September in a Flash

I can't believe how long it's been since I posted! Things keep happening, and I think, "Wow, I'll have to put that in . . . " Oh well. Here goes.

September started with the Venema family heading off to Camp Kern (YMCA Camp) for Family Camp over Labor Day weekend. This was our second year there, and it was every bit as fun as the first year. Thanks to Myrna and John for inviting us!!! For those of you who don't know about Family Camp, it is a fun-filled weekend with more outdoor activities than you could ever imagine. We did rock wall climbing, rappeling, verticle mazes with looooong, hiiiiiiigh zip lines, high ropes courses, swimming, hiking, BB guns, archery, canoeing/kayaking (Molly in picture above), giant swings (Peter in picture above), long mine tunnel slides, horse back riding, camp fires, human clue games . . . I'm sure I'm missing a few activities! All the kids were troopers. It's really crazy to look up and see your 5 year old rappelling off a 50 foot tower, or to see them flying down a 100 yard zip line. Some day I might get used to seeing them do this crazy stuff. (I just have to keep reminding myself that I used to do crazy stuff, too. Wait, I STILL do these crazy things.) I was a little worried about how Micah would react to being away from home and sleeping in a porta-crib, but he didn't seem to miss a beat. He wasn't too thrilled about being put into a climbing harness, though :) (I have tried to put the harness picture on here TWICE, but it refuses to attach in the correct position - just tilt your head to the left and pretend it's on there right.)

Sofia is again being lambasted by homework at school. She's doing pretty well this year. I think it's mostly due to her new study technique :)

Next in our month was a continued effort to figure out what's up with Molly. I noticed a huge bump on her back when she bent over for her scoliosis check during her kindergarten physical in August. She had an ultrasound which showed that it wasn't the quick easy little fat pocket that the doctor was hoping for. Then she had a 30 minute long MRI (no sedation!!) which pretty much ruled out any malignancy (whew!). Then we were off to a surgeon at Dayton Children's Hospital. He seems to think it is an hemangioma which is embedded in her muscles just to the left of her spinal column. She will be having surgery next Monday to remove it. However, that is happening on October 1st, so you'll have to wait until the October update for more on that :)

We have been going to the Dayton area's Family With Children from China (FCC) playgroup. There is a little girl there who is only 6 weeks older than Micah who came from the same orphanage. I love to see Micah and Ella together!

Finally, Micah went down to the International Adoption Clinic in Cincinnati this past Monday for his 3 month check up. He is now officially, completely ON THE CHARTS!!!! His head is in the 50th %ile, his length is in the 10th %ile, and his weight is just above the 3rd %ile. The scales say he has gained 3 pounds since we came home, but my arms and back would swear to a 5 pound gain at least! He is doing all kinds of new things - imitating sounds, putting blocks INTO things, building towers (mostly he just knocks them down and we build them, but he is finally building them himself), climbing, going down stairs, starting to drink from a cup, FINALLY starting to eat some table food, he laughs and giggles all the time . . . he is just a ton of fun.

I came home the other night after taking Sofia to her flute lesson and found Todd and Peter out working on the lawn mower. Micah was set up on the drive with a 5 gallon bucket filled with water. He was SOAKED from head to toe - but only on his front side! He had been standing at that bucket for about 45 minutes just splashing and splashing and splashing . . . If I had to say what his favorite activity was, I would say splashing in the water. He does it in the bath, buckets, sink, dog water, toilets . . .

It's time for me to close. Micah is awake and ready to tackle the afternoon. Check back for more updates. Really, I will do them more often!