But I have photographic evidence here that proves it is not that bad once you get in the chair.

You get Daddy's love and skill.

Aaron volunteered to be first :-).

Matthew reading one of the books from the Jedi Apprentice Series (thank you, Debbie, for the recommendation) on his kindle to pass the time.

And hey - Dave even got a smile out of Nathan. I love those tummy wrinkles!

We had a bit of a scare when Dave found two nits on Nathan's hair during the haircut. If you have been following along, you know that the boys have had lice twice in the last few months, with our last infestation just a month or so ago. To our relief, those two nits were flat indicating that they were old and had hatched already (and their spawn eradicated in the last round of medicated shampoo). They also were a bit further out from the scalp as the hair they were attached to had grown out a bit over the last couple of weeks. Phew! I don't know if I could handle another round of lice!

Oh, and this is the alligator that spends time in our sink. I can't remember where Aaron got it (birthday party?) but it's one of those things that grows to be 3 times its size when you soak it in water. It has been grown out and shrunken many times already. Aaron loves that thing. Dave doesn't like it because when it is in its "growing phase," it occupies a much needed sink. Daddy never remembers it's there until he is ready to spit out his toothpaste and has to move to another sink!

No - not brave enough to cut a girl's hair! Lily spent the time in the bathtub (her favorite past time), into which Aaron plopped in after his haircut. She was delighted to be able to have her bath and have the whole family bustling about in the bathroom and keeping her company.

Weekend in Southern California

I alluded to traveling over the time of Lily's birthday. Here is the recap. We went down to So Cal because Dave had to attend the American Academy of Dermatology conference at the San Diego Convention Center.

We got to spend a couple of nights in LA, visiting both Dave's side of the family and mine. It was sweet to have the kids play with the cousins. In San Diego, we stayed with the dear dear Z family. They are wonderful friends of ours. We met them 10 years ago when Dave began his medical residency at UCSD. We only had baby Matthew back then, and we met Jason and Jeanette at fellowship on Sundays. Back then, they didn't have any children yet.

Well - fast forward to now. Though we moved away from San Diego about 8 years ago, we have kept in touch. We now have 4 children, and they have 3. All the kids got along swimmingly, and it is beautiful how they can just kind of pick up and play together no matter how intermittent our gatherings are.

The Z's have an incredible wonderland for kids in their backyard.

My kids especially enjoyed the giant trampoline.

And the zipline. . .

But most of all, just being with friends and hanging out together. The weather was awful (for San Diego) forcing us to stay close to home and not plan any big outings. It was actually a blessing to be able to rest and not feel like we should be doing something else. Jeanette and I got to catch up. It is always encouraging being with the Z family.

Here you see Matthew and A (the Z's oldest son)together. The sweetest thing was the first night we were there, A volunteered to pray. In his prayer, he thanked the Lord that the Peng family could come and stay and that he could play with "the cousins." It took me a moment to realize that he was talking about my kids. Cousins of the heart.

The crown of our visit, though, was an extra special treat. An unexpected opportunity to get together with another sister in Christ who also used to meet at that same fellowship in San Diego way back when. Nicole has since moved on to marry and move to the east coast and have 2 beautiful children. Nicole's husband, Kent, is also a dermatologist - thus the totally unexpected "same place at the same time" divine appointment. K was attending the same AAD conference as Dave.

That's Jeanette on the left, and then me, and then Nicole holding her baby Everett on the right.

We haven't all been together for the last 8 years. It was so wonderful (although too short) to catch up a bit and fellowship together.

There were many many stones in the front yard and I challenged the children to find the roundest one.

I feel so thankful for the family of God. I feel blessed that my children can also have this heritage of so many families praying for them and loving them from afar.

Lily Turns 2!

This is overdue! Lily turned 2 on March 20th, which was Tuesday - and that was a travel day for us (more on that later).

We were able to celebrate all the March birthdays with Dave's and my extended family last weekend (Matthew, both grandpa's, cousin Tabby, and Lily are all born in March!), but we had a very intimate little celebration Saturday night with just the dear K family, a homemade cake and candles.

You can see how Lily is a little unsure here about what the commotion is all about.

But then she started to enjoy herself.

Lily's 2nd birthday! And her first at home.
We are so blessed to have her here! My heart aches a bit to think of her passing her first birthday last year in China without us. It was at that time that we first saw her file and her beautiful face for the first time. So so thankful now for her - cannot imagine our family without her.

