Last spring Bethany received The Vest in the mail. This pink vest saves us a lot of time when it comes to PT for Bethany as she has to have PT three times a day every single day of the year. We use to do it all by hand, and it takes quite a while to do this, but her pink vest now does the majority of her therapy. I just happened to look today as I was turning on her vest and realized that she has done 566.7 hours in the past 17 months. That is a lot of hours for a kid to sit — and that does not include the 6 nebulizer treatments that she gets everyday right before her vest. So she actually has sat through a lot more than 566.7 hours for her therapies. Cystic fibrosis is very time consuming. Every single day Bethany gets 3 albuterol nebulizer treatments, 2 hypersal nebulizer treatments, one pulmozyme nebulizer treatment, 2 Qvar inhaler treatments, three times on her vest, one mile of running, and takes approximately 25 -30 pills. This is what she does if she is not sick and doing well. When she is sick some of these treatments increase. The amazing thing to me is that she seems to take it all in stride and almost never complains. I can only remember one time that she seemed to be in a pensive mood and told me she wished that God had not made her a CF kid. That was so sad for me. But other than that one time, Bethany is so full of joy and energy that you would never know that she has anything wrong with her.
We have really enjoyed these past few days. The weather has been beautiful — some days cool and then some very warm. The leaves have started to change color a little and we love to sit on the porch in the mornings and eat breakfast. This morning it was raining a little and a few leaves were falling from the trees as the wind blew and it was just a perfect morning on our front porch. Even Sarah commented to me on how pretty it was.
This little guy comes up on the porch every morning to get something to eat from us — usually peanuts or cheez its.
Just a few random pictures of the past week or so — not much going on.
Bella is definitely attaching. She wants me to be with her every single minute. When I feed Sophia her bottle, Bella actually cries and tries to pull her off my lap. When I leave the room she runs after me and if I go out the door she stands there and cries as I leave. As soon as I come into a room where she is, she runs and grabs me and wants to be held. This girl just can’t seem to get enough of me holding her — and boy is she jealous. She wants to be number one all the time. This is kind of funny as I was worried that she didn’t seem to want to have anything to do with me when she first arrived in the states. Not so anymore. She is growing and is learning to play and is doing so well. She is rather amazing to us.
Your photography never ceases to amaze me! It certainly helps that your children are so darn stunning!
Thanks so much, Erin. Glad this comment was able to come through as my email has not been working all day. My favorite thing to do is take pictures — usually of the kids. I bought my daughter a camera for Christmas hoping she would enjoy photography as much as I do, but nope — she doesn't — I can't understand it.
I came to your blog today via Erin's blog. I read from the very beginning and LOVE! I love your photos. I love that you have adopted special needs kiddos. LOVE! I can't wait to read more.
Thanks so much, Emily. I'm so glad you found us through Erin. She has been such a help when I have needed to talk — before and after our adoptions from Bulgaria. Adopting special needs kids just became natural after having Sarah. She opened our eyes so much.
Beautiful post. The girls and photos are just so lovely.