Another month is over. Whew. I’ll say that I think the month ended on a high note, but I also think it was a good month. A lot of wonderful things happened. It felt like a great month for photography. I’ve grown a ton since I started the 365. I recently ordered some prints for my kids for their rooms. We are doing some room swapping for hosting and as a surprise, I’m going to add some new photos in their rooms. I haven’t printed photos for them since Christmas and it was so hard just to pick the ones that I thought they’d like the most. From pumpkins and costumes, to sledding and snow, to flowers blooming and our first camping trip of the year, I’ve captured a lot. And, the year isn’t up yet!
So, did I complete my May “Must Capture” list?
End of the School Year
Yup.
Start of Summer Fun
Yes.
May flowers
And, that’s covered, too.
Another month to cross off the list, just 4 more to go!
My friend Holly is starting off our Special Needs Sunday posts! She has a beautiful family, 2 homegrown kids and 3 adopted kids. For this post, she is sharing about her youngest daughter, Mei. She offered to write about Mei’s special need, imperforate anus, saying, “[there are] a LOT of kids in China waiting with this SN… life does revolve around poop”. But, Holly and Mei’s story is beautiful. Holly shared the reality of adopting a child whose special needs weren’t all known or disclosed at the time of adoption and how their lives really can revolve around poop, but also how bright and beautiful Mei’s life is.
(that’s Mei on Holly’s lap in the center.)
It’s been just over three and a half years since our youngest daughter joined our family via adoption. Oh the adventures we’ve had! Oh the lessons we have learned! Our sweet and sassy little treasure was born with a conditional called imperforate anus, also sometimes called anal atresia. What this means in laymen’s terms is that the opening to the anus is missing or blocked. Imperforate anus may occur in several forms. The rectum may end in a pouch that does not connect with the colon. The rectum may have openings to other structures. These may include the urethra, bladder, base of the penis or scrotum in boys, or vagina in girls. There may be narrowing (stenosis) of the anus or no anus. Many forms of imperforate anus occur with other birth defects.
Our daughter was also born with a tethered spinal cord, a heart defect and a neurogenic bladder with mild kidney damage. It sounds scary doesn’t it? All of those conditions were not disclosed to us prior to her adoption, but we did our research and we knew that those were all possibilities. When we met “Mei” she was 2.5 years old. She had received surgery to create an artificial anus in her birth country, so she did not have a colostomy. We were told that she was potty trained but thankfully we didn’t expect that to be the case. It was a good thing that we brought diapers! Truly, our time in her birth country was more consumed with comforting a frightened toddler than worrying about her medical conditions.
Once home we started in with testing and discovered the other conditions. We realized that Mei was going to need a corrective surgery due to poor positioning of the artificial anus. What could have been so very overwhelming truly was do-able thanks to an online support group of parents of children with imperforate anus. We were told that Mei had VATER syndrome. We were on a sharp learning curve!
Here we are present-day and she has had colorectal surgery with a few surprises, spinal cord surgery and open heart surgery. You would NEVER guess her medical past or present issues to look at her! She is a vivacious and absolutely ADORABLE six year old who is extremely intelligent and joyful. She is known for her chronic smile! She is usually smiling! We do daily large volume enemas using a bag and catheter system that is pretty cool. It keeps her colon flushed out so that she can wear panties just like other six year olds. She has always done fabulously with enemas- never crying or fighting them at all. We do have to make sure that she drinks enough water and we try our best to keep her on an every 24 hour enema schedule. Some children do well with just laxatives and fiber, but our sweet girl couldn’t control her BM’s with those things alone and enemas give her the freedom to just be a little girl, not a little girl in poopy diapers. We have been so blessed to find amazing online support and our insurance has covered all of her surgeries, our bowel management training and even most of her daily supplies!
Despite a long list of complicated sounding medical diagnoses, Mei is just our daughter. She swims and rides a bike (with training wheels!) and is an entire grade level ahead in school! She is active and curious and when asked recently what, if anything she would change about herself, she answered, “Nothing! I like myself just the way I am!” That answer made this Mama smile. 🙂
Are you considering adopting a child with imperforate anus? Holly has kindly offered to talk directly with anyone who has additional questions about this special need. If you would like to be put in touch with Holly, please leave a comment or email me.
I recently noticed Gus laying on my bed, ready for bedtime and waiting for his siblings to finish getting ready. A somewhat common occurrence, but seeing him in a pair of monkey pajamas gave me a flashback.
When I came in, he just giggled and asked me to tickle him. No big deal, right?