"Lest We Forget"

She came tonight as I sat alone,
The girl I used to be...
And she gazed at me with her earnest eye
And questioned reproachfully:
Have you forgotten the many plans
And hopes that I had for you?
The great career, the splendid fame,
All the wonderful things to do?
Where is the mansion of stately height
With all of its gardens rare?
The silken robes that I dreamed for you
And the jewels in your hair?
And as she spoke, I was very sad
For I wanted her pleased with me...
This slender girl from the shadowy past,
The girl that I used to be.
So gently rising, I took her hand,
And guided her up the stair,
Where peacefully sleeping, my babies lay
Innocent, sweet, and fair.
And I told her that these are my only gems,
And precious they are to me;
That silken robe is my motherhood
Of costly simplicity.
And my mansion of stately height is love,
And the only career I know
Is serving each day in these sheltered walls
For the dear ones who come and go.
And as I spoke to my shadowy guest,
She smiled through her tears at me.
And I saw that the woman that I am now
Pleased the girl that I used to be.
—Rowena K. Lewis

Wordless Wednesday

Cranio Facial Team Appointment

Another one of Lily's favorite things to play with: a box!

It has been a little more than 3 months since Lily's palate surgery, and a little over 5 months since the last time we had a team appointment at UCSF.

Just to give you a little idea of how crazy life can be at our house. . .
Dave and I had planned a while ago that both of us would be there are her appointment. We asked 5 months ago for a Monday appointment since Dave's Mondays are a bit more flexible schedule-wise. So, Monday, March 12th at 8:30 am has been on our calendar for literally months. We had made arrangements to drop off the two older boys at a family friend's house at 7am so that they could drive the boys to Chinese school which starts at 8:30am. We had made arrangements with another family to pick up the boys at noon. These team appointments can be long, so we were not sure when we could come back to pick up the boys. Aaron, of course, would be in tow, armed with his trusty iPad to pass away the time at the clinic.

But our whole plan went into file 13 though.
At about midnight on Sunday night, Dave and I noticed a glub glub sound coming from our bathroom. Then sewage started backing up out of our master bedroom toilet. When Dave investigated outside, he saw that sewage would make a puddle in our side yard every time there was a flush. Dave, bless his heart, was the one who cleaned up the back up on our bathroom floor. Thankfully it did not reach the carpet. I told Dave that I HAD to go to sleep as we decided Dave would stay home the next morning to call the plumber. I knew that I had to wake up at 6:30am at the latest (which would feel like 5:30 because of the time change just the day before) in order to get on the road by 7am in order to get to UCSF with ample time to park (not an easy feat) and walk to the clinic. I half slept while hearing Dave exclaim and mutter every now and then, "This is so gross," as he was on his hands and knees wiping up and disinfecting the mess in the adjoining bathroom. Yes, I have a wonderful husband!

Anyway, Dave ended up taking the boys to school and keeping Aarbear. Lily and I went on our merry way the next morning and made it to the clinic on time.

We saw the speech pathologist, the geneticist, the dentist, and the plastic surgeon. I won't bore you with too many details. . . but basically, here is the news:
1) No fistula! Woohoo - you know we were worried about this. The two little holes near her gumline are supposed to be there and will be repaired with the bone graft when she is 8 or 9 years old.
2) The geneticist feels that since Lily is developing well over all and making good progress (and the fact that her microarray came back negative) that the cleft is an isolated issue. He says he will see her at one of her regular team appointments in 18 months! Yahoo!
3) The speech pathologist is concerned that Lily's palate may be too short. It was hard to get speech samples because my Lily girl was very apprehensive of strange people asking her to perform on cue. Doctor's offices are places of suspicion (understandably so!). However, I told a bit to the pathologist about how Lily has not had many new sounds, even since her palate repair. She took a look (while Lily screamed bloody murder) and said that the palate looks "a little short." The concern is that if it is too short, she may have something called velopharyngeal insufficiency - which basically means she will not be able to block air from escaping into her nasal cavity which will make her unable to produce many sounds. The only consonant sounds that Lily can make right now are: m, n, w, l (kind of), y and b (although it sounds more like m).
4) But then, when the plastic surgeons and the dentist looked at her, they said that her palate looked ok - for sure not a cut and dry case where we could say it is too short. Also, they said that 3 months post op is way too soon to tell. And that since she had her surgery later (21 months as opposed to most U.S. born cleft babies have their palates repaired by their first birthday), the speech would be slower in coming. The muscles would also be slower in functioning properly. When I asked Dr. P, "So. . . it is too soon to worry." He answered very reassuringly, "Don't worry."

