Dr. Miller came out to the waiting room herself and called Liam's name. She came over to him and asked him to come with her to get weighed and measured. He looked over at me with a look that was like a lightning bolt.... A look that said "I shouldn't go with that stranger, should I?"... I knew it the minute he did it.. and it made me feel like ...aha... it's happening.
I told him it was ok to go and he did. She returned him to me and told us that we would see the developmental specialist first. When we went to her office, Liam performed the tasks at hand easily. He did the reading and writing portion of the test for 7/8 year olds in chinese with a chinese translator. I was very impressed at how much mandarin he could remember when he was writing words. After he wrote the words, he translated them back to the specialist in english... He impressed all of us. He was asked to draw a picture of him doing something. He drew a picture of each of us, on the beach building a sandcastle. I cant' wait to see what the analysis of that shows. He colored us all in, the same color, but was using bulky crayons. None of us has a face, just colored in.
After meeting with the developmental specialist we were brought to Dr. Miller for the exam portion. SHe was amazed by him. She said that many of her counterparts dont recommend adopting kids over age 3 because of their "backpack full of emotional goodies", however Liam was her posterchild for older child adoption. He was given a bag of toys to play with on the floor while we talked. He looked at the bag of toys, looked at her and with a questioning look said "Baby toys"??? She said, "yeah, baby toys..... BUILD SOMETHING"... and he did. At one point he was horrified to come across a half naked barbie in the bag of toys and tried desperately to work her clothes to cover up her private parts and pose her very modestly.
Dr. Miller asked how he was attaching... I told her that I had felt from the beginning that he was "bonded" to our family. He knew he was ours.. was not affectionate with anyone but us.. stayed with us whenever we were out BUT when she called his name and wanted him to go somewhere without me, I recognized something in that look he gave me...that said "I'm attaching".. She then said, "you know, I'm getting all choked up because I saw that too". This kid is ok!
She was impressed that he was not one of the typical malnourished kids she sees. (he LOVES FOOD)... and asked if his hair was this shiny when we got him (it was)...
He sailed through the exam and when she pulled a turtle out of his ear during the examination, with an "uh oh, what is this, oh dear" and then showed LIam the turtle... He said "OH MY GOD.. YOU SCARE MY...... Turtle too big.... no ear!" It was hysterical. I think he thought she found something terribly wrong and was relieved to see the joke she was playing on him. Liam says My, for Me.. We are working on that.
Liam has bone loss in his jaw that we wanted to make sure was not due to melamine exposure. Sometimes melamine exposure can damage kidneys, which can then result in deficiencies in calcium and vitamin D. He is healthy, no evidence of melamine and she thinks the problem is due to prenatal, or early nutrition.
It was such a great visit and on the form that she gave me with all his results on it, this was on the bottom...
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