Head To Toe…

Now that we are home, I am looking forward to getting our little guy checked out by his doctors, and figuring out a plan for his foot, and bone issues. He had a surgery in China a little over a year ago to lengthen the tendon in his little foot, but his foot is still very bent, and he walks on the outside ankle.

We brought a few different sizes of shoes with us to China, because I didn’t know what size he wore, so I brought a variety. We discovered that baby J wears a size 7 on one foot, and a size 5 on the other… but none of that mattered in the end, because shoes make his little foot bend awkwardly, and make it harder for him to walk, and the shoe constantly pops off of his little foot. When he came to us, his little shoes were big (even on his big foot). Someone had sewn laces onto the back of his shoes, and wrapped the laces around his leg, and tied them, keeping the shoes on his feet. It got the job done, but I couldn’t bring myself to do that, since his little legs were all bruised from the laces rubbing on them.
For now, our little guy is in soft, stretchy baby shoes. They stay on, and let him walk the way he has too, for now.

We also will be scheduling a visit to the dentist. The first day we got baby J, we were in survival mode. Adoptive parents are encouraged to give their child a bath, look them over, to “check that all is the way you expected it to be.” We gave him a bath, but didn’t do much else in the way of personal care. The second day, when we went to brush his teeth, we realized that he had never had this done before…Many of his little teeth are black, and decayed, especially in the back. I am so sad about this, but I guess that it is good that it is his baby teeth. Little M had perfect teeth, and clearly was familiar with brushing, but I had read that in baby J’s province, the foster care families are poor, and won’t use their money to buy superfluous things, like toothbrushes. Poor little guy…they look as if they would be painful, but he never complains.

There are a lot of doctor visits in our little guy’s immediate future, and we all know how baby J feels about doctors! We are looking forward to his being able to be more comfortable, and hopefully pain free, but the road there is going to be a tough on for this little boy!