Ha! I am trying not to :-).
I have to admit I was a bit teary when I heard that my daughter may have VPI and need another surgery to correct it. I think that I just need to trust the Lord with this. I have been praying, "Lord, please help Lily to learn how to talk." But I think now I should change my prayer to, "Lord, please give me peace to trust You to take care of Lily."

When I shared some of this with a friend, she told me, "Lily is happy and loved."

Yes, that is true. She is both of those things.

We are going to try a short course (6-8 weeks) of speech therapy with a speech therapist who is familiar with clefts. We should know more at the end of that time. VPI is difficult to diagnose, and there is nothing that the surgeon would do at this point even if we knew for sure for sure that she has it. It would be likely close to a year before operating on her again. So - the Lord is asking me to wait on Him. Have I told you how I really stink at waiting? I do. There is nothing to be done but wait.

And trust Him.
And love on Lily, and nurture her and communicate with her in our own special way. The girl is VERY communicative, even without a lot of spoken words.

If you remember, please pray for Lily (and me - I think that all of this is showing me, it's ME not her that is having a hard time with this). I know that the Lord has special grace for little girls and moms of many children.

The Two Littlest Ones

When Matthew and Nathan are gone in the mornings at Chinese class. I just have these two little loves with me.

This is the face Lily makes if she sees me with the camera. "Cheese."

Much better.

I don't know why, but I love these little jelly shoes. I remember how these were "in" when I was in sixth grade. This pair were hand me downs from another mama to girls.

Lately, though, Lily has had a bit of a love/hate relationship with shoes. My other kids went through this phase too. Anytime we go anywhere in the car, by the time we reach our destination - both shoes and socks have been taken off and strewn all around. But. . . she will still continually try on her different pairs of shoes when we are at home. She also still tries on everyone else's shoes, too, and tries to walk around with them on.


Airplane overhead! This wagon is one of Lily's favorite toys these days. She loves to sit in it, would prefer to have someone with her in there, and have me (or an obliging big brother) pull her around. Sometimes she asks me to sit in it and will try to pull me around :-).

Another favorite toy these days. Plasma car that was given to us by the Yee family when we got our travel approval to go to China. She has figured out how to drive it and likes to go all over the place with it.

And here's Aaron! Sweet little big brother. He is very protective of Lily, and jealous for her affections. He will get into a funk if it seems like she is paying more attention to someone else.

He is strong and agile enough now to dig with this big shovel in our backyard. And quite proud of himself, too. He asked me to snap this photo of him digging :-).

Aaron has been so patient. Many times, he is the only one unfortunate enough to have to accompany Lily to her medical appointments. He never complains. He always asks, "Is she going to have a shot? Is she going to have something that hurts?" He has had more doctor's visits with her than I think he has had in his entire life.

Hope you are having a great Sunday!

Nit-picking from a Couple of Weeks Ago

What in the world is Dave doing here?

Nitpicking.
Yes, literally nit picking.
We have had our second infestation of lice in 4 months :-(.
Our dear family friends found out they had it first, and since our kids had been playing together that last weekend, we decided to check our kids. . . and we had them, too.
After the lice shampoo and combing with a special comb, Dave went through wearing his special "loops" he wears to do surgery to have a magnified view of our scalps.
We invited our friends over for a nit picking party. That's John holding the flashlight for Dave, and his son, Nicholas who is being nitpicked. Nickyu's brother, Justin, is looking on.

Thankfully, we are all in the clear now :-).

The funniest thing is that now Lily thinks that this is just a normal part of life. She will routinely come up to me and ask me to check her hair for lice :-).

Links I Love

Thinking of adopting? Worried about the cost? Maybe you want to, but your husband is more hesitant? Check out this youtube vid by an adoptive father. . .


Also, I love the band Sanctus Real. Here is a song sung by the lead singer, Matt Hammitt. His baby boy was diagnosed with heart defects in utero. This inspired him to write this song - "All of Me." Although Lily doesn't have heart defects, she does have some special needs. This song reminds me not to hold back in loving her - just the way she is - even if she never becomes a "typically developing" child.


Are you a mama who is suffering some sleep deprivation? Kids got you up at night?
Here is a wonderful perspective written by Linny from A Place Called Simplicity (on my sidebar, one of the blogs I love to read).

Some artwork by my 2 big boys

We had a rough month in February - but so thankful for God's amazing grace at all times.
Some things we have been up to. . .

Matthew and Nathan have been studying artists and imitating their techniques at their homeschooling co-op (Classical Conversations). I thought they did a beautiful job with watercolors.

This is Nathan's version of an Andrew Wyeth painting. It shows a house with snow falling. The snow was made by dabbing rubber cement on his original drawing. When you do watercolor over it, the rubber cement resists the paint. After the watercolors dry, you can rub off the rubber cement very easily.

This is Matthew doing a watercolor in the style of Georgia O'Keefe. Right when he showed it to me, I knew - Georgia O'Keefe - the lady who paints huge flowers.

Clarification

I realized that I wasn't that clear about Lily's surgery.

The photo from two posts ago shows her surgery site. Those three little steristrips show where her hernia was repaired laparoscopically. That means that the surgeon made pin sized puncture wounds and used something like a very thin metal "arm" that could go on and sew up where the defect was and push and pull everything back to where it belongs. They also inflate the abdominal area with air so that they can work in there. A small camera was inserted through an incision made in her belly button so that Dr. Bruzoni could see what he was doing. If you go back and look at the photo you will see some redness and stitches in Lily's navel. Laparoscopic surgery is less invasive and quite amazing! Also with the camera, Dr. Bruzoni was able to see that Lily also had an umbilical hernia that he was able to repair while he was doing the inguinal ones.

If you look at where the steri strips are, you can see that her hernias were located at her lower abdomen. We got photos that were taken during surgery, and Dr. Bruzoni showed me Lily's ovaries and her uterus. Very incredible to see them. And wow! She's really a girl :-). Just quite cool to see her girl organs as it were.

I apologize if this is super medical and technical. I realized based on a comment left that I wasn't very clear. And being the kind of person who likes to understand what is going on, I thought I would share what has been explained to me.

A commentary about comments

I am blessed by your comments.
I know that it is not the easiest to leave comments on a blog in comparison o Facebook or Instagram (I'm not on Facebook so I am taking people's word for it), so I appreciate it deeply when you take the extra time to respond and leave me a message :-).

I read every single comment, and am truly encouraged by each and every one.

Speaking of instagram, if you have an iPhone you can follow me there too. My user name is chenningpeng.

More surgery pics

This documents the worst of it (hopefully Lily will simply be getting better and better!).

Lily is happier today, now that the anesthesia has left her system. She is having trouble sitting up from a lying down position and taking the steps up from our family room to the kitchen. She is notably subdued, wants to be held and is sitting quietly to watch tv. I am kind of enjoying this calmer version of Lily.

I had a friend tell me that I seem to take this all in stride as I was describing all of the medical care Lily has had and will have. The truth is, I don't take it in stride :-(. It is very very hard emotionally and physically to go through these things with your child :-(. I have been more stressed and anxious is recent months than ever before. I catch myself worrying about all of Lily's future procedures, her speech therapy and early intervention therapies, and more.

Of course there is so much joy and sweetness that makes it so worth it. It is absolutely a privilege to have a little person grow to trust and love you. The best.

And the Lord is holding us together and sustaining us. Today has enough worries of its own. Another friend reminded me that we need to daily surrender ourselves (and our children) to Him, and also when trials or difficulties or bad news comes, the Lord is not surprised by any of it. He knows and will be there through all of it.

In a couple of weeks Lily will have her appointment with the Cranio facial team at Ucsf again. It will be the first time Dr. Hoffman, her plastic surgeon, will see her healed palate. Please pray for this as Dave and I suspect that a fistula (or fissure) has formed near her gum line :-(. If that is so, it means a second palate repair sometime this year. We are not sure of course since (1) Lily doesn't let us look too long in mouth and (2) we don't quite know what we are looking for or how it is supposed to look. So there is a chance that everything is actually ok. I pray that that is so, but if not, I remind myself of what I wrote in the previous paragraph.

Hernia surgery

We are home. Everything went smoothly. Thank you for your prayers!

The only hitch was that Lily's surgery was delayed almost 2 hours. The surgery before hers got misbooked (is that a word?) and thus the delay. We arrived at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at 7:15 am and she did not go into the OR until nearly 10:30am. My worry was that she was going to start getting hungry and thirsty (having not eaten or drunk anything since 8pm last night). But thank the Lord - it really was an answer to prayer, she waited patiently and did not once ask for food or water :-).

The surgery was successful and dr. Bruzoni (whom we love) also found that Lily had an umbilical hernia too that he repaired on the way out. I have some more photos I can share later.

Pray for a restful night. Lily is crabby ad achey from anesthesia and surgery.

Love,
Chenning