John Paul's First Professional Pictures!

I love these pictures of him! It's amazing to see how far he has come and how happy he is now. He is such a huge blessing in a little package! :) He was in the process of clapping his hands in the first picture. He was so excited to have his picture taken! I am so thankful for him! We are planning on giving one of these pictures (framed) to the orphanage when we go back for Dasha. I haven't decided which one yet. What do you all think would be the best one to give them?

Progress

John Paul is doing great. I haven't been able to get him doing his new things on video. He stops when he sees the camera and then all of his interest goes into trying to take the camera from me. lol!

So I'll just tell what he is doing and I'll keep trying for the video. He has learned how to sign mama, daddy, and eat. He doesn't necessarily use them in context, but he has learned how to do them and that in itself is great! I'm sure that he will understand the meaning soon. Right now he does them to imitate me, but when I say the word he looks confused. I think he is trying to put it all together. I am trying to teach him the sign for ball now. He understands the word ball. Like earlier we were tossing a ball back and forth and it rolled past him. He looked around behind him at the ball and then decided it was too far away and picked up a truck and rolled it back instead. I put the truck aside and asked him to get the ball. Then he turned around and got the ball. It's not that I didn't want him playing with the truck, I just wanted him to follow through with getting the ball back to me.

He is also starting to do a lot better with feeding himself. He was dropping the spoon if I didn't have my hand snug on top of his. But today we had some progress! I held his wrist, rather than his hand, and he held the spoon himself. He was doing so well with it that I slid back and held his forearm to help him scoop. He was doing the scooping motions by himself for the most part. It's like he just needs to know that he is being helped. Otherwise, he'll either drop the spoon and won't do anything or he'll try to scoop and feed himself with both hands on the spoon. He isn't able to do it that way and actually get food on the spoon, but he will try now. :) I'm not sure if he is going to be left or right-handed. I alternate and use both hands and he actually does pretty well with both. Sometimes he uses his left hand and sometimes he uses his right. It depends on what he is doing. I think he is trying to figure out which one he's going to use. Maybe he'll be ambidextrous.

I will be able to pick his pictures up tomorrow or Friday. I have to call tomorrow to see if they came in early. They didn't offer me a picture CD and then I found out on their web-site that they do have them. By then they had already been sent off for development. I may try to order one when I pick the pictures up, if it isn't too expensive. If not then I will just try to scan them and put them on this blog. I'll probably do that anyway so everyone can see them. Hopefully they will scan clearly. I can't wait to see them and get them hung on the walls.

He's also doing really well on the stairs. He has been for a while. He can go up and down them on his own by sliding up and down slowly on his bottom. If one of us is holding his hand then he will walk slowly up and down them, but otherwise he can do it all himself on his bottom. I don't have to worry about him on the stairs now, but it will be a different story when Dasha gets here. She seems like Chloe was...FEARLESS! Which can be great for motivation, but not so great for safety. We'll have to kick the safety up a few notches when she gets here. There are things that I don't have to worry about with John Paul that I will with a smaller child. One thing I noticed is that she puts EVERYTHING in her mouth. Chloe was the same way, so I am used to it. lol! But John Paul doesn't do stuff like that. It will be hard to let him play with age appropriate toys when there is a little mouth following him around waiting to gobble his toys up. lol! I can't wait to get her home and see John Paul playing with her. We watched video of her the other day and John Paul looked at her and kept smiling really big. Then he would look at me and smile and then look back at her and smile. Then he started pointing at the computer screen that we were watching her on. He's going to be a great big brother, I think! I think he will be happy to have another little person here. He LOVES other children.

New Shoes!

I took John Paul to get a new pair of shoes this evening because I wanted him to have a pair of all leather tennis shoes for cold weather. He was SO CUTE at the shoe store! First he walked around and checked himself out in the mirrors while he babbled and talked to himself. It was adorable. Then I sat him down on the bench and tried a pair of shoes on him. He fussed at the time because he wanted down. After I got the shoes on him, I helped him off the bench. He looked down at his shoes and then looked back up at me and smiled from ear to ear. Then he took off walking faster than I have ever seen him go! It was so funny!

Then the lady told us that he could wear them out if he wanted to. So I thanked her and we went to the cashier to pay for them. He walked about four feet away from me and started checking out some necklaces that were hanging on a revolving rack beside of the check out. Then he looked down at his shoes again. This time he bent over and tapped them with his hands three times, stood straight back up, squealed, and smiled from ear to ear again. It totally melted my heart! It made me think back to when he was in the orphanage in April and they put a pair of shoes on him that looked like they were two to three sizes too big. And also when we were there in July they had a pair of girl's blue shoes on him. It made me tear up to know that he realized he had his own pair of new shiny white tennis shoes. Of course, he has other shoes, but I had ordered them online right after we got him. This was the first pair of shoes that he tried on and had bought for him while he was there. We take so much for granted in life. What a blessing to see him enjoying his new shoes so much!


John Paul in Ukraine


Happy About My New Shoes

Pictures from Grandma and Grandpa's Visit

Welcome to John Paul's New Blog

I set this blog up so that everyone can follow along with what John Paul is doing, separate from our adoption of Dasha. This is his very own little place. :) He is beginning to love Elmo, so I thought this background was appropriate. He likes when I sing la la la la, la la la la, John Paul's (rather than Elmo's) World. So that is where the name came from.

He has had a very busy weekend with a visit from his grandparents (Rick's parents)! They live in IL and this was their first time meeting each other. He has had a blast! We went and walked around Harper's Ferry today and checked out the museums. He enjoyed riding in the big stroller (rather than the easy umbrella stroller). He has been having a lot if fun playing with the new truck that his grandma and grandpa brought him. He's been loving the extra attention!

I took him to have his picture taken on Thursday and he did so well! He was a little ham! He smiled, laughed, and kept clapping his hands for me and the photographer. When I was looking at the computer selecting the pictures I wanted, he hopped down off of the chair, he was sitting beside me in, and charged after this little boy's tootsie roll pop! I didn't know how the little boy was going to react, but he and his sister laughed and thought it was funny. It really was funny! I was shocked that he wanted something like that to put in his mouth. When we left we donated a few dollars to a lady outside collecting money for abused children and she gave him a Dum Dum lollipop. I waited until we got out of her sight and to the car, before I gave it to him because I thought he might throw it down. I put it in his mouth and he licked it and pulled it back out. Then he put it back in and licked it again. Then he pulled it back out and snarled up his face, and threw it on the ground. Well, at least I don't have to worry about him wanting to eat candy. But I do hope he will eat something solid before too much longer. He eats great, but it is still pureed. He weighed 28 lbs when he went to the cardiologist. I don't know how much he weighed in Ukraine. They didn't weight him at his dr. appointment for his visa. :( But I do know that I can't count his ribs any more, and for that I am VERY thankful! He looks just right now, healthy.

I'll post some pictures tomorrow!