Caleb's Corner: 02/01/2009

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Mommy's Little Helper

It's laundry day at the Pickett house today, and luckily I have the cutest helper in the world! For the record, my little helper had his face 'cleaned' by Daddy after dinner tonight. He normally doesn't have sweet potato colored streaks on his face :).

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Before & After

As I type this Bryan is working a 30 hour shift at the hospital and Caleb is sound asleep. Tonight when I rocked Caleb to sleep I noticed how peacefully he drank his bottle, how easily he settled into my arms and how familiar the routine seemed to him. I soaked up every minute of him placing his hand gently on my cheek, my hand or on my hair as he drank his bottle, eyes closed.

The memories of our early days & weeks with Caleb will never be forgotten, but I have to admit that I don't think back to those times on a daily basis. Sometimes it seems as if we have a different baby here with us now because Caleb has truly developed into such a content and joyful little boy. Tonight as I rocked him my mind did go back to October & November when the three of us had just become a family. Everything was so new for both Caleb and us, and I'd be lying if I didn't say we had some trying moments as new parents! I decided to go back and look at the pictures from our trip to get Caleb and from his first few weeks at home.

I'm not going to even pretend that I'm not bragging when I put the pictures on this post. I'm so proud of how well Caleb is doing and how different he looks and acts compared to the little peanut we brought home to the US on October 17! The contrast is amazing to me - and not as noticeable to us on a daily basis since the changes in him have been gradual. I can't believe how brave, resilient, strong and healthy our Caleb Daniel is now. I'm one proud Mama.

BEFORE

AFTER

Caleb Daniel, your Mama loves you so much. I am so honored and blessed by your sweet spirit and endearing personality. Daddy and I thank God every day that He brought you into our lives. We cannot wait to see the incredible plans God has for you!

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day from Caleb!!

This is not a Valentine's picture but it does show one of Caleb's favorite activities... "clapping" his feet together during a diaper change!

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

10 Months Old & Home for 4 Months!

Today is Caleb's 10 month birthday! I can hardly believe that he is 10 months old and that he will be a year old in just a couple short months. The time has flown by and I'm already feeling sad that he won't be a baby for much longer. Yesterday also marked 4 months since we carried our Precious Boy out of his orphanage. Boy has he changed since then! The tiny, weak baby that screamed until his face turned bright red while we drove to Almaty is a thing of the past... we are now so blessed by days filled with smiling, playing, learning new things and giggling.

Over the past week Caleb has started doing several new things. He clapped with open palms for the first time during the Super Bowl! He now claps when he likes something and it has been so fun to discover his favorite things. While at my parent's house last week Caleb fell in love with the "Neighborhood Animals" DVD by Baby Einstein. He is absolutely mesmorized by the animals on the DVD and definitely claps & jumps up and down for his favorites - the dogs & cats!

Last week Caleb also pulled himself to a standing position a few times while sitting on either my leg or my Mom's leg. He is defintely showing more signs that he wants to stand on his own so we are working on pulling up on our couch now that we are back at home in T-town.

Caleb had the Early Childhood Intervention people over to 'play' on Monday afternoon. It was great to see our nanny so engaged and interested in what the physical therapist was working on with him. The main focus of our session this time was working on crawling (even though Caleb shows little interest in doing this!) and in pulling up/ cruising around furniture. He is definitely more motivated to stand than he is to crawl!

We are blessed to have Caleb home with us and to see him thriving. My heart melted last night as we sat as a family at our Med School Bible Study. We were having praise & worship time and Caleb sat quietly on Bryan's knee watching the 2 guys playing guitar. Caleb started to clap gently to the music as we all sang. It was such a touching moment to have him there among so many friends who prayed for his health and his homecoming. Bryan and I both found ourselves with tears in our eyes as we watched our beautiful boy enjoy beautiful music. We are so thankful and so incredibly blessed.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

A Short Update & Lots of Pictures!

I finally have a post with pictures!! Unfortunately Lil' Toshiba the crummy laptop is still on the fritz. Luckily I am in Houston this week for work so I was finally able to download several weeks worth of photos onto my Mom's computer and have an update that is interesting to read!

Here's a quick update on how things are going in our little family:

Things are still working out great with the nanny! Caleb does really well with her and we can tell she adores him.
Caleb went in for his 9 month appointment and more vaccines on January 23rd. He was 17 lbs even and 28.25 inches long. His height is 95th percentile for his age (adjusted for prematurity). This was our first official visit with the pediatrician since our initial homecoming visit with Caleb. She thought he looked like a different baby! The pediatrician was especially thrilled with Caleb's weight gain, muscle strength, social skills and of course his 8 teeth! Although we have witnessed so many changes in him, it was nice for Bryan and I to hear from our 'expert' that Caleb is doing as well as we think he is!
Caleb is so BUSY now. He's not too interested in crawling yet but will stay on all fours and rock back and forth some. We have been doing a lot of exercises with him to build muscle strength in his arms and have seen lots of improvement. Caleb loves to be playing, jumping, or banging things together 24/7. He plays with his toys so much more and is quick to figure out how to push the buttons and make things work. Caleb has also gotten much louder and clearly loves the sound of his own voice!
Caleb has also been a social butterfly and a traveling man! The past 2 weekends we have come to Houston for wedding showers for Bryan's younger sister Carolyn. She and her fiance Billy will be getting married in March and Caleb will be the honorary ring bearer! We have enjoyed being in Houston to spend time with family and introduce him to many friends.
Last but not least, Caleb is babbling so much and saying Mama all the time. He also started to pull up on the toy basket at my Mom's house yesterday! I'm starting to think Caleb may skip crawling and go straight to walking, although he still has a ways to go before he's toddling around the house.

Here are some pictures from the past few weeks!

Caleb sporting his Osh Kosh B'Gosh overalls