Well, I think many adoptive parents would agree that the hardest time is bedtime. Actually, I think most parents would agree on that, too, but having children who have been in an orphanage, where bedtime meant changing caregivers or not enough people to sooth them to sleep or who knows what else, bedtime is an extra challenge. It’s a time of vulnerability. Instead of the sweet vulnerability you often see in kids who have been nurtured their entire lives, rage and fear often take its place.
I’m pretty familiar with these emotions.
But, do you see that?
Almost two years of difference. Two years of healing and trust being built up.
As a special end-of-summer treat, we did a movie night. Reed and Lena got to stay up for a movie, and Gus was allowed to stay up, too, on the condition that he didn’t melt down from the late bedtime.
They often watch something off of Netflix, their pick. But, what made this night unique, in addition to the popcorn, was that it was a movie I picked out and I sat down and watched the entire thing with them. Normally, movie time for them means time for me to get things done.
However, I found that actually sitting down for a movie with them was a great bonding time. By the end of the movie, I had both Lena and Gus on my lap. Reed was still busy finding the last popcorn kernels to munch on.
We all really enjoyed ourselves, and I think this might have to become a Friday night tradition. I picked Nanny McPhee, which I saw a few years ago and really enjoyed. I’m going to start introducing them to some of my favorites, as well as watch some movies I’ve never seen and wanted to.
Here’s my list:
Sound of Music Nanny McPhee
Matilda
Night at the Museum
Mighty Ducks
Sandlot
Little Rascals
Hook
Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium
The Fantastic Mr. Fox
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
The school year composite photos have become a fun way for me to document the school year and show how my kids changed from August to May. The idea started for me last year, when Reed finished kindergarten. I had two nearly identical photos from his first day and his last day, and I was planning to put them side by side. Then, I wondered why I couldn’t just put these two Reeds side by side in the same photo.
A bit of time spent in Photoshop and it was complete!
Reed thought it was hilarious.
This year, I took both photos with the plan to do this again, and I had a couple of requests for a tutorial. So, here you go. 🙂
School Year Composite Photo:
Pick your location. Someplace which you know will not change very much over the course of the school year. A front porch, or in our case, our fence.
Place your child in front of their location and snap your photo. If you can, take the photo from a spot where you will remember to stand in 9 months. Take a good photo, with particular attention to the sharpness.
Repeat step number two at the end of the school year. 🙂
Edit your photos as similarly as possible. If you use Lightroom, use the “Develop Settings/Copy Settings” option to copy over all of the settings.
Bring both photos into photoshop. Again, if you use Lightroom, you can do this using “Edit In/Edit In Adobe Photoshop”.
Pick which photo you like the background better in. Go to the OTHER photo. For me, I usually prefer the end of year one.
Use the selection tool to select your child, with a bit of margin on all sides.
Paste this onto the other photo.
Now, use the background (in my case the fence) to line your two photos up. You will probably need to use the “Free Transform”(⌘T on a Mac on CTRL-T on a PC). Things may not line up perfectly (note the rocks at the bottom of my image), but do your best.
Now, switch to the eraser tool. Make it pretty large, and start removing the extra background on your pasted layer. Do not bother getting too close to your subject. We’ll deal with that in a minute. Just remove any major excess.
Once you’ve removed the large chunks of background, switch to the background eraser tool (the eraser plus scissors). Now you will use this tool to go around your subject again, but get much closer this time. You may need to adjust to tolerance. Here I have mine set at 12%.
Now go back over it with the regular eraser and touch up any areas where the background eraser didn’t get everything you wanted.
Zoom out to look at your photo. The composite part should be nearly done; do any final touch ups.
Now, it’s time to add the text. I like to do this by adding a black rectangle with white text, like a chalkboard. Start with the rectangle shape tool and make your rectangle.
I like to adjust the opacity(in your layers section), for a softer look. In my final image, I have it set at 73%.
Now, just type your text on. I like to use school-inspired fonts. Da Font is a good place to download free fonts.
All done!
If you are wondering about obtaining Lightroom and/or Photoshop, I highly recommend the Adobe Photoshop Photography Program, which gives you Lightroom and Photoshop for $10/mo.
Despite a long list of complicated sounding medical diagnoses, Mei is just our daughter. She swims and rides a bike (with training wheels!) and is an entire grade level ahead in school! She is active and curious and when asked recently what, if anything she would change about herself, she answered, “Nothing! I like myself just the way I am!” That answer made this Mama smile. 🙂
The school year composite photos have become a fun way for me to document the school year and show how my kids changed from August to May. The idea started for me last year, when Reed finished kindergarten. I had two nearly identical photos from his first day and his last day, and I was planning to put them side by side. Then, I wondered why I couldn’t just put these two Reeds side by side in the same photo.
a moose in moscow 