Daddy Boot Camp

Having a husband is great.  Having a dad is great.  He is such a blessing to us!

The Panda is eating more.  He's down to 2 bottles per day, and I've ordered straw cups, which I hope he'll transition to (at least mostly).  It is still very time consuming.  We have to find the right reward to suit his mood.  Bath?  App time on Ooop?  Singing?  Tea?  Panda chart?

He is consistently willing to eat a stage 2 baby food in 15-20 min now.  I have actually gotten the spoon in his mouth like a normal "bite" of food for a baby quite a few times.

For stage 3 baby food or homemade baby food, it is still about 90 min. per feeding.  He is still licking the spoon instead of letting it into his mouth.

We went away for a long weekend at Massanutten resort.  Very nice.  The indoor water park was really fun.  Having great friends along for the trip was the best part.  The only bad part was that the Panda refused to eat a single bite when he wasn't in his own booster seat in his own kitchen.  Matt did get him to eat in the church nursery yesterday though, so that's something.

The Bunny is enjoying workouts with dad.  The Penguin is enjoying the new glass baby food jars, which can apparently be made into many crafts.  The Puppy has enjoyed the recent snowy weather.  I am enjoying Matt's help with the decluttering I started before he came home.  It is amazing how attitudes and obedience improve with dad around, too.

Feeding Progress!

Matt spent a week in Norfolk, and came home for good on Friday at bedtime.  Great time for daddy to come home... :)

Since the Panda has been licking and consuming solids a little more readily, daddy decided to kick things up a notch.  I showed him what we've been doing, and he's gotten the panda to eat an entire little tub of baby food!  He actually ate 2 tubs for Matt yesterday and 2 for me today!  He won't let a spoon into his mouth, but he'll lick the food off the spoon.  It's going in!  Maybe someday we'll move to textured baby food.  Real food.  Actually chewing food....  the possibilities are endless.  The first day took me 90 min.  Sunday, Matt took about the same.  Yesterday, it was a little faster, and today, it might have been about 45 min.  This is really good news, because I don't actually have 4-5 hours every day to spend feeding a panda.  We are very happy at the recent breakthroughs!  A whole tub of baby food is at least 10 times more than he'd ever eaten before in one sitting.  Huge.

We are still getting Matt moved in.  He's decluttering his old stuff, since a year without my cooking has resulted in the loss of an entire panda and the gain of a different wardrobe.  :)

The Bunny had a lunch time choir concert at our homeschool co-op, featuring the music of Stephen Foster.  It was a good time.  Since she is a musical novice, it has been a great experience for her to sing this year.  Having daddy home to see her concert was really great!

The Bunny and I participated in IJM's Stand for Freedom this weekend.  Our church didn't have anyone who was up for standing for 27 hours, so we took it in 3 hour shifts.  Did you know that there are 27 million slaves in the world today?  That is more than there have ever been in history!  About a quarter of slaves are children.  I didn't know these things until we adopted.  The sad and scary truth is that children who age out of the orphanage systems around the world often fall victim to human trafficking.  I was honored to hold a sign that said "Humans are NOT for Sale!" for those 3 hours.  The Bunny held "Honk for Freedom!".  We got 78 honks in 3 hours....  There is far more that we can do to end slavery and injustice.  Please check International Justice Mission's website to learn more about what you can do.

www.ijm.org

He's Home!

Matt's home!  We had a nice (late) lunch and celebrated with cake.  Everyone got presents and we visited.  Everyone else is downstairs hooking up the X-box we got for Christmas.  :)

There was so much stuff in his car, it was a true feat of engineering.

Some dads get big "Welcome Home!" posters.  Matt got this:

Here's a video.  I hope the excited children didn't say too many awful things to each other while they were scrambling to get ready for the "surprise" poppers and confetti for dad.  I was outside greeting him...

Matt also had a reunion with his cat, Belle.  She doesn't really like us, but she loves him.  Cat reunions are really not as exciting as dog and kid reunions that you might see on you*tube when people come home from deployments.

He only gets to stay about 24 hours, they has a week of outprocessing in Norfolk, and then he will be home!  Hooray!

And more pictures: