An Update from Mama

Hey all.  I must warn you up front, I (Melissa) am writing the blog tonight so don't expect the normal wit and great writing that you usually receive from Travis.  :)This blog is about Tyson so I'll just jump right in to it.  Ty is doing really well.  He had surgery and it was a rough road for a while there.  He wouldn't take his pain medicine and was in bad shape.  You know those plastic surgery patients that you see on t.v., the ones with the black and blue eyes and lots of swelling?  Well, just imagine that scenario on the face of our tiny little guy.  Poor thing.  The two or three weeks following surgery Tyson was just generally grumpy.  We think that he was really mad at us and we felt like he took a few steps back in the bonding department.  Good news now though, things are back to normal.  He's his normal, happy, active little self.   His speech hasn't changed much but his palate is now 'together' as h

e puts it.  Immediately before the surge

ry Ty would tell other people to say 'ahh' so he could see if anyone else had a hole in their mouths and needed surgery.  After the surgery he was proud to show off

 his 'together' mouth and still asked for some 'ahhs' in case there was still a hole out there somewhere.

The last few weeks have brought about a lot of progress for Ty.  He's been to two birthday parties and loved every moment of them.  Twice a week he goes to speech therapy.  Tomorrow morning he will have an assessment for preschool.  This Sunday

 has to be mentioned.  Thanks to a very patient friend (Ashley), Tyson went to Sunday school!  This marked his first significant time away from Trav and I without being with

 another family member.  We just couldn't be happier!

Chinese New Year was less than two weeks after surgery so we had a small get together in celebration.  Ty had just had the packing taken out of the roof of his mouth but still had a face full of stitches and blood, but still loved it.  I think that our attempts at this traditional party fleshed out to look something like a Chinese New Year/American New Year/birthday party event.  We

 tried our best and hope it is memorable to him.  Our decorations were from Party City, our food was a mix of Chinese and American and our 7 candies were mostly American (including some sugar-filled Fun Dip).  

Of course we are just typical proud parents but we really do think he's bright. He's picking up new words every day.  My friend Andrea asked a few weeks ago how I thought that he was like me and I didn't have any good answers.  Just a few days later I realized 

that he has a lot of my dramatic mannerisms.  All day long he says, 'come on mama, let's go mama, oh jeez and oh man.'  With a very emphatic nod of his head he  rolls his eyes at whatever he wants to silently comment on.  Silence is not something we get much of, thankfully of course

.  Our little chatter bug just never stops talking.  I often have to interpret his mixture of snuffely Mandarin and 4 year old English for others.  He loves to recount his time away from me.  What a hoot.

Today it snowed, well, Virginia Beach's version of snow.  When he looked at my car he said 'snowman on mama's car'. (My Aunt Deb and Uncle Georgie bought him the Frosty the Snowman book for Christmas so if you even say the word sn

ow he sings the song over and over.  He just can't understand that there is a differnce between snow and a snowman, too funny.) There was really only a little snow and ice but to him it was a thing of magic.  Even tho

ugh the snow was only on the grass and cars I still took him out to play in it.  Mostly he just

 kicked icicles off of our cars.  Towards the end of our play time I suggested that 

he take his glove off and touch the snow.  He said 'aww yucky'.  That's his g

eneral term for anything wet or actually yucky.

Sometimes he does things out of nowhere.  A few days ago Tyson was eating lunch and when he finished he popped off of the chair and ran for the tape measure.  He then measured himself.  I can only assume that someone told him he would grow to be a big boy if he ate all of his food.  Who knows.  Now he does it after almost every meal.  

We're all still enjoying life in Va Beach.  Trav's mom and dad are close by and watch him when I go to work on Mondays.  He loves to hit the beach or just hang out with them.  Ty is stil

l adjusting to life in the US and being a

 Jacques but we just can'

t even express how happy we are.  There just aren't words to express the joy of getting to see the answer to our prayers and our dreams walk around our house and call us mama and baba.

Thanks for hanging in with us!