Run Over

by a bus.
Errrrrrr
a moving van more accurately.

This my friends,
this is an update a looonnnnnggg time coming.
So
so
incredibly sorry that it has taken me this long.

We came home last Friday,
a week ago today I am just now realizing.

I walked into a base house that we now live in
but that I had never been in before
with stuff that I hadn't seen in 4 months.

New child.
New house.
New recovering child with a new house that needs to be set up.
Oh my.

So how about an update via bullet points?
Giddy up
Here we go.

• He's doing GREAT. 
• The first 24 hours home I had one foot out the door with my purse on my shoulder about to take him to the local ER. He didn't look good, he didn't seem to feel good, he could barely move around. I kept packing up and then rethinking it. He would look a bit better, then worse. Then better, then worse. It was indecision at it's finest.
• I held off and sure enough around day 2 he started to perk up.
• He's doing GREAT. 
• He had a hard time sleeping the first four nights. He told our translators over the phone that he needed the nurses and doctors. Oh bless him. That was heartbreaking. The other nights I think the enormity of his new life was catching up with him. Last night he slept all night.....hence the blog post today. :) 
• Physically he looks incredible. So, so much stronger than I have ever seen him. 
• He slept all night.
• He slept all night.
• He slept all night.
• He is the sweetest little boy, with the cutest little voice. He has no trace of an accent when he speaks English. It's the weirdest thing I have ever seen. Perfectly formed English words coming out of that mouth. 
• Jacob's Mandarin abilities have come back in full force. There is now English, Chinese, and Chinglish(Joey) all around our dinner table.
• His transition home has been nothing short of remarkable. Sans the no sleep it has been amazing. He literally walks around all day smiling from ear to ear. He knows this is love, he knows this is life, he knows he feels better. It has been an incredible thing to witness. He.Is.FREE.
• I feel like I am living in an episode of hoarders in the upstairs hallway. I've gotten 3 out of the four bedrooms set up, downstairs almost complete and a storage shed under the house that I haven't summoned the courage to open yet. I think the minute I see all the boxes that still await me I may just curl up into a ball and rock back and forth. 
• He's smart, inquisitive and is very used to having a staff of nannies follow behind him and clean up his mess. We are....ahem.....working on that last part. 
• In 3 days he will have been in America for one month. The 20 days in the hospital feels like a bit of a time vaccum so I would swear he's only been here a week.
• I can't spell vaccum. 
• Vacuum. 
• Oh look. 
• I did it. 
• Thank you spell check.
• The other boys are completely smitten with him. If you are considering adoption but worried about what it will "do" to your other kids, letmetellya. It will change them. It will change them forever. For the better.  It is by far the best thing we have ever done. We sit across from a table each evening listening to two teenage boys talk to three Chinese boys who 9 months ago were all orphans. Who they now get to love on and play with and talk to. It is remarkable. It has made an eternal difference in their lives and in their perception of this world. HIS world.Hands down adoption has been the best parenting decision we have made.
• Joshua goes back for his first post op check up on Thursday. But in my own largely uneducated medical opinion, it's all systems go. He's doing amazingly well. 
• He begs to go to school each day. 
• We are working on that.
• His new pulmonary valve sits directly on top of his heart. It beats out of his chest. No really. It beats out of his chest. You can visibly see it and feel it. And the only thing separating that valve with the outside world is his skin. And since he is so malnourished there is no fat, no muscle, no nothin protecting him from certain death should he sustain some impact or injury to his chest.
• This scares the life out of me. 
• I am heading to a sporting goods store today to see if I can find an under armor football shirt or something that will at least give him a bit more protection. 
• My dilemma is this: Keep him in a bubble safe at home by himself, or let him live his life. Let him be. Let him go and do and play just like everyone else. I can't treat him like an orphan his whole life, I can't treat him like a sick child, I can't treat him like he is different. He just wants to be him. He wants to run around with his brothers and for the first time in his almost 8 years on this earth he is able to. This is my predicament.
• We.
• Are.
• In.
• Love. 
• I am still amazed at all that has transpired in the last month. He is our miracle. He is our gift. 
• He.Is.Our.Son. 
• He slept all night. 

More updates coming soon, I promise.
I will never
ever
ever
ever
be able to adequately express to all of you what your support has meant to me.

You have carried us for the past year.
Truly.
Your encouragement, your financial help in raising the ransoms of 3 kids who now call me mom, Team Joshua, the dinners, the care packages at the hospital, the unending emails and text messages, the unpacking of this house, I'm tellin ya
we stand amazed.

You have poured out such love and blessing on us and never will I be able to tell you just how much that has meant to us and what a difference you have made.
Joshua and his story is such an example of love. poured. out. Of the body of Christ working together.
Thank you for loving us
thank you for loving him
thank you for making a difference.

We are ever
ever
grateful.