Hi Rainbow House! We're all doing great here and would like to take a moment to thank you for everything you have done for us and tell you about how the kids are doing!
Devin is is such a sweetie. Our neighbours, who we are very close to, have a 15 year old girl with downs so we're pretty expierienced with dealing with downs. He really is a friendly and trusting boy, he's lovely! When he told us about his knitting we decided to set aside a special little place for him to knit. Its in a bay window looking over the river, with a rocking chair and there are shelves and shelves full of brightly coloured wool. I've never seen such a happy child! The look on his face when we showed him the area was priceless. He's right this very second knitting the cutest little jumper for Immy. She'll look so sweet! He's going to a group with
Rachel (our neighbour with DS) and he's made a lot of friends. They go swimming, take pottery classes, do woodwork, play basketball, do dancing and once a week they go horse-riding at a special stables for disabled children.
Sophie is doing as well as can be expected. She's still very quiet and introverted but she's beginning to open up to me. We gave her the attic (don't worry its fully converted!) to sleep in and it has a little living area and ensuite bathroom. We want her to know that we're not pressuring her into becoming best friends and giving her some freedom. Its important that she comes to us and recently she has been. Instead of spending her days sitting on her windowseat looking at the view she now comes down and helps around the house. She's taking quite a shine to little Immy and likes to look after her.
Annie is doing super! She loves being a big sister to
Rebecca and
Imogen.
Rebecca loves having a big sister just as much! They wander round together playing soldiers or pirates and kicking a ball about in the garden or endlessly jumping on the trampoline. Where they get the energy for so much running I don't know! When she first arrived, we though
Annie was possibly being a tomboy to overplay her real feelings but we now know thats not right! She's such a little prankster as well! We have a little minx on our hands! She's also like her sister coming to trust us. Just last night she crawled into my lap and demanded (yes I was put in my place by an 8 year old!) that I read her a story. She and I both know fine well she could of read it herself (her favourite
Harry Potter of course!) but she really wanted to come and snuggle up on my lap. She even fell asleep with her thumb in her mouth. Our angel! Both girls remain in councelling.
Our final adopted child is our son
Russel. When he first arrived we put him in the room adjoining ours so that if he had a nightmare he could come through and sleep in our bed. We were anxious so as not to make him dependent on it so as he steadily started having less nightmares and only waking up roughly once a week or so, we moved him into a proper bedroom all of his own. To make sure he wasn't scared of nervous we took our time over it. He helped pick all the furniture and choose the paint colour and carpet. We had a very fun weekend painting the room. I swear more paint was thrown about the room than ended up on the walls in all the little paintfights we had. Our poor cat Muffy was wandering around with a yellow tail! He's started sessions wth a psychologist and she says he's doing great. He also spends a lot of his time playing with his sisters or chattering away with
Devin. He's made friends with the little girl,
Kimberly, next door and at his new school he has made a special friend called
Reid.
Thank you so much for giving us our wonderful children!
All our love
Bethany,
Paul,
Devin,
Sophie,
Annie,
Rebecca,
Russel and
Imogenxxx
DW:
Bethany LorraineDH:
Paul OliverDS:
Devin StiofanDD:
Sophie FloraDD:
Annie MarianDD:
Rebecca Tamzin
DS:
Russel HowardDD:
Imogen Talia