Tomorrow marks the month home anniversary for Conner and Cooper. My how they’ve changed in just ONE month!!! Our Jehovah Rapha is MIGHTY to heal!
Conner, age 6 years 7 months, came home weighing 16 pounds. He now weighs 20.8 pounds. I will post Conner’s measurements on April 4 (exactly a month since I first took his measurements) to show how much he’s physically grown.
Cooper, age 6 years 9 months, came home weighing 21 pounds. He now weighs 30.5 pounds. I didn’t measure Cooper when we got home because I *thought* he was much healthier than Conner and we wouldn’t see such tremendous increases in his size. Turns out that Cooper has more health issues than Conner, but Cooper has a fabulous appetite and is gaining weight and growing rapidly, even if I don’t have precise measurements to prove it.
I snapped the video below of Cooper learning to chew. Neither Conner nor Cooper learned how to chew while living in their Eastern European orphanage, mainly because they were fed very liquidy pureed foods via bottle most of their lives. In the last year of their lives in the orphanage, both boys were spoon fed, but it was the same liquidy pureed mixture, which didn’t require chewing, just rapid gulping as the heaping serving spoon was rapidly forced into their mouths. Conner still doesn’t want any food in his mouth, other than drinking his nutrition drinks, but Cooper is beginning to show interest in real foods. He still has a hard time chewing, but he’s accepting bites of food into his mouth and attempting to chew them! Praise and glory to our King!!!
Conner is learning to communicate his desires by using body language instead of oral language. We’ve been working on sign language and encouraging communication, but both boys remain non-verbal. However, they are learning to communicate their needs/wants using gestures and sounds, which is a huge step toward verbal communication! The video below shows Conner trying to communicate to Mattie that he wanted her to toss him in the air. So precious. (Please note that the video also shows Conner reprimanding himself. He slaps his own hand when he knows he’s done something wrong. He most likely does this because he was hit in the orphanage.)
Join us in praising our mighty Father for the work He is doing to restore life and health to both Conner and Cooper!
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