Lunar New Year

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Leaf enjoying a busy-box

Last day at the Xiaoshan Hospital

Judy, Catherine, Casey, Nancy, and Sophie

Linda: Leaf's physical therapist, spent many hours working with him to better walk, stand and move - as well she did many sessions of a type of acupuncture that uses electricity rather than needles

last check-up

Dr. Mike, the head doctor (and his team) holding Leaf after his final check-up.  

Leaf and Sophie really bonded - Sophie always made sure to take time with him and let him practice walking up and down the hallways.  Leaf loved Sophie playing with him and laughed hysterically; it echoed all through the corridors. 

Here is Leaf hugging Johnny goodbye. Johnny is one of the fantastic interpreters there on the 20th floor. Knowing Leaf he is probably clutching onto Johnny pretty tight - thus the great face!

Driving with Jack

This was one of my favorite neighborhoods to drive through.  It is a little community built on a canal which enables the residents to bring in  many goods to their stores on gondolas.  Most  people who live here run a little business out of the garages that line the street.  I would have liked to spend more time in this neighborhood.  I found it very interesting.  

Jack was one of the hospital drivers who was responsible for helping the westerners who didn't speak Chinese get around and not get lost.  All the hospital drivers; Jack, Sam and Tom were very kind and to us. 

Back in Durango

Hello to everyone!  The travel back home was pretty hard on Leaf.  He caught a flu on the airplane and dropped quite a bit of weight (we've been very worried about him). However, now that he's recovering, his stomach and digestive issues seem to be better than before.  (Those little stem cells are sneaky, I'm never sure what they are up too.)  

The last few days Leaf has been extremely verbal - he's trying to imitate more and more sounds.  He especially likes the rooster crow sound on the new Christmas toy he received from grand-mommy Joyce. He has never been a silent kid, but the stem cells seemed to jump start him into trying out more sounds.  Leaf is VERY happy to be going to his little preschool again.  He had a fantastic day yesterday.  The report from his teachers was that he was laughing and talkative all day.  A few days ago in the doctor's waiting room I was holding Leaf close in my arms.  I noticed for the first time that he was watching my mouth.  So naturally, I slowly mouthed all of the little sounds babies make while he continued to watch.  It was fun for me to know that he could see that. 

Leaf is still fairly shy to use his vision - he didn't like using his light box when we first got home. He rubbed his eyes and acted like it was overly bright, but he is adjusting.  The vision therapist said that he is visually attending more quickly and more often. She was excited to hear that Leaf was clapping and that he could look at his hands.  She knew that before our trip to China that he wasn't able to see his hands.  

Just now I set one of the Christmas  toys out on the floor for Leaf to play with, but I set it out of reach.  It's the first time I've seen him know exactly where to go to find the toy at such a distance - he simply rolled over a couple of times until he could reach it.  It was far enough away I felt that he found it with his auditory sense, even though, I was surprised and happy to see this. He usually will not leave a sitting position to find toys - he will simply feel around where it is easy to grasp things hoping the toy will be there.  Leaf's physical therapist told me several months ago that low vision kids tend to be "sitters" meaning they aren't very mobile - but I have a feeling we are in the beginnings of beating these odds.  

Today I'll be working on posting some photos of the doctors, nurses and interpreters from the hospital.  The Chinese are such wonderful people - they are very warm and caring.  I don't mean to send a negative light by exhibiting images of all the exotic foods they eat.  I actually like eel, but I don't know how to prepare it myself, and the French have always enjoyed eating frogs, so that perhaps isn't as unusual.  I found Hangzhou to be an amazing spectacle of humanity. Though we experienced our fair share of culture shock - the Chinese culture in my eyes is truly lavish and beautiful.   

The photo above is Leaf preforming his famous protest raspberries.