We have seen so much improvement over the time that we have had Owen here. His vocabulary improves and grows every day! He has started to put words together to form sentences over the last few weeks. He was receiving speech therapy when he lived with his foster parents. When he was assessed here, she said he was ahead for his age. She was very impressed. Same goes for the physical and occupational therapists that assessed him here. All three came to our house only three weeks after Owen moved in. His foster mother told us that he doesn't like to eat anything. However, I can't keep this boy full! Everything she told us, we have had the opposite result. She never brushed his teeth so he hated that at first. Not only does he love brushing now, we also floss every night before bed. He still doesn't love that, but he at least lets me do it without putting up a fight, and tonight he helped me. :) Some things he loves to do: Go see Grammy and Papa, go to church, try to pet the kitties, play outside, eat, cuddle with his "night night" and froggy, (night night was made out of my old blankie, and froggy is a frog head and arms with the small blanket attached that was given to us) read books, play with his friends, talk, sing, and dance!! He also loves learning! He is super smart! You can tell when he is really thinking. He wrinkles his eyebrows together, tilts his head to the side, and says whatever it is that he is thinking, in a questioning tone. For example, when we look at his flash cards, he keeps getting stumped on the zebra. He really thinks, then asks, "horse?" One day, a semi truck drove by. He looked out the window, looked down at his semi truck, then looked at me and said, "same!" We rearranged our bedroom a few weeks ago during nap time. When he woke up and saw it, he pointed in at the bed and said, "Move!" I could go on and on! :)
Our life definitely changed the moment we brought Owen home! I was used to lounging around the house, taking an hour or so to clean my house every day, going where I wanted, when I wanted, doing whatever was on my to-do list at my leisure, getting up whenever and staying in my pj's till noon if I felt like it. When Todd was home on the weekends, we could do the same...just relax at home for the most part. Those days are so far behind us, I can hardly remember what it was like to have "free time" or "me time" at all. Even something as simple as going to the grocery store (or "grokeries" as Owen calls it) isn't so simple any more. I have to make sure the diaper bag is packed full of the essentials, plus snacks, drink, toys, and other things to occupy his time. Heaven forbid we go to close to nap time or there is sure to be a melt down! Let me tell you what a pain it is to just run in for one or two things! If it's raining or snowing, just forget it! I'd rather stay home and stink because I ran out of deodorant or body wash, then run to the store, standing there getting my back soaked while getting Owen out of the car, running inside with a 30 lb toddler on my hip, getting one thing, then doing the same things in reverse. I'm exhausted just thinking about this!
While reading that last paragraph, it may have seemed like I was complaining a little bit. Please hear this loud and clear...I wouldn't trade one single day of this new life with our son for 100 years of my previous "leisurely life!" Sure, I'm exhausted! But by some miracle that only comes from God, I find the energy to get out of bed in the morning, provide meals and other necessities for Owen, and best of all, play all day with him! Is my house clean? Nope! Do I have time for just me? If I'm lucky, only at nap time. (This also explains why, although I keep meaning to, I haven't updated the blog for these two months. I'm struggling to keep my eyes open now at 9:00 pm!) However, like I said, I'm so grateful to be chasing a two year old around the house everyday, to have a sink full of dishes because I haven't had time to unload the dishwasher for a few days, to trip over toys every day, and to have to hurry when getting myself ready in the mornings, so most of the time, my hair ends up in a pony tail so that I can have an extra 45 minutes of sleep! All those things are worth it to me when I'm playing with Owen and he does something super silly, when I put him down for nap or bed at night and he says love you, or "uhv you," the whole way out of the room and down the stairs, even though I say it back every time, or when he has a bad dream and I get to go up and cuddle with him while I rock him back to sleep. In those moments, I am so thankful for my son that I want to cry, and sometimes I do! It's still hard to hold back the tears of pride that swell up in my eyes when someone tells me how perfect he is for our family, or how much he looks like me, or how proud I must be to have such a handsome and well behaved little guy for a son. I just swallow my tears, smile, say "thank you," and think to myself, "if you only knew!"
How did I get so lucky? What did I ever do to deserve a blessing of this magnitude from God? I used to think that God was punishing me for something since I couldn't get pregnant. Boy was I wrong! He wasn't punishing me. He was giving me an even greater gift! If I had just gotten pregnant right away like I wanted, I never would have laid eyes on my son, or even known that this little person existed. I really don't think I would be as grateful either. I'm not saying that no one is thankful for their biological children, I'm just saying that this is different. Kind of like when you appreciate things more when you have to work hard for them, rather then just getting your way all the time. I can't explain it any other way and this does my point no justice! The last few weeks at church we have been talking about "comebacks." I consider this a huge comeback! I felt emotionally dead, my body is broken. That's a tough pill to swallow! But God made a new path for Todd and I. We felt like we would never be able to grow our family or raise children. Even as we went through the motions of getting our license, it was so involved that we couldn't see an end in sight. As soon as we got the call asking us to take Owen, I could feel life slowly coming back into us. We didn't want to get excited too quickly if it was going to fall through again. God gave us another chance, He made a new path for us. I'm so glad God knows what is in our hearts because I have no way to express to Him how thankful I am for this miracle! I love Owen so much, I don't even understand it myself.
Thank you for all the continued thoughts and prayers for us and for Owen! Prayers please that these next four months fly by as quickly as the first two! I can't wait until our son's birth certificate can say Owen Grady Fisher! Also, Owen will be having minor surgery in a few weeks. Please pray that everything goes smoothly and that recovery time will go as quickly as the Dr. says it will! It's going to be painful!
I made a photo book on Shutterfly a few weeks ago. It's mostly pictures from our photo shoot that Todd and I had before we even knew about Owen. The last few pages talk about when we found out about Owen and the first time we met him. I ended the book with an awesome quote that I found. I'll end with that now, because I love it and it makes me cry every time I read it. It is perfect so for us!
"Not flesh of my flesh , or bone of my bone,
but still miraculously my own.
Never forget for a single minute,
you didn't grow under my heart, but in it!"
Megan